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17 Best Site Builders: Wix, Squarespace, and More (2021)
Choosing the best website builder can be difficult, because there are 74 popular options to choose from.
In this guide, I ranked and reviewed the best website builders to make a website based on cost, reliability, web hosting solutions , technical support, website speed, SEO, features, ease of use, template design, and much more.
We’ll also compare:
The best website contractors for small businesses.
The ideal free and affordable choices.
The ones with the best SEO.
The top platforms with online shop capabilities.
The top builders for agencies.
And the best options for photographers and artists.
What’s the Best Website Builder?
Using a website builder is a quick and easy way to build a presence for your brand or online business. These tools simplify your website management by combining domain registration, hosting, and site design into one stage.
If you are not too knowledgeable about web design and development, you’ll want to go with an easy drag and drop editor.
The choice is all up to you.
Here are my top picks for the best website builder to use this year.
Wix.
Best Website Builder for Small Business ($13/month)
Wix is the most popular website builder on the current market, with over 100 million users.
They have 500+ ready-to-use templates to design your website in any industry. These templates are mobile-optimized and have 100 fonts to choose from (or you can upload your own).
Their designs also look beautiful, with scroll effects, and innovative design features like animation and video backgrounds.
If you already have a domain on GoDaddy or want to register one at Wix.com, they make it super simple. Also, if you want to add e-commerce to your website so you could sell online, plans begin a $20/month.
If you are a small company, I recommend Wix as the best online store builder. You don’t necessarily need a platform with more advanced options like BigCommerce and Shopify. Wix website owners that want to add an e-commerce store can find these excellent new features.
Wix is the most user-friendly site tool on the market. You can almost always customize the look and feel of your site with no coding knowledge.
They also have a tool called Artificial Design Intelligence (ADI) — the first artificial intelligence site builder. Wix ADI learns on your website and uses that information to design a site tailored to your precise needs.
This tool leverages AI selecting from billions of combinations of pictures, text, designs, and contact forms.
Finally, if you’re looking for the best website builder for small companies, Wix is the very best choice.
Read my whole Wix review for more in-depth analysis.
Get started with Wix.
Best Modern Website Builder with Free Plans (free — $3.49/mo)
Zyro is a site builder with a mission to help local companies to tell their unique stories on the web.
Overall, they’re famous for simplicity and speed.
With Zyro, you may make a company site quickly and easily with no programming required. Your website also loads fast because of its light frame and looks great on all devices.
With a strong set of tools, Zyro helps grow your online business with pre-made design templates, AI-driven text, an intuitive drag-and-drop grid tool, mobile-readiness, and more than one million stock images to select from.
One of the standout features is their AI Content Generator, which offers SEO-friendly content ideas based on your industry and specific business type.
To begin with this tool, you choose your type of organization, then write 2-3 paragraphs describing your brand and circumstance. You then adjust your AI settings and customize them based on length, expertise, and creativity level. Last, you click the Generate button and see your distinctively created content.
Since content generation is a challenge for many website owners, this tool generates new paragraphs for you which can rank better in search and increase conversion rates.
Some other excellent features include:
Built-in search engine optimization tools to improve your search rankings.
A free SSL certificate and custom domains.
An AI-driven logo and slogan maker.
24/7 customer support via email and live chat.
AI heatmaps to improve website conversions and forecast visitor behaviour.
Mobile-optimized, fast-loading website designs.
Free website design templates for different industries like creative agencies, startups, fashion brands, wellness businesses, bakeries, and more.
Zyro offers three main pricing plans — a free plan, a mid-tier”Basic” program at $1.99/month, and their high-tier”Unleashed” plan at $3.49/month.
Their free plan doesn’t include a custom domain name but does provide 99.9% uptime, an SSL certificate, 500MB of bandwidth and 500MB of storage.
Their “Basic” program allows you to connect your own domain name, increases bandwidth and storage, and includes extra features like ad removal and integrations with tools such as Google Tag Manager, Google Analytics, and Facebook pixels. This is a very popular plan that’s most acceptable for small and medium-sized businesses.
Finally, their “Unleashed” plan provides every Zyro attribute and gives unlimited bandwidth and storage. At this affordable price of $3.49/month, it is sensible to go with this plan and enjoy the unlimited features if you’re planning to get a lot of content on your website.
Overall, Zyro is ideal for small businesses looking to create and grow a site quickly, save money on writing and logo-making using their AI tools, rank high on search engines, and increase conversion rates with high quality, mobile-friendly design templates.
You can begin with Zyro for free to test out their stage, then upgrade to a paid plan when you’re ready to grow your internet business.
Get started with Zyro and start building your website today.
