9 Best WordPress Alternatives for Small Businesses

WordPress is the most popular content management system (CMS) available. However, that’s not to say it’s the easiest—or even the best way to build a website. There are hundreds of website builder products available. We examined over 20 platforms and narrowed our list to determine the best WordPress alternatives for small business websites based on use case.

• Best WordPress alternative overall and best free option: Wix
• Best for ecommerce, restaurants, and casual sellers: Weebly
• Cheapest paid plans—starting at $1 per month: IONOS
• Top solution for built-in appointment booking tools: GoDaddy
• Best integrated sales and marketing tools: HubSpot CMS
• Ideal for building a sleek, design-forward website: Squarespace
• Best for large ecommerce and dropshippers: Shopify
• Great alternative for membership-based sites: Dorik
• Best digital marketing integrations: Zyro

WordPress & Best Alternatives at a Glance

Platform	Score out of 5	Free Plan	Starting Cost, Paid Plans*	Starting Cost, Ecommerce	Learn More
	N/A	✓	N/A	N/A	How to Make a WordPress Site
	4.70	✓	$16	$27	Visit Wix
	4.65	✓	$12	$0	Visit Weebly
	4.55	✕	$1	$1	Visit IONOS
	4.26	✓	$11.99	$24.99	Visit GoDaddy
	4.24	✓	$23	$0	Visit HubSpot
	4.04	✕	$16	$23	Visit Squarespace
	3.77	✕	$39	$39	Visit Shopify
	3.69	✓	$4	$4	Visit Dorik
	3.67	✕	$3.29	$4.99	Visit Zyro

*Monthly cost with annual billing; some plans renew at a higher rate after the first year.

Wix: Best Overall WordPress Alternative

Wix is a drag-and-drop site builder that combines ease of operation and virtually unlimited design options, making it our top WordPress competitor. This beginner-friendly platform allows you to design a fully custom website with all the functionality and features you want. From ecommerce to online appointments, Wix provides the tools you need.

At the heart of Wix is a true drag-and-drop builder that lets you resize objects, position them precisely on the page, edit text, and more. Adding, removing, sizing, and positioning objects is accomplished with simple mouse clicks, and intuitive menus provide modules you can add and customize easily. Check out our Wix tutorial video to learn more.

Wix features more than 900 ready-to-use templates for building your brand presence online. Or you can start from scratch and custom-build a page if you choose. For added functionality, the Wix marketplace hosts 300-plus add-ons for ecommerce, scheduling appointments, taking reservations, managing personal training, and more. If a business function can be managed online, chances are Wix has an add-on for it.

Wix Pricing

Although Wix may seem expensive compared to basic WordPress hosting, Wix’s design capabilities are more than worth it. Plus, Wix sites will likely cost far less after you tally up the cost of WordPress hosting, theme, and plugins. The cost with annual plans is shown in the tabs below, but month-to-month billing is also available.

Free Light Core (Ecommerce)

Cost: $0

What’s included:

• Free website hosted on a Wix subdomain displaying Wix branding
• Free SSL
• 500MB storage
• Basic search engine optimization (SEO) settings
• Social ad integration
• Plugins via Wix Marketplace (some require upgrading to a paid plan)

With the free-forever plan, Wix is one of the best free WordPress alternatives. Take a look at our in-depth Wix review before creating your small business website on Wix.

Visit Wix

Weebly: Best Low-cost Ecommerce Site Builder

Weebly is a website-building platform owned by payment processing company Square. Its alternative to WordPress comes in two versions: the Weebly drag-and-drop editor and the Square Editor, each designed to make building a professional website easy and fast.

Using the Weebly editor begins with selecting templates, of which there are more than 50 organized into categories like portfolio and events. Once you’ve selected a template, simply click on elements to add your own images and text, drag and drop sections and widgets from the left side menu to customize your site, or add apps from the Marketplace with a single click. See how easy it is to build a website on Weebly (using the Weebly editor).

Alternatively, if you opt for the Square editor for business sites, artificial intelligence (AI) will build a template for you based on answers to a few questions. While you won’t have access to the app marketplace, you can customize your template by editing, adding, or deleting sections and widgets. We showcase the Square editor in our article on how to build a restaurant website.

Among Weebly’s core features is the ability to sell products online, even in the free version. Weebly’s intuitive inventory system makes adding products easy, and integration with Square payments is virtually automatic. In the paid version, you can connect a custom domain to your site. Learn how to set up a Weebly ecommerce store step by step.

