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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 ranked and reviewed the best website builders to make a website based on price, reliability, web hosting solutions , technical assistance, website speed, SEO, features, ease of use, template design, and more.
We’ll also compare:
The ideal website builders for small businesses.
The ideal free and affordable choices.
Those with the best SEO.
The top platforms with online store 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 easy way to build a presence for your brand or online business. These tools simplify your website management by combining domain registrationhosting, and site design into one stage.
If you are not too savvy with web design and development, you’ll 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 season.
Wix.
Best Website Builder for Small Business ($13/month)
Wix is the most popular website builder on the current market, with over 100 million consumers.
They have 500+ ready-to-use templates to design your site 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 advanced design features like video and animation backgrounds.
In case you already have a domain name on GoDaddy or need to register one at Wix.com, they make it super easy. Also, if you want to add e-commerce to your website so you could sell online, plans start a $20/month.
If you are a small business, I urge 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 bring an e-commerce store can get these great new features.
Wix is the most user-friendly website tool on the market. You can almost endlessly customize the appearance and feel of your site with no programming knowledge.
They also have a tool called Artificial Design Intelligence (ADI) — the first artificial intelligence site 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 images, text, layouts, and contact forms.
Ultimately, if you’re looking for the best site builder for small businesses, Wix is the very best choice.
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 site builder with a mission to assist local companies to tell their unique stories online.
Overall, they are best known for simplicity and speed.
With Zyro, you may make a company site fast and easily with no programming required. Your site also loads fast due to 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 over one million stock images 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 sentences describing your brand and context. You then correct your AI settings and customize them based on length, experience, and creativity level. Last, you click on the Generate button and see your uniquely generated content.
Since content generation is a challenge for many site 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 SEO tools to increase 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 improve website conversions and forecast visitor behavior.
Mobile-optimized, fast-loading website layouts.
Free website design templates for different industries like creative services, startups, fashion brands, health companies, bakeries, and more.
Zyro offers three primary pricing plans — a free plan, a mid-tier”Basic” plan at $1.99/month, and their high-tier”Unleashed” program at $3.49/month.
Their free program does not 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 permits you to connect your domain name, increases bandwidth and storage, and includes extra features like ad removal and integrations with tools like Google Tag Manager, Google Analytics, and Facebook pixels. This is a very popular plan that is most acceptable for small and medium-sized businesses.
Finally, their “Unleashed” program provides every Zyro feature and gives unlimited bandwidth and storage. At this affordable price of $3.49/month, it makes sense to go for this plan and enjoy the unlimited features if you’re planning to get a lot of content on your website.
Overall, Zyro is best for small businesses looking to create and develop a site fast, save money on writing 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 begin with Zyro for free to test out their platform, then upgrade to a paid plan when you’re 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 for their beautifully designed home page. They truly know how to create 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 look excellent down to every detail. The fonts, color schemes, and imagery all mesh flawlessly for any site.
Besides design, their platform is great for bloggers. I tested out their WYSIWYG blog editor, and it is very intuitive.
You drag elements like pictures, headings, and text on the page and place it where you want. They also offer multiple user permissions, Google AMP functionality, and you can schedule your articles:
A few small search engine optimization limits hold Squarespace back from being #1 on this list. First, my XML sitemap pulled in 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 an easy fix the last time I checked.
Secondly, your site headlines become your meta names, so be careful when incorporating your headlines for SEO. You can read more in my full Wix vs Squarespace review.
Other great features compensate for these drawbacks. Their ease of use is topnotch — sites are elementary to build with their editing tools. In-built analytics tools provide continuous data on-site visitors if you are not using Google Analytics. Plus, it’s hard to go wrong with a beautifully-designed site for just $12/month.
Monthly costs 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 service.
Overall, if you are a small company that needs first-rate web design or a blogger who wants your content to appear great, Squarespace is a trusted option.
Best Free Website Builder (Free — $25/month)
Weebly powers over 530,000 domain names and is called the easy site builder of choice for people without much technical experience. They offer a great deal of great features. If you are a blogger, you can use Weebly.com to select a domain name and use their editor to add your text, images, and content.
They also have a mobile program to track your site’s functionality on the go. And email marketing tools let you send newsletters to your subscribers from inside their tool.
They have a free program which comes with 500 MB of storage, a free SSL certificate, and a domain with Weebly branding. You can use a custom domain name with this plan but are made to get Weebly branding throughout your site. Also, the free program only comes with email and chat support, but no phone support.
