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17 Best Site Builders: Wix, Squarespace, and More (2021)
Picking the best site builder can be difficult, because there are 74 popular choices to select from.
In this guide, I rated and reviewed the best website builders to create a web site based on cost, reliability, web hosting services, technical support, site speed, SEO, features, ease of use, template design, and much more.
We will also compare:
The ideal website builders for small businesses.
The best free and affordable options.
Those with the best SEO.
The best platforms with online shop capabilities.
The top builders for agencies.
And the best choices for photographers and artists.
What is the Best Website Builder?
Using a website builder is a quick and effortless way to build a presence for your brand or online business. These tools simplify your site management by combining domain registration, hosting, and website design into one platform.
If you are not too knowledgeable about web design and development, you will want to go with a simple drag and drop editor.
The choice is all up to you.
Here are my top picks for the best site builder to use this year.
Wix.
Best Site Builder for Small Business ($13/month)
Wix is the most popular website builder on the market, with over 100 million users.
They have 500+ ready-to-use templates to design your site in any business. 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 video and animation backgrounds.
In case you already have a domain name on GoDaddy or want to register one at Wix.com, they make it super easy. Also, if you want to add e-commerce to your site so you could sell online, plans start a $20/month.
If you’re a small company, I recommend Wix as the best online store builder. You don’t necessarily require 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 website tool on the market. You can almost endlessly customize the appearance and feel of your website with no coding knowledge.
They also have a tool named Artificial Design Intelligence (ADI) — the first artificial intelligence website builder. Wix ADI learns on your site and uses that information to design a site tailored to your precise needs.
This tool leverages AI choosing from billions of combinations of pictures, text, designs, and contact forms.
Finally, if you’re looking for the best website builder for small businesses, Wix is the best option.
Read my full 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 website builder with a mission to assist local companies to tell their unique stories on the web.
Overall, they’re best known for simplicity and speed.
With Zyro, you can create a company website quickly and easily with no coding required. Your site also loads fast due to its light framework 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 pictures to choose from.
One of their standout features is their AI Content Generator, which provides 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 context. You then adjust your AI settings and customize them based on length, expertise, and creativity level. Last, you click on the Create button and see your uniquely generated content.
Since content generation is a challenge for many website owners, this tool creates new paragraphs for you that can rank better in search and increase conversion rates.
Another excellent features include:
Built-in SEO tools to improve your search rankings.
A free SSL certificate and custom domain names.
An AI-driven logo and slogan maker.
24/7 customer support via email and live chat.
AI heatmaps to increase 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, health businesses, bakeries, and much more.
Zyro offers three main pricing programs — a free plan, a mid-tier”Basic” plan 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.
Next, their “Basic” program allows you to connect your 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 storage and bandwidth. At this affordable price of $3.49/month, it is sensible to go with this program and enjoy the unlimited features if you’re planning to have a great deal of content on your website.
Overall, Zyro is ideal for small businesses seeking to create and grow a site fast, save money on composing and logo-making with their AI tools, rank higher on search engines, and increase conversion rates with high-quality, mobile-friendly design templates.
You can get started with Zyro free of charge to check out their stage, then upgrade to a paid program when you are ready to grow your internet business.
Get started with Zyro and start building your site today.
Best Website Design for Personal Sites ($12/month)
When I think of Squarespace, my mind goes directly to their beautifully designed home page. They truly know how to make beautiful, high-quality websites that look great for both small businesses and personal websites alike.
With over 100 design templates to select from, they lead the pack in regards to design. Squarespace templates appear excellent down to every detail. The fonts, color schemes, and imagery all mesh perfectly for any website.
Besides design, their platform is wonderful for bloggers. I tested out their WYSIWYG blog editor, and it is very intuitive.
You drag elements like pictures, headings, and text onto the page and position it where you would like. They also offer multiple user permissions, Google AMP performance, and you can schedule your articles:
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 double indexing could potentially lead to SEO and duplicate content issues down the road. They didn’t have a simple fix the last time I checked.
Second, your site headlines always become your meta names, so be cautious when adding 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 top-notch — sites are elementary to assemble with their editing tools. In-built analytics tools provide continuous data onsite traffic if you’re not using Google Analytics. Plus, it’s hard to go wrong with a beautifully-designed website for just $12/month.
Monthly prices range from $12/month for their Personal 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 domain. The Personal plan provides a free domain name, unlimited bandwidth and storage, free SSL, and 24/7 customer service.
Overall, if you’re a small company that needs first-rate web design or a blogger who wants your content to look great, Squarespace is a trusted choice.
Best Free Website Builder (Free — $25/month)
Weebly powers over 530,000 domains and is known as the simple website builder of choice for people without much technical experience. They offer a lot of great features. If you are a blogger, you can use Weebly.com to pick a domain name and use their editor to add your own text, pictures, and articles.
They also have a mobile app to track your site’s performance on the go. And email marketing tools let you send newsletters to your subscribers from within their tool.
They have a free program which includes 500 MB of storage, a free SSL certificate, and a domain with Weebly branding. You can use a custom domain with this plan but are forced to have Weebly branding throughout your website. Also, the free plan only includes email and chat support, but no phone service.
Weebly’s paid programs range from $5 to $25 per month. On the high end, their Business Plan gets you innovative e-commerce performance, a free domain, and $200 of Google ad credits.