Weebly Pricing

On price, there is no comparison. With ad-free plans starting at just $12 a month, Weebly’s ecommerce solution is less expensive than most WordPress plugins and themes. Add to that low cost the time you’ll save, and Weebly makes a powerful entry into the list of WordPress alternatives despite its limited design capabilities. Annually billed plan costs are shown below, but monthly billing is also available.

Free Professional Performance

Cost: $0

What’s included:

• Free website hosted on a Weebly subdomain, displaying Weebly and Square branding
• Free SSL
• 500MB storage and bandwidth
• Square payment processing
• Unlimited ecommerce (physical products)
• Online ordering and reservations
• Coupons and gift cards
• Automatic tax calculator
• Inventory management
• Basic SEO
• 24/7 chat and email support

If you’re looking for an ecommerce solution, Weebly ranks among the best alternatives to WordPress. Before building your website, read our Weebly review for more information.

Visit Weebly

IONOS: Cheapest WordPress Alternative for Small Businesses

IONOS is one of the top web hosting providers in the world, so it makes sense they’d offer one of the best website builders available. The IONOS website builder is easy to use and offers enough design flexibility to create a custom website to showcase your small business. Plus, you’ll have a dedicated success consultant you can contact with questions or for help with your site.

Another thing that sets IONOS web builder apart is its library of business types. Simply type in the kind of business you are operating, and IONOS will recommend templates complete with fully licensed, professional stock art, text blocks, and typical pages—all of which you can customize with the point-and-click editor. Intuitive, right-click menus drive customization, producing professional, polished sites in very little time.

With IONOS, you can build a feature-rich ecommerce website with online booking functionality. Depending on your product list, plans range from 500 to 10,000 products. Shipping and payments are integrated into the page builder, as is the ability to sell directly on Facebook and Instagram.

IONOS Pricing

You can build a website with or without a store on IONOS for just $1 a month for the first year, making it the cheapest full-featured WordPress alternative we tested. Comparable functionality with WordPress costs $2.95 a month through a web hosting provider Bluehost, and you still might need to purchase expensive plugins or monthly themes. Keep in mind as you view the plans below that they’re all billed annually, with no month-to-month options.

Plus Pro

Cost: $1/month the first year with or without and online store
Renews at: $15/month with no store or $25/month with a store

What’s included:

• MyWebsite Creator site builder
• 50GB web storage and 200 pages
• Free domain and SSL
• Business email (12GB inbox)
• Competitor tracking with marketingRadar
• Business apps, including an integrated online booking tool
• Email marketing
• Free image library of over 17,000 assets
• Google PageSpeed optimization and auto image compression
• Blogging capabilities
• Fully mobile-responsive
• Personal consultant and 24/7 support
• With a store, sell up to 5,000 physical products with integrated payments, shipping, Google Ads, marketing, and shopping integrations, and social selling

Cheap plans, reliable hosting, and an intuitive site builder make IONOS a great place to build a startup website. Plus, they have easy-to-understand plans and the infrastructure to scale as your website and business grow.

Visit IONOS

GoDaddy: Top WordPress Competitor for Online Booking Tools

For absolute web design beginners in need of a site fast, GoDaddy’s page builder delivers. It is sleek, fast, and template-driven. With just a few clicks, you can have your new small business website up and running. Check out our step-by-step instructions for how to build a website on GoDaddy to see just how easy it can be.

Answer a few questions about your business, and GoDaddy’s artificial design intelligence (ADI) will set up your template. You can then use section-based tools to add and delete premade content blocks, edit images and text, and customize your template’s fonts, colors, and elements like buttons. If you want to change the look of your site, you can’t change templates, but you can choose from about 20 design variants and change them at any time without having to start over.

Once you hit publish, your new website is live online and ready to attract customers. However, if you need robust design elements, content blocks, or more, your options are limited to what’s in the site builder, as there isn’t an app marketplace. Design freedom is also limited since there’s no true drag-and-drop editor.

All plans come with appointment booking, though you’ll have to upgrade to accept payments or deposits, and you’ll need a higher tier plan for recurring payments and subscriptions. Website bots that can be toggled on and off are also included to greet site visitors or respond to customer order-related questions. The bots also collect information so you and your team can follow up.

