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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 options to choose from.
In this guide, I ranked and reviewed the best website builders to create a website based on cost, reliability, web hosting solutions , technical support, site speed, SEO, features, ease of use, template design, and more.
We’ll also compare:
The ideal website contractors for small businesses.
The ideal free and cheap options.
Those with the best SEO.
The best platforms with online shop capabilities.
The top builders for agencies.
And the best options for photographers and artists.
What is the Best Website Builder?
Using a website builder is a fast and easy way to construct a presence for your brand or internet business. These tools simplify your site management by combining domain registration, hosting, and website design into one platform.
If you’re 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 season.
Wix.
Best Website 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 advanced design features like video and animation backgrounds.
If you already have a domain on GoDaddy or need to register one at Wix.com, they make it super simple. Additionally, if you want to add e-commerce to your website so that you can sell online, plans begin a $20/month.
If you are a small company, 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 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 coding knowledge.
They also have a tool called Artificial Design Intelligence (ADI) — the first artificial intelligence website builder. Wix ADI learns about your site and uses that information to design a website tailored to your specific needs.
This tool leverages AI selecting from countless combinations of pictures, text, designs, and contact forms.
Ultimately, if you’re seeking the best website builder for small businesses, Wix is the best option.
Read my whole Wix review for more in-depth analysis.
Get started with Wix.
Greatest Modern Website Builder with Free Plans (free — $3.49/mo)
Zyro is a site builder with a mission to help local businesses to tell their unique stories on the web.
Overall, they are famous for simplicity and speed.
With Zyro, you may make a business website quickly and easily with no coding required. Your website also loads fast because of the light framework and looks great on all apparatus.
With a powerful set of tools, Zyro helps grow your online business with pre-made design templates, AI-driven text, an intuitive drag-and-drop tool, mobile-readiness, and over 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 business, then write 2-3 paragraphs describing your brand and context. Then you correct your AI settings and customize them based on duration, expertise, and creativity degree. Lastly, you click on the Generate button and see your distinctively generated content.
Since content creation is a challenge for many site owners, this tool creates 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 behaviour.
Mobile-optimized, fast-loading website layouts.
Free website design templates for different industries like creative services, startups, fashion brands, wellness businesses, bakeries, and more.
Zyro offers three main pricing programs — a free plan, a mid-tier”Basic” program at $1.99/month, and their high-tier”Unleashed” plan 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 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 companies.
Finally, their “Unleashed” plan 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 plan to have a lot of content on your site.
Overall, Zyro is best for small businesses seeking to create and grow a site fast, 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 for free to check out their platform, then upgrade to a paid program when you are ready to grow your internet business.
Get started with Zyro and begin 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 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 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 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 limits hold Squarespace back from being #1 on this list. First, my XML sitemap pulled in two versions of every page with and without a trailing slash”/.” This double indexing could potentially result in SEO and duplicate content problems down the road. They didn’t have a simple 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 full Wix vs Squarespace review.
Other terrific features make up 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 are not using Google Analytics. Plus, it’s hard to go wrong with a beautifully-designed website for only $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 domainname. The Personal plan provides a free domain name, unlimited bandwidth and storage, free SSL, and 24/7 customer support.
Overall, if you’re a small business that needs first-rate web design or a blogger who wants your content to look great, Squarespace is a reliable 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 pick a domain name and use their editor to add your text, images, and content.
They also have a mobile app to keep track of your website’s functionality on the go. And email marketing tools allow you to send newsletters to your subscribers from inside their tool.
They have a free plan which comes with 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 site. Also, the free program only comes with 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 advanced 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 through Square and other providers.
The degree of customer support you get is based on your subscription level. You can find assistance yourself in many locations, including their blog, support center, community forum, social media, and developer documentation. They also have live chat, email, and telephone support.
If you’re searching for a simple website creator to get up and running, I recommend you begin with Weebly.
Best Website 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 program 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 install their site.
Have a salon for example.
With Shopify, not only could you set up a quick website including a site, a map of your location, contact info, 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 company.
Shopify has a lot 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, automatic carrier shipping rates, automated tax rates, and the full checkout experience. Plus, 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 instrument that does not take online shopping too.
They offer three plans ranging from $29/month to $299/month. The $29/month Basic Shopify Plan should give website owners everything they need, including a full 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 edit and add 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 support through email, Webflow community forum, and help centre.
Integration with Zapier enables you to connect with tools such as 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 business that provides customizable WordPress themes. These templates enable you to build websites inside of WordPress with no need for custom coding. It is powered by Flex block, a powerful free stream page builder, providing limitless customization choices.
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 site. You can even check Flothemes cloud hosting services, starting at $26 per month.
Install WordPress.org and connect it to your website hosting. Fortunately, most hosting services offer a one-click WordPress setup.
Finally, select a theme for your site or portfolio.
You can watch several how-to tutorials by Flothemes or contact the customer support team.
If you need help setting up the whole site, you can drop a message, and their team will do everything for you.
Flothemes will allow you to set up your site for just $499-$1999. Besides setting up your site from the beginning, they also provide services like page loading speed optimization, SEO, styling, etc.. In addition, 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 installation, Typography, color scheme stylization, and much more. You also get complete design freedom, SEO options, and a dashboard.
Pricing:
While their subjects cost a one-time $279, Flothemes offers three pricing strategies for their site setup services, including:
Simple Installation Bundle: $499
Advanced setup packs: $999
Pro Installation packs: $1,999
The Simple Setup Package helps you skip the technical parts and jump straight to adding content and personalizing your theme. It offers features like WordPress installation, site layout setup, theme installation, WordPress transfer, website launch, 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 Installation Package contains all the features in the Advanced Setup Package along with the tailored mockup & execution for your homepage.
Best Site Tool with Integrated CRM Tools
HubSpot is a top-notch CRM tool that also includes a full-featured CMS and website builder. Using their platform, you can create website pages, blog posts, landing pages either 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 list, HubSpot comes integrated with a broad assortment of marketing applications, including tools to manage email advertising, get found online, and catch, engage with and understand prospects.
By way of example, 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 source, or any other detail you choose to capture in your HubSpot CRM.
This integrated marketing suite covers all parts of the customer lifecycle:
Types, 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 prospects.
Personalized experiences, calls-to-action, and smart content turns leads into customers.
Overall, if you’re seeking a website builder that also comes with a full-featured pair of CRM and marketing tools, HubSpot is the ideal alternative.
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 Enormous Online Stores
Great for Photographers and Artists
Best for startups that want to make bootstrapped sites
Best Website Builder for Agencies and Multilingual Websites
What’s a Website Builder?
A website builder is a tool that allows anyone to manage a site and domain name without manual programming. In other words, a site builder is a tool or software program to assist you build a web site.
In the old days of the web, programmers needed to know HTML and CSS to create a site. Today, if you wish to code a website, 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 sites and ecommerce companies 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 site for my company?
There you have it — my list of the top website builders. As there are 74 choices out there, I have condensed the listing down to the top so you can choose the option that is right for your small business or online brand.
If you are looking for the best website builder complete, I recommend you get started using 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 good choice.
What website builder do you use?