youtube.com/watch?v=nLJvniZrSp4
17 Best Site Builders: Wix, Squarespace, and More (2021)
Choosing the best website builder can be hard, as there are 74 popular choices to choose from.
In this guide, I ranked and reviewed the best website builders to create a website based on price, reliability, web hosting services, technical support, site speed, SEO, features, ease of use, template design, and much more.
We’ll also compare:
The ideal website builders for small companies.
The best free and cheap choices.
Those with the best SEO.
The top platforms with online shop capabilities.
The very top builders for agencies.
And the best choices for photographers and artists.
What’s the Best Website Builder?
Using a site builder is a quick and easy way to construct a presence for your brand or online business. These tools simplify your site management by combining domain registration, hosting, and site design into one platform.
If you’re not too knowledgeable about web design and development, you will want to go with a simple drag and drop editor.
The choice is up to you.
Here are my top picks for the best website 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 consumers.
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 appear beautiful, with scroll effects, and advanced design features like video and animation backgrounds.
In case you already have a domain on GoDaddy or need to register one at Wix.com, they make it super simple. Also, if you want to add e-commerce to your site so that you can sell online, plans begin a $20/month.
If you’re a small company, I urge 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 website tool on the market. You can almost endlessly customize the look 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 about your site and uses that information to design a site tailored to your specific needs.
This tool leverages AI choosing from countless combinations of images, text, layouts, and contact forms.
Ultimately, if you’re looking for the best site builder for small companies, Wix is your 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 website builder with a mission to help local businesses to tell their unique stories on the web.
Overall, they’re famous for speed and simplicity.
With Zyro, you may make a company website fast and easily with no programming required. Your site also loads fast because of the 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 over one million stock images to select from.
One of the 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 pick your type of organization, then write 2-3 sentences describing your brand and circumstance. You then adjust your AI settings and customize them based on duration, experience, and creativity degree. Lastly, you click on the Create button and see your distinctively created 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.
Some other excellent features include:
Built-in search engine optimization tools to increase your search rankings.
A free SSL certificate and custom domains.
An AI-driven logo and slogan manufacturer.
24/7 customer support via email and live chat.
AI heatmaps to increase website conversions and predict visitor behavior.
Mobile-optimized, fast-loading website designs.
Free website design templates for different industries like creative services, startups, fashion brands, wellness companies, bakeries, and more.
Zyro offers three main pricing programs — 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 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 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 really popular plan that’s most suitable for small and medium-sized companies.
Finally, their “Unleashed” plan provides every Zyro feature and provides unlimited bandwidth and storage. At such an affordable price of $3.49/month, it makes sense to go with this program and enjoy the unlimited features if you’re planning to get a great deal of content on your website.
Overall, Zyro is ideal for small businesses looking to create and develop a website quickly, save money on writing and logo-making using 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 test out their platform, then upgrade to a paid program when you’re ready to grow your online 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 right to 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 select from, they lead the pack when it comes to design. Squarespace templates appear excellent down to every detail. The fonts, color schemes, and vision all mesh perfectly for any site.
Besides design, their platform is wonderful for bloggers. I tested out their WYSIWYG blog editor, and it’s very intuitive.
You drag elements like images, headings, and text on the page and place it where you would like. They also offer multiple user permissions, Google AMP performance, and you can schedule your posts:
A few small SEO limits hold Squarespace back from being #1 on this list. First, my XML sitemap pulled two versions of every page with and without a trailing slash”/.” This dual indexing may potentially lead to SEO and duplicate content issues later on. They didn’t have an easy fix the last time I checked.
Secondly, your site headlines become your meta titles, so be careful when incorporating your headlines for SEO. You can read more in my full Wix vs Squarespace review.
Other terrific 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 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 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 program provides a free domain name, unlimited storage and bandwidth, free SSL, and 24/7 customer service.
In general, if you’re a small business that needs first-rate web design or a blogger who wants your content to appear great, Squarespace is a reliable choice.
Best Free Website Builder (Free — $25/month)
Weebly powers over 530,000 domains and is known as the easy site builder of choice for people without much technical experience. They offer a lot of great features. If you’re 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 keep track of your site’s functionality on the go. And email marketing tools let you send newsletters to your subscribers from within 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 made to have Weebly branding throughout your site. Also, the free plan only comes with chat and email support, but no phone support.