GoDaddy Website Builder Pricing

GoDaddy’s site builder is available with its free forever plan or paid plans for web hosting on your domain starting at $9.99 (making it slightly more per month than WordPress via Bluehost, for example). However, when you factor in the hidden costs of WordPress, GoDaddy is likely to be a cheaper alternative to WordPress, and it comes with a free SSL certificate.

Free Basic Commerce

Cost: $0

What’s included:

• Website hosted on a GoDaddy subdomain with GoDaddy branding
• Free SSL
• Up to 50 web pages (regardless of plan)
• One-time appointment booking
• Collect payments via PayPal paylinks
• Limited access to GoDaddy studio for custom graphics and videos
• Integrate social networks
• Connect and manage your Google Business page and Yelp profiles

GoDaddy’s ease of use and built-in appointment booking tools make it the best WordPress alternative for service-based businesses. Read our full GoDaddy review to learn more about what you can do with this versatile site builder.

Visit GoDaddy

HubSpot: Best Integrated Sales & Marketing Tools

If your business depends on inbound sales or search engine optimization (SEO), consider CMS Hub, the website builder from HubSpot. HubSpot is an industry leader in online marketing, sales management, and SEO. The CMS Hub is packed with features to help you succeed on those fronts, as well as on lead generation, where it truly excels.

The HubSpot builder is template-driven, and you can apply any of a number of templates to each page. Once the template is set up, you can customize most elements by navigating through a series of menus. The menus are complex but thorough, and you can create a feature-rich site by dragging and dropping modules into place.

While HubSpot offers a free-forever version, you’ll most likely have to upgrade to a paid plan for the features you need. HubSpot’s builder sports thousands of specialized apps, including appointment scheduling and reservations for restaurants or bed-and-breakfast establishments. It’s the marketing and SEO integrations that set them apart, though. Integrating with a client relationship manager (CRM) system takes just a few clicks.

HubSpot CMS Hub Pricing

HubSpot offers a free-forever plan, and paid plans from $23 per month. However, plan prices escalate quickly from there, and if you want to integrate email marketing, the starting monthly cost will increase by $18 for up to 1,000 marketing contacts. See what’s included in the free and base plans by clicking the tabs below.

Free Starter Professional

Cost: $0

What’s included:

• Build a website on a domain you own or a HubSpot subdomain
• HubSpot branding
• Up to 25 pages, 20 landing pages, and 100 blog posts
• Access to thousands of free and paid apps in the marketplace
• Messenger integration
• Free SSL
• SEO features and guidance
• Ecommerce and payment processing via plugins
• 24/7 security monitoring and threat detection
• Ability to integrate other HubSpot apps (e.g., CRM, customer service, and so on)
• Ticketing, lead generation, and meeting booking bots
• 2,000 email sends per month
• Webforms for lead generation
• Multi-language sites
• Reporting with up to three dashboards (10 reports each)
• Content delivery network (CDN) for fast site loading worldwide

HubSpot is ideal for business-to-business (B2B) sellers and any company that wants integrated lead generation and nurturing tools. Read our HubSpot review to learn more about HubSpot’s website builder, including who it’s best for.

Visit HubSpot

Squarespace: Best Page Builder for Contemporary Design

Squarespace templates are the most design-forward, with visually impactful designs, lots of white space, and a sleek, modern feel. Editing is simple, with most tasks accomplished by simply clicking elements to modify or replace them. In addition to intuitive editing tools, the dashboard includes SEO guidance to ensure your site can get found online.

Squarespace’s ease of use makes it great for beginner designers. It’s section-based, but also provides drag-and-drop editing with its still relatively new Fluid Engine editor. With more than 100 templates to get you started, you can create an original website without much hassle. Check out our tutorial on how to build a website with Squarespace.

Using the design tab, apply color schemes or custom fonts to all pages on your site. Also, Squarespace supports custom coding, so if you want to learn to code special design elements, you can. Coding is optional, though, and thanks to Squarespace extensions as well as offered add-ons, you can build complex sites without ever touching a line of code.

Squarespace Pricing

Squarespace is cheaper than comparable WordPress setups thanks to native features, including ecommerce, depending on your plan. You’ll save considerably over buying and maintaining WordPress plugins. That being said, Squarespace is not the cheapest nor the easiest to use, and email marketing, appointments, and restaurant features cost more.

