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17 Best Site Builders: Wix, Squarespace, and More (2021)
Choosing the best website builder can be difficult, as there are 74 popular choices to choose from.
In this guide, I rated and reviewed the best website builders to create a web site based on price, reliability, web hosting services, technical assistance, site speed, SEO, features, ease of use, template design, and more.
We will also compare:
The best website builders for small companies.
The ideal free and affordable 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 site builder is a fast and effortless 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 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 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 appear beautiful, with scroll effects, and advanced design features like video and animation backgrounds.
In case you already have a domain on GoDaddy or want to register one at Wix.com, they make it super easy. Also, if you’d like to add e-commerce to your site so that you can sell online, plans start a $20/month.
If you’re a small business, 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 get these great new features.
Wix is the most user-friendly website tool on the market. You can almost endlessly customize the look and feel of your website with no coding knowledge.
They also have a tool called Artificial Design Intelligence (ADI) — the first artificial intelligence website builder. Wix ADI learns on your website and uses that information to design a website tailored to your specific needs.
This tool leverages AI selecting from countless combinations of pictures, text, layouts, and contact forms.
Finally, if you’re seeking the best website builder for small businesses, Wix is your best choice.
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 online.
Overall, they’re famous for simplicity and speed.
With Zyro, you may make a company website quickly and easily with no programming required. Your site also loads fast due to the 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 choose 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 get started with this tool, you pick your type of business, then write 2-3 sentences describing your brand and circumstance. Then you correct your AI settings and customize them based on length, experience, and creativity level. Lastly, you click the Create button and see your uniquely created content.
Since content creation 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 increase website conversions and forecast visitor behavior.
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 primary pricing programs — a free plan, a mid-tier”Basic” program 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 really popular plan that is most acceptable for small and medium-sized companies.
Finally, their “Unleashed” program provides every Zyro attribute and provides unlimited bandwidth and storage. At this affordable price of $3.49/month, it makes sense to go for this program and enjoy the unlimited features if you plan to get a lot of content on your website.
Overall, Zyro is ideal for small businesses looking to create and develop a website quickly, save money on composing 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 platform, 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 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 when it comes to design. Squarespace templates look excellent down to every detail. The fonts, color schemes, and vision all mesh perfectly 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 images, headings, and text on the page and position it where you want. They also offer multiple user permissions, Google AMP functionality, and you can schedule your posts:
A few small search engine optimization limitations 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 may potentially lead to SEO and duplicate content issues later on. They didn’t have a simple fix the last time I checked.
Secondly, your site headlines become your meta names, so be careful when adding 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 top-notch — websites are elementary to assemble 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 site 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 domainname. The Personal program 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 that wants your content to appear great, Squarespace is a reliable option.
Best Free Website Builder (Free — $25/month)
Weebly powers over 530,000 domain names and is known as the simple site 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, images, and articles.
They also have a mobile app to track your website’s functionality on the go. And email marketing tools allow you to send newsletters to your subscribers from within their tool.
They have a free plan which comes with 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 get Weebly branding throughout your site. Additionally, the free plan only comes with email and chat support, but no phone service.
Weebly’s paid plans range from $5 to $25 per month. On the high end, their Business Plan gets you advanced e-commerce functionality, a free domainname, 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 receive is based on your subscription level. You’ll find assistance yourself in several locations, including their site, service center, community forum, social networking, and developer documentation. They also have live chat, email, and phone support.
If you’re searching for a simple website 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 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 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 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 lot of features you’d come to expect from other tools on this listing, including hosting, your own domain name, 70+ professional topics, 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 much 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 rather than 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 need, including a full website, an online 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 per month).
Some of its other Important features include:
You can edit and add content to your live site.
Invite other 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 enables you to connect with tools like 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 business that offers customizable WordPress themes. These templates enable you to build sites inside of WordPress with no need for custom coding. It is 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 arrangement of the page, and more.
Flothemes help you build your site in a few steps, 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, select a theme for your site or portfolio.
You’ll be able to see several how-to tutorials by Flothemes or contact the customer support team.
If you need assistance 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 website for only $499-$1999. Besides setting up your site from the beginning, they also offer services like page load speed optimization, SEO, styling, etc.. Plus, you get two display sharing sessions of 45 minutes each with specialists and one SEO consultation call of 45 minutes. In general, you get six rounds of implementations.
Furthermore, 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 website setup services, including:
Simple Installation Bundle: $499
Advanced setup packages: $999
Pro Setup packages: $1,999
The Simple Setup Package helps you skip the technical parts and jump straight to adding content and personalizing your motif. It offers 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 & launching, site speed optimization & an search engine optimization consultation. Additional features include typography & color scheme stylization, SSL implementation, speed optimization, etc..
Pro Setup Package contains all the features in the Advanced Setup Package together with the tailored mockup & implementation for your homepage.
Best Website Tool with Integrated CRM Tools
HubSpot is a top-notch CRM tool that also has a full-featured CMS and website builder. Using their platform, it is possible to 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 range of marketing software, including tools to manage email marketing, get found online, and catch, engage with and understand leads.
By way of example, when you create a webpage, you may add calls-to-action and forms that convert visitors into leads. Then, when you know your visitors, you can dynamically create content unique to site visitors based on their location, device, language, traffic source, or any other detail you choose to catch in your HubSpot CRM.
This integrated marketing suite covers all parts of the customer lifecycle:
Types, live chat, and conversational chatbots capture prospects.
Email advertising, retargeting, and messenger integrations send customized messages to your prospects.
Their contact builder, analytics tools, and list segmentation help you understand your leads.
Personalized experiences, calls-to-action, and smart content turns leads into customers.
Overall, if you’re seeking a site builder that also comes with a full-featured pair of CRM and marketing tools, HubSpot is the best choice.
The World’s Most Popular CMS
Easiest Free Website Builder for Small Sites
Best Digital Marketing Website Builder for Local Firms
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 Website Builder for Agencies and Multilingual Websites
What is 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 website builder is a tool or software program to help you build a web site.
In the old days of the net, programmers needed to understand HTML and CSS to create a website. Today, if you wish 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 websites 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 site 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 top so that you may choose the option that’s right for your small business or online brand.
If you’re looking for the best site builder overall, I recommend you get started with Wix.
For the best designs and templates, check out Squarespace.
If you need an e-commerce website to sell products online, Shopify is a fantastic choice.
What website builder do you use?