Weebly’s paid plans range from $5 to $25 per month. On the high end, their Business Strategy 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 level of customer support you get is based on your subscription level. You’ll find assistance yourself in many areas, including their site, support center, community discussion, social networking, and developer documentation. They also have live chat, email, and telephone support.
If you are looking for a simple site creator to get up and running, I recommend you get started using Weebly.
Best Website Builder for Ecommerce ($29/month)
Shopify is a favorite ecommerce platform used by over 800,000 online businesses so sell products online. They were founded in Canada in 2004 and quickly became a powerhouse because of their simple dashboard and integrations with thousands of program partners.
While not every site owner needs product-selling performance, I added Shopify to the list because any small business could use them to set up their website.
Take a salon for example.
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 a program ), but you could 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 listing, such as hosting, your own domain name, 70+ specialist topics, a free SSL certificate, and promotion and SEO features.
They also offer mobile commerce, 100+ payment gateways, automatic carrier shipping rates, automatic tax rates, and the complete checkout experience. Besides, you can enjoy omnichannel selling across Facebook, eBay, Amazon, Instagram, and much more.
If you’re setting up a new website and think that you may choose to sell products online in the future, it’s 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 site owners everything they want, including a complete website, an online store with unlimited products, site features, 24/7 support, and more.
If you want 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 Important features include:
You can edit and add content to your live website.
Invite additional group 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 center.
Integration with Zapier lets you connect with tools like Slack, MailChimp, and Asana.
You can add up to 3000 products on your website with eCommerce support.
Best WordPress Themes for Photography and Creative Websites ($279 one-time).
Flothemes is a company that offers customizable WordPress themes. These templates help you build sites inside of WordPress without the need for custom coding. It is powered by Flex block, a powerful free flow page builder, providing limitless customization choices.
All the templates and themes come with premade layouts and content blocks. You can also customize colors, fonts, the structure of the webpage, and more.
Flothemes help you build your website in a few steps, including:
Register a domain name and hosting service provider for your website. You can even check Flothemes cloud hosting services, starting at $26 a month.
Install WordPress.org and join it to your website hosting. Fortunately, most hosting services offer a one-click WordPress setup.
Finally, pick 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 assistance setting up the entire website, you can drop a message, and their team will do everything for you.
Flothemes will help you set up your website for just $499-$1999. Besides setting up your website from the beginning, they also provide 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. All in all, you get six rounds of implementations.
Furthermore, Flothemes provides features like SSL implementation, WordPress installation, Typography, color scheme stylization, and more. You also get complete design freedom, SEO options, and a dash.
Pricing:
While their subjects cost a one-time $279, Flothemes offers three pricing strategies for their website setup services, including:
Simple Setup Package: $499
Advanced setup packs: $999
Pro Setup packages: $1,999
The Simple Setup Package can help you skip the technical components and jump directly to adding content and personalizing your motif. It provides features like WordPress installation, site layout setup, theme installation, WordPress transfer, site launching, etc..
The Advanced Setup Package includes full assistance with website setup, styling & launching, site speed optimization & an SEO consultation. Additional features include typography & color scheme stylization, SSL implementation, speed optimization, etc..
Pro Setup Package includes all of the features from the Advanced Setup Package together with the tailored mockup & implementation for your homepage.
Best Website Tool with Integrated CRM Tools
HubSpot is a topnotch CRM tool that also has a full-featured CMS and website builder. Using their platform, you can 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 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 software, including tools to manage email marketing, get found online, and capture, engage with and understand leads.
By way of example, when you make a webpage, you may add calls-to-action and forms that convert visitors into leads. Then, when you understand your traffic, you can dynamically create content unique to site visitors based on their location, device, speech, traffic source, or any other detail you choose to capture on 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 prospects.
Their contact builder, analytics tools, and list segmentation help you understand your prospects.
Personalized experiences, calls-to-action, and smart content turns leads into customers.
Overall, if you are seeking a site builder that also comes with a full-featured set of CRM and marketing tools, HubSpot is the ideal choice.
The World’s Most Popular CMS
Easiest Free Website Builder for Small Sites
Best Digital Advertising Website Builder for Local Businesses
A Personalized Website with the Power of AI
Best for Large 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 that allows anyone to manage a website and domain name without manual coding. In other words, a site builder is a tool or software application that will assist you build a website.
In the old days of the web, programmers needed to know HTML and CSS to create 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 assist everyone from small businesses and bloggers to news sites and ecommerce businesses easily create websites 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 options out there, I’ve condensed the listing down to the very best so you can choose the option that is right for your small business or online brand.
If you’re looking for the very best website builder complete, I recommend you get started 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 site builder do you use?