Basic Core Plus Add-ons

Cost: $16/month billed annually or $25 month-to-month

What’s included:

• Free domain and SSL (or connect a domain you own)
• Unlimited storage and bandwidth, up to 1,000 pages
• Marketplace integrations (about three dozen)
• SEO features and guidance
• Add a Google map to any page
• Completely responsive and mobile-friendly
• Change your template anytime without starting over
• Two contributors

Want to learn more about Squarespace before signing up for a 14-day free trial? Read our full Squarespace review now.

Visit Squarespace

Shopify: Best for Large Ecommerce Sites & Dropshippers

Shopify specializes in ecommerce solutions for small and medium-sized online retailers. So it makes sense that its page builder is tailored to creating an online shopping experience that places products front and center. Before diving in, read our step-by-step tutorial on how to set up a Shopify store.

From the first steps of the setup, Shopify focuses on your products. You’re asked about the kind of products you’re selling, whether you’ll be shipping them yourself or dropshipping directly from the manufacturer or distributor, and your physical address. From there, customization is simple using Shopify’s templates system. If you choose the dropshipping option, Shopify will allow you to browse product-sourcing apps for products you can add to your store.

Shopify includes everything you need to get selling and fast. However, some functions you may need, such as appointment booking or reservations, require additional apps. Shopify offers hundreds of apps to add the functionality you need, and many of these apps are available for free. For an additional monthly fee, you can utilize Shopify POS for brick-and-mortar sales. Shopify POS and its online sales system even share an inventory.

Shopify Pricing

Shopify plans start with the Basic service at $29, making it one of the more expensive WordPress alternatives. The primary differentiator between each level of service is the credit card service fees, which start at 2.9% and go down as you increase your monthly subscription. With WordPress, your monthly costs could easily slide above Shopify’s entry-level paid plan.

Basic Shopify Advanced

Monthly cost: $39
Credit card rate: 2.9% + 30 cents per transaction
Shopify POS cash sales rate: 2.7%
Sales reports: Basic
Shipping discount: Up to 77%
Staff accounts: Two

To learn more about what’s included, read our latest update to Shopify pricing and use the article’s free calculator to determine what your fees would be. Or, delve deeper into the online store builder’s features and capabilities by reading our Shopify review.

Visit Shopify

Dorik: Best for Membership Websites

If you plan on having a members-only section of your website, look no further than Dorik. Starting with the free version, you can deliver content in password-secured areas through their built-in membership system. However, if you want to accept payments for those memberships through your website, you must upgrade to a premium plan.

Also featured in our list of the best small business website builders, Dorik is a powerful page builder for creating custom websites. It uses highly modifiable templates and an intuitive, menu-driven page builder, or you can start with a blank page and place the content blocks and elements you desire from a menu of options.

Adding, removing, and creating content is simple, and a single options pane provides comprehensive style and content options. Moving content, images, and other elements between sections is also simple, accomplished by dragging and dropping elements in the navigation tree. Likewise, styling text and elements can be completed individually or site-wide through the global settings panel.

Dorik Pricing

Dorik pricing is relatively reasonable compared to WordPress, though some paid integrations can make the system more expensive. Notably, there’s only one paid CMS plan for an individual website—to expand your site’s 3,000-member limit, upgrade to an agency plan or contact Dorik for custom pricing. Here’s what’s included in the free and premium plans.

Free Personal Agency

Cost: $0

What’s included:

• Website hosted on a Dorik subdomain, with Dorik branding
• Free SSL
• 25 static pages (no blog)
• Up to 500 members (must upgrade to charge for memberships)

Dorik is a relative newcomer to the website builder marketplace. As such, we expect that additional plans may be introduced in the future, as well as new features to make it an even more powerful all-in-one WordPress alternative.

Visit Dorik

Zyro: Best for Digital Marketing Integrations & Built-in AI

Zyro is the page builder built and managed by budget-friendly web hosting provider (and parent company) Hostinger. Only a couple of years old, Zyro is evolving into one of the stronger competitors to WordPress. It’s fast, sleek, and easy to use. Zyro also incorporates an artificial intelligence (AI) assistant to help with everything from writing copy to creating a logo.

To get started, simply choose a template and start building. Editing is simple with the use of point-and-click and right-click menus. Also, Zyro supports layering with options to bring elements forward or send them back behind other elements, similar to PowerPoint. Adding custom elements is accomplished by accessing the elements menu. Zyro supports embedding custom code via shortcodes as well.