Their e-commerce features include product options/variants, coupon codes, stock management, a shipping calculator, shipping labels, and the ability to accept payments through Square and other suppliers.
The degree of customer support you get is based on your subscription level. You’ll find assistance yourself in several areas, including their blog, service centre, community forum, social networking, and developer documentation. They also have live chat, email, and telephone support.
If you are searching for a simple website creator to get up and running, I recommend you begin using Weebly.
Best Website 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 website owner needs product-selling functionality, I added Shopify into the list because 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 site, a map of your location, contact info, 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 lot of features you’d come to expect from other tools on this list, including hosting, your own domain name, 70+ professional themes, a free SSL certificate, and marketing and SEO features.
They also supply mobile commerce, 100+ payment gateways, automated carrier shipping rates, automatic tax rates, and the full checkout experience. Plus, you can enjoy omnichannel selling across Facebook, eBay, Amazon, Instagram, and much more.
If you’re establishing a new website and think that you might choose to sell products online in the future, it is far better to get started with Shopify rather than another tool that does not take online shopping as seriously.
They offer three plans ranging from $29/month to $299/month. The $29/month Fundamental Shopify Plan should give website owners everything they want, including a complete website, an internet store with unlimited products, site features, 24/7 support, and much more.
If you’d like to give Shopify a try, they give a 14-day free trial with no credit card required.
Best For Professional painters ($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 site.
99.9% uptime guaranteed and SSL certificate.
Automated backup.
Custom fonts available.
Create custom 404 pages.
Customer care through email, Webflow community forum, and help centre.
Integration with Zapier enables you to connect with tools like 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 provides customizable WordPress themes. These templates help you build sites inside of WordPress with no need for custom coding. It’s powered by Flex block, a potent free flow page builder, providing limitless customization options.
All of the templates and themes come with premade designs and content blocks. You may also customize colors, fonts, the structure 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 per month.
Install WordPress.org and join it to your web site hosting. Fortunately, most hosting services offer a one-click WordPress setup.
Finally, pick a theme for your website or portfolio.
You’ll be able to see several how-to tutorials by Flothemes or contact the customer care team.
If you need assistance setting up the whole website, you can drop a message, and their team will do everything for you.
Flothemes will help you set up your website for only $499-$1999. Besides setting up your site from the start, they also offer services like page loading speed optimization, SEO, styling, etc.. Plus, you get two display sharing sessions of 45 minutes each with experts and one SEO consultation call of 45 minutes. In general, you get six rounds of implementations.
Additionally, Flothemes provides features like SSL implementation, WordPress installation, Typography, color scheme stylization, and much 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 website setup services, including:
Simple Setup Package: $499
Advanced setup packs: $999
Pro Installation packs: $1,999
The Easy Setup Package helps you skip the technical parts and jump directly to adding content and personalizing your motif. It provides features like WordPress installation, website layout setup, theme setup, WordPress transfer, site launching, etc..
The Advanced Setup Package incorporates full assistance with website setup, styling & launch, site speed optimization & an search engine optimization consultation. Additional features include typography & color scheme stylization, SSL implementation, speed optimization, etc..
Pro Setup Package includes all the features in the Advanced Setup Package along with the tailored mockup & implementation for your homepage.
Best Site Tool with Integrated CRM Tools
HubSpot is a top-notch CRM tool which also has a full-featured CMS and website builder. Using their platform, you can create website pages, blog posts, landing pages from scratch or with their pre-built templates.
Their drag-and-drop editor uses responsive design to help 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 range of marketing applications, including tools to manage email advertising, get found online, and catch, engage with and understand leads.
For instance, when you make a webpage, you may add calls-to-action and forms that convert visitors into leads. Then, when you know your traffic, you can dynamically create content unique to website visitors based on their location, device, language, traffic origin, or some other detail you choose to catch on your HubSpot CRM.
This integrated marketing suite covers all parts of the customer lifecycle:
Forms, live chat, and conversational chatbots capture prospects.
Email advertising, retargeting, and messenger integrations send customized messages to your leads.
Their contact builder, analytics tools, and record segmentation help you understand your prospects.
Personalized experiences, calls-to-action, and smart content turns leads into clients.
Overall, if you are seeking a site builder that also comes with a full-featured set of CRM and marketing tools, HubSpot is the best choice.
The World’s Most Popular CMS
Easiest Free Website Builder for Small Websites
Best Digital Advertising Website Builder for Local Firms
A Personalized Website with the Power of AI
Best for Large Online Stores
Great for Photographers and Artists
Best for startups that want to make 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 program that will help you build a web site.
In the old days of the web, programmers needed to understand HTML and CSS to make a website. Today, if you want to code a website, there’s a steep learning curve — you need to have extensive knowledge of JavaScript and PHP. Not so with website builders.
These tools help everyone from small companies and bloggers to news sites and ecommerce companies easily create websites in minutes.
How much does it cost to construct a website?
Is Wix better than WordPress?
How much does a website cost monthly?
Does Google have a site builder?
Can I get a free site for my business?
There you have it — my list of the greatest website builders. Because there are 74 choices out there, I have condensed the list down to the very best so you can choose the option that’s perfect for your small business or online brand.
If you’re looking for the best website builder overall, I recommend you begin using Wix.
For the best designs and templates, check out Squarespace.
If you need an e-commerce site to sell products online, Shopify is a good choice.
What website builder do you use?