Weebly’s paid plans range from $5 to $25 per month. On the high end, their Business Plan gets you innovative e-commerce performance, a free domainname, 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 can find assistance yourself in several locations, including their blog, support center, community discussion, social networking, and programmer 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 suggest that you get started using Weebly.
Best Site Builder for Ecommerce ($29/month)
Shopify is a popular 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 app partners.
While not every website owner needs product-selling performance, I added Shopify into the list because almost any small business could use them to install their website.
Take a salon for example.
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 a program ), but you might also sell hair care products online. This creates not only a website but another online source of revenue for your company.
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 full checkout experience. Besides, you can enjoy omnichannel selling across Facebook, eBay, Amazon, Instagram, and more.
If you’re setting up a new website and believe that you might want to sell products online in the future, it is better to begin with Shopify rather than another instrument 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 need, including a full website, an internet store with unlimited products, site features, 24/7 support, and more.
If you’d like to give Shopify a try, they offer 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 site.
Invite other team members to collaborate on a single dash.
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 such as Slack, MailChimp, and Asana.
You can add up to 3000 products on your website with eCommerce support.
Finest WordPress Themes for Photography and Creative Websites ($279 one-time).
Flothemes is a company that provides customizable WordPress themes. These templates enable you to build websites inside of WordPress without the need for custom coding. It’s powered by Flex block, a powerful free stream page builder, providing limitless customization options.
All of the templates and themes come with premade designs and content blocks. You can also customize colors, fonts, the structure of the webpage, and more.
Flothemes help you build your site in a few measures, including:
Register a domain name and hosting service provider for your website. You can even check Flothemes cloud hosting services, starting at $26 per month.
Install WordPress.org and join it to your website hosting. Luckily, most hosting services provide a one-click WordPress installation.
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 support team.
If you need help setting up the whole website, you can drop a message, and their staff will do everything for you.
Flothemes can allow you to set up your site for just $499-$1999. Besides setting up your website from the beginning, they also offer services like page load speed optimization, SEO, styling, etc.. Plus, you get two screen 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.
Additionally, Flothemes provides features like SSL implementation, WordPress setup, Typography, color scheme stylization, and much more. You also find complete design freedom, SEO options, and a dashboard.
Pricing:
While their themes cost a one-time $279, Flothemes offers three pricing strategies for their site setup services, including:
Simple Setup Package: $499
Advanced setup packages: $999
Pro Installation packs: $1,999
The Simple Setup Package helps you skip the technical parts and jump directly to adding content and personalizing your motif. It provides features like WordPress installation, site layout setup, theme installation, WordPress transfer, site launch, etc..
The Advanced Setup Package incorporates full assistance with site setup, styling & launching, site speed optimization & an SEO consultation. Additional features include typography & color 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 & 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 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 broad assortment of marketing software, including tools to manage email advertising, get found online, and catch, engage with and understand leads.
By way of instance, 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 website visitors based on their location, device, language, traffic source, or some other detail you choose to capture on your HubSpot CRM.
This integrated marketing suite covers all parts of the customer lifecycle:
Types, live chat, and conversational chatbots capture prospects.
Email marketing, retargeting, and messenger integrations send customized messages to your prospects.
Their contact report builder, analytics tools, and record segmentation help you understand your own prospects.
Personalized experiences, calls-to-action, and smart content turns leads into customers.
Overall, if you’re looking for a website builder that also comes with a full-featured set of CRM and marketing tools, HubSpot is your ideal choice.
The World’s Most Popular CMS
Easiest Free Website Builder for Small Websites
Best Digital Marketing 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 websites
Best Site Builder for Agencies and Multilingual Websites
What is a Website Builder?
A website builder is a tool which allows anyone to manage a website and domain name without manual programming. In other words, a website builder is a tool or software application to assist you build a web site.
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 site, there is a steep learning curve — you want to have extensive knowledge of JavaScript and PHP. Not so with site builders.
These tools help everyone from small businesses and bloggers to news websites and ecommerce businesses 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 top website builders. Because there are 74 choices out there, I have condensed the listing down to the very best so that you may choose the option that is right for your business or online brand.
If you’re looking for the best website builder complete, I recommend you begin using Wix.
For the best designs and templates, check out Squarespace.
If you will need an e-commerce website to sell products online, Shopify is a good choice.
What site builder do you use?