Digital marketing is integrated into the Zyro system, allowing you to easily incorporate Google Tag Manager to track on-page behavior, Google Analytics to examine site traffic, Facebook Messenger for chat support, and Facebook Pixel for advertising support. Configuration is simple, and Zyro walks you through it. Additionally, a powerful AI program helps you write site copy and create an original logo if you need one.

Zyro Pricing

Zyro plans start at just $2.59 per month, which puts them on par with the cheapest WordPress hosting providers. When you consider paid plugins and a professional theme for WordPress, Zyro beats WordPress on pricing, and it’s one of the most affordable WordPress competitors overall.

Website Business

Cost: $3.29/month the first year, renews at $5.99 (annual billing), or $11.99 month to month

What’s included:

• Free domain and SSL
• Three months of business email free
• AI content writer in the dashboard
• AI brand building tools (logo, slogan)
• Google Ads and Facebook remarketing integrations
• WhatsApp and Messenger integrations
• 24/7 support
• Reliable web hosting by Hostinger
• Automatic site optimizations

Like Dorik, Zyro is newer to the website building ecosphere as well as our list of the best alternatives to WordPress. We’re very impressed with the platform’s thoughtful digital marketing capability inclusions and integrated AI—and you can try it out for free to see if it’s right for you.

Visit Zyro

How We Evaluated WordPress Alternatives

In looking at WordPress competitors, we considered the customization capabilities that each site builder offers for both design and functionality. We also looked at how easy it is to use each of these site builders, and the pricing affordability. The best WordPress alternative for your business will have a good combination of the three. Click on any of the tabs for more information about how we evaluated these WordPress competitors.

Methodology weights

Pricing 30%

General Features 20%

Niche Features 20%

Support 10%

Expert Opinion 20%

Pricing

Cost is important, especially for small businesses with limited budgets. WordPress alternatives were rated for the services they offer on each plan. Not only did we look at their basic prices, but we also considered additional costs like premium integrations, extra features, and other expenses not included in each plan.

General Features

Features like high storage and bandwidth limits are essential to note when choosing the best website builder for your business. We also looked at built-in features, like SEO and analytics tools, as well as if these site builders offer anything extra, like free domain names.

Niche Features

All site builders have unique features that make them better for one business vs another. A few have specific features your business might need that aren’t available with competitors, such as ecommerce tools, booking systems, and payment options.

Support

Good developer and community support is always a bonus when choosing the right site builder for your business. To determine the best, we compared support hours, the different channels to reach out for help, and the quality of support you get.

Expert Opinion

With tons of firsthand experience in building websites, we judged each of the site builders based on how easy and intuitive we found them, how useful we think their features are, their prices, the quality of the services they offer, and reviews from real customers online.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Is there a reason not to use WordPress?

WordPress is popular—it gives virtually unlimited customization for website design and functionality, and can be budget-friendly. One of the reasons not to use WordPress, however, is when you start adding up the cost of hosting, domain, email accounts, themes, and plugins, because costs escalate quickly. Plus, it’s not the easiest, especially for beginners, as there is a significant learning curve.

Is Wix or WordPress easier?

Wix is far easier to use than WordPress. Before building a WordPress website, you’ll have to get hosting, a domain, an SSL certificate, and install WordPress. WordPress isn’t intuitive, so you will need to buy a premium theme and page builder for the type of drag-and-drop editing similar to Wix. Plus, you’ll have to sort through thousands of plugins and install and maintain them over time, whereas Wix features and integrations are built in. Learn more in our Wix vs WordPress review.

Is WordPress becoming obsolete?

WordPress is the most popular website content management system in the world, so it’s not in danger of becoming obsolete soon. However, all-in-one website solutions like Wix, Squarespace, and Shopify are beginning to make a dent in WordPress’ market share. As site builders continue to outshine WordPress for ease of use and add more and more functionality, look for that trend to continue.

Bottom Line

Just because WordPress is the most popular website content management system (CMS) in the world doesn’t mean it’s the best—or the easiest. With today’s all-in-one site builders, you can set up a website for your small business that rivals or even exceeds WordPress’ capabilities in a fraction of the time and at a far more affordable cost.

We recommend Wix as the best alternative to WordPress. Its plans include everything you need to get up and running, and Wix consists of several vital features, such as SEO tools, ecommerce, and appointment booking. Plus, with their free-forever plan, you can try Wix and start building your website for no money out of pocket to ensure it is right for you.

Try Wix Today