Wix is extremely popular and its plans are feature-rich. However, depending on the features you need, a Wix competitor might be better or less expensive. Wix plans also don’t include unlimited storage, and the sheer number of design tools and options could frustrate beginners. We ranked the best Wix alternatives below based on the use case to help you choose.
- Best Wix alternative for ecommerce and restaurants: Weebly
- Most personalized support: IONOS
- Best for membership sites: Dorik
- Best artificial intelligence (AI) tools for writing: Hostinger
- Most advanced sales and marketing tools: HubSpot
- Best for appointment-based services: GoDaddy
- Top choice for creatives and portfolio-based sites: Squarespace
- Best way to build a WordPress website: Bluehost
- Wix & Best Wix Competitors at a Glance
- Weebly: Best Wix Alternative for Ecommerce & Restaurants
- IONOS: Cheapest Alternative to Wix & Best Personalized Support
- Dorik: Best for Paid Memberships
- Hostinger: Best AI Tools & Writing Assistant
- HubSpot: Best Wix Alternative for Advanced Marketing Features
- GoDaddy: Best Wix Competitor for Appointment Booking
- Squarespace: Best Wix Competitor for Sleek Website Design
- Bluehost: Best for WordPress Sites & Multiple Websites
- Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
- Bottom Line
Wix & Best Wix Competitors at a Glance
| Wix & Top Alternatives | Score | Free Plan | Starting Cost* | Base Ecommerce* | Free Domain | Learn More |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| N/A | ✓ | $16 | $27 | ✓ | Wix Review | |
| 4.6 | ✓ | $12 | $0 | ✓ | Visit Weebly | |
| 4.3 | ✕ | $1** | $1** | ✓ | Visit IONOS | |
| 4.2 | ✓ | $4 | $4 | ✕ | Visit Dorik | |
| 4.1 | ✕ | $2.99 | $2.99 | ✓ | Visit Hostinger | |
| 4.1 | ✓ | $23 | $23 | ✕ | Visit HubSpot | |
| 4.0 | ✓ | $11.99 | $24.99 | ✕ | Visit GoDaddy | |
| 4.0 | ✕ | $16 | $23 | ✓ | Visit Squarespace | |
| 3.9 | ✕ | $2.95** | $9.95** | ✕ | Visit Bluehost |
*Monthly cost with annual billing
**Introductory rate for first six months, with annual billing; renews at a higher rate
Weebly: Best Wix Alternative for Ecommerce & Restaurants
Weebly is the website builder offering from credit card processing powerhouse Square. It includes robust ecommerce and payment processing in all of its plans, starting for free. Among these is the ability to sell unlimited physical products and to take online orders, making it a great option for restaurants as well as online stores, and the best alternative to Wix for ecommerce.
Here are some factors to keep in mind when comparing Weebly to Wix:
- Both have free plans, but Weebly comes with full ecommerce, Wix doesn’t.
- Weebly’s ad-free plans offer unlimited storage, Wix has storage caps in all plans.
- Weebly is the best restaurant website builder overall and cheaper than Wix, but Wix has niche features built-in for restaurants that you need plugins to do with Weebly.
- Wix ecommerce plans cost more, but also have more niche and advanced functionality.
- Wix is the best website builder for SEO; Weebly’s SEO is fairly basic.
- Wix’s templates, design tools, and drag-and-drop website building tools are better.
A built-in email marketing system called Weebly Promote is included in all levels of service. Weebly also offers membership features beginning with its Professional plan. Similar functions in Wix require the installation of add-ons and the more expensive Wix Business plan. Weebly includes other features at its most basic levels as well.
For example, Weebly users can integrate either the GloriaFood Restaurant System or the Square for Restaurants app, both of which provide online ordering and reservations management. Comparable functions in Wix require a Business subscription or higher.
Weebly Pricing & Plans
Monthly Cost: $0
What’s included:
- 500MB of storage and bandwidth
- Free SSL certificate
- Native ecommerce tools
- Page-level SEO
- Lead capture forms
- Chat and email support
Monthly cost: $12 with annual billing or $16 month to month
Build on everything in plans below with:
- Eliminate all Weebly and Square ads
- Free domain or connect one you own
- Unlimited storage
- Sell digital downloads and products
- Shipping calculator
- Print shipping labels
- Pop-up notifications
- Advanced site statistics
- Password protection
- Phone support
Monthly cost: $26 with annual billing or $29 month to month
Build on everything in plans below with:
- Accept payments through PayPal
- Item reviews
- Abandoned cart emails
- Advanced ecommerce insights
- Priority support
Learn more about building websites on Weebly:
- How to build a website on Weebly with the Weebly editor (for personal websites)
- See what makes Weebly one of the best free website builders overall
- How to create a restaurant website (demos use of the Square Online editor)
- How to build a Weebly ecommerce store
Weebly’s primary function is as an ecommerce solution, and this is understandably where Weebly shines. With unlimited storage and bandwidth, you can build the ecommerce site you need in just a few easy steps. Read our Weebly review to learn more, then head over to Weebly to try it out with a free account before committing to a paid plan.
IONOS: Cheapest Alternative to Wix & Best Personalized Support
IONOS is an all-in-one website builder marketed to beginners. Introductory pricing starts at just $1 per month, making IONOS the cheapest all-in-one site builder we reviewed. That includes ecommerce sites for the first year as well. The $1 per month cost for the first six months includes a business domain name, SSL security to protect site visitors’ data, and a professional email address.
When comparing Wix and IONOS, keep in mind that:
- Wix has a free plan, IONOS doesn’t have one.
- IONOS paid plans start at $1 per month the first six, Wix plans start at $16.
- IONOS is much cheaper the first year, especially for ecommerce.
- Wix has more robust ecommerce tools.
- Wix offers integrated dropshipping in some plans, but IONOS does not.
- Sell unlimited products on Wix Business plans; IONOS limits products on all plans.
- IONOS comes with built-in email marketing; with Wix you’ll need a plugin.
- IONOS plans include a business email account; Wix doesn’t.
IONOS also offers industry-leading technical support. Representatives are available via phone 24/7 to provide you with the assistance you need. Plus, every IONOS plan includes access to a personal success consultant who can help you if you get stuck building your website. Wix support is available 24/7, but support is limited mostly to technical issues. On support, IONOS is better than Wix, hands down.
Both Wix and IONOS rank highly when it comes to search engine optimization (SEO). However, Wix has the edge with the automatic application of schema markup to help Google index your site. Wix also provides built-in SEO tools and guidance, whereas with IONOS, you should plan to tap your personal consultant for ways to better optimize your site.
IONOS Website Builder Pricing
Cost per month: $1 for first six months
Renews at: $15 per month
What’s included:
- 50GB of storage
- 200 web pages plus unlimited blogging
- Free domain and SSL
- Free email address with 12GB of storage
- Built-in AI writer
- Email marketing
- Blog
- Multi-lingual websites
- Online booking tool
- Competitor tracking via marketingRadar
Cost per month: $15 for 6 months
Renews at: $25 per month
Pro includes everything in Plus, in addition to:
- Unlimited storage and web pages
- 50GB email storage
- Advanced analytics via SiteAnalytics Plus
- SEO optimization with rankingCoach Essential
Monthly cost: $1 for first six months
Renews at: $25 per month
Plus with Ecommerce includes everything in the Plus non-commerce plan, in addition to:
- Robust ecommerce solution
- Google Ads, Google Remarketing, and Google Shopping
- Mobile app for shop management
- Popular payment methods
- Social selling