Best Website Design for Personal Sites ($12/month)
When I think of Squarespace, my mind goes directly for their beautifully designed home page. They truly know how to make beautiful, high-quality sites that look great for both small businesses and personal websites alike.
With over 100 design templates to choose from, they lead the pack in regards to design. Squarespace templates look excellent down to every detail. The fonts, color schemes, and vision all mesh perfectly for any website.
Besides design, their stage is great for bloggers. I tested out their WYSIWYG blog editor, and it is very intuitive.
You drag elements like images, headings, and text on the page and position it where you want. They also offer multiple user permissions, Google AMP performance, and you can schedule your posts:
A few small SEO limitations hold Squarespace back from being #1 on this list. To begin with, my XML sitemap pulled two versions of each page with and without a trailing slash”/.” This dual indexing may potentially lead to SEO and duplicate content problems down the road. They didn’t have an easy fix the last time I checked.
Secondly, your site headlines always become your meta names, so be careful when incorporating your headlines for SEO. You can read more in my whole Wix vs Squarespace review.
Other great features compensate for these drawbacks. Their ease of use is topnotch — websites are elementary to build with their editing tools. In-built analytics tools provide steady data onsite traffic if you’re not using Google Analytics. Plus, it’s tough to go wrong with a beautifully-designed website for just $12/month.
Monthly prices range from $12/month for their private plan up to $40/month for their Online Store (Advanced) plan. Monthly prices are based on a one-year contract, and Squarespace includes a free domainname. The Personal plan provides a free domain name, unlimited bandwidth and storage, free SSL, and 24/7 customer support.
Overall, if you are a small company that needs first-rate web design or a blogger who wants your articles to look great, Squarespace is a reliable choice.
Best Free Website Builder (Free — $25/month)
Weebly powers over 530,000 domain names and is known as the simple website builder of choice for people without much technical expertise. They offer a lot of great features. If you’re a blogger, you can use Weebly.com to select a domain name and use their editor to add your text, pictures, and content.
They also have a mobile app to keep track of your website’s functionality on the go. And email marketing tools let you send newsletters to your subscribers from inside their tool.
They have a free plan which includes 500 MB of storage, a free SSL certificate, and a domain name with Weebly branding. You can use a custom domain with this plan but are forced to get Weebly branding throughout your website. Additionally, the free plan only includes chat and email support, but no phone service.
Weebly’s paid plans vary from $5 to $25 per month. On the high end, their Business Plan gets you innovative e-commerce functionality, a free domain, and $200 of Google ad credits.
Their e-commerce features include product options/variants, coupon codes, inventory management, a shipping calculator, shipping labels, and the ability to accept payments via Square and other providers.
The degree of customer support you receive is based on your subscription level. You’ll find assistance yourself in several locations, including their site, support centre, community discussion, social media, and developer documentation. They also have live chat, email, and phone support.
If you are looking for a simple site creator to get up and running, I recommend you get started with Weebly.
Best Site Builder for Ecommerce ($29/month)
Shopify is a favorite ecommerce platform used by over 800,000 online companies so sell products online. They were founded in Canada in 2004 and quickly became a powerhouse due to their simple dashboard and integrations with thousands of app partners.
While not every site owner needs product-selling functionality, I added Shopify to the list because almost any small business could use them to set up their site.
Have a salon for instance.
With Shopify, not only could you set up a quick site including a blog, a map of your location, contact information, and appointment scheduling (with an app), but you might also sell hair care products online. This creates not only a website but another online source of revenue for your business.
Shopify has a great deal of features you’d come to expect from other tools on this list, such as hosting, your own domain name, 70+ professional themes, a free SSL certificate, and promotion and SEO features.
They also offer mobile commerce, 100+ payment gateways, automated carrier shipping rates, automatic tax rates, and the complete checkout experience. Besides, you can enjoy omnichannel selling across Facebook, eBay, Amazon, Instagram, and more.
If you’re setting up a new website and think that you might want to sell products online in the future, it is far better to get started with Shopify instead of another tool that does not take online shopping too.
They offer three plans ranging from $29/month to $299/month. The $29/month Fundamental Shopify Plan should give site owners everything they want, including a complete website, an internet store with unlimited products, site features, 24/7 support, and much more.
If you want to give Shopify a try, they give a 14-day free trial with no credit card required.
Best For Professional Designers ($16 a month).
Some of its other key features include:
You can add and edit content to your live website.
Invite additional team members to collaborate on a single dashboard.
Add up to 100 pages to your website.
99.9% uptime guaranteed and SSL certificate.
Automated backup.
Custom fonts available.
Create custom 404 pages.
Customer care via email, Webflow community forum, and help center.
Integration with Zapier lets you connect with tools such as Slack, MailChimp, and Asana.
You can add up to 3000 products on your site with eCommerce support.
Best WordPress Themes for Photography and Creative Websites ($279 one-time).
Flothemes is a business that offers customizable WordPress themes. These templates help you build websites inside of WordPress without the need for custom coding. It’s powered by Flex block, a potent free flow page builder, providing limitless customization choices.
All the templates and themes include premade designs and content blocks. You can also customize colors, fonts, the arrangement of the webpage, and more.
Flothemes help you build your website in a few measures, including:
Register a domain name and hosting service provider for your website. You can also check Flothemes cloud hosting services, starting at $26 a month.
Install WordPress.org and connect it to your website hosting. Fortunately, most hosting services offer a one-click WordPress installation.
Finally, select a theme for your site or portfolio.
You can see several how-to tutorials by Flothemes or contact the customer care team.
If you need help setting up the entire website, you can drop a message, and their team will do everything for you.
Flothemes will allow you to set up your site for only $499-$1999. Besides setting up your website from the start, they also offer services like page loading speed optimization, SEO, styling, etc.. Plus, you get two screen sharing sessions of 45 minutes each with specialists and one SEO consultation call of 45 minutes. All in all, you get six rounds of implementations.
Additionally, Flothemes provides features like SSL implementation, WordPress setup, Typography, color scheme stylization, and more. You also find complete design freedom, SEO options, and a dash.
Pricing:
While their subjects cost a one-time $279, Flothemes offers three pricing plans for their site setup services, including:
Simple Installation Bundle: $499
Advanced setup packages: $999
Pro Installation packs: $1,999
The Easy Setup Package helps you skip the technical components and jump directly to adding content and personalizing your theme. It provides features like WordPress installation, website layout setup, theme setup, WordPress transfer, website launch, etc..
The Advanced Setup Package includes full assistance with website setup, styling & launch, site speed optimization & an search engine optimization consultation. Additional features include typography & colour scheme stylization, SSL implementation, speed optimization, etc..
Pro Installation Package includes all of the features from the Advanced Setup Package along with the tailored mockup & execution for your homepage.
Best Website Tool with Integrated CRM Tools
HubSpot is a topnotch CRM tool which also has a full-featured CMS and website builder. Using their platform, it is possible to create website pages, blog posts, landing pages from scratch or using their pre-built templates.
Their drag-and-drop editor uses responsive design that will assist you create webpages that look great on any device. Where HubSpot stands out is its personalization and integrations.
Unlike other tools on this listing, HubSpot comes integrated with a wide assortment of marketing applications, including tools to manage email marketing, get found online, and catch, engage with and understand prospects.
For instance, when you make a webpage, you can add calls-to-action and forms that convert visitors into leads. Then, when you understand your visitors, you can dynamically create content unique to website visitors based on their location, device, speech, traffic origin, or some other detail you choose to catch in your HubSpot CRM.
This integrated marketing suite covers all parts of the customer lifecycle:
Forms, live chat, and conversational chatbots capture leads.
Email advertising, retargeting, and messenger integrations send customized messages to your leads.
Their contact report builder, analytics tools, and record segmentation help you understand your leads.
Personalized experiences, calls-to-action, and smart content turns leads into customers.
Overall, if you are seeking a website builder that also includes a full-featured pair of CRM and marketing tools, HubSpot is the ideal choice.
The World’s Most Popular CMS
Easiest Free Website Builder for Small Websites
Best Digital Advertising Website Builder for Local Businesses
A Personalized Website with the Power of AI
Best for Enormous Online Stores
Great for Photographers and Artists
Best for startups that want to create bootstrapped sites
Best Site Builder for Agencies and Multilingual Websites
What’s a Website Builder?
A website builder is a tool which allows anyone to manage a site and domain name without manual programming. In other words, a website builder is a tool or software application to assist you build a website.
In the old days of the net, programmers needed to understand HTML and CSS to make a website. Today, if you want to code a site, there’s a steep learning curve — you want to have extensive knowledge of JavaScript and PHP. Not so with site builders.
These tools assist everyone from small companies and bloggers to news websites and ecommerce companies easily create sites in minutes.
How much does it cost to build a website?
Is Wix better than WordPress?
How much does a website cost monthly?
Does Google have a website builder?
Can I get a free website for my business?
There you have it — my list of the greatest website builders. As there are 74 choices out there, I have condensed the listing down to the very best so you can choose the option that is perfect for your business or online brand.
If you are looking for the best website builder overall, I recommend you get started with Wix.
For the best designs and templates, check out Squarespace.
If you will need an e-commerce site to sell products online, Shopify is a fantastic choice.
What site builder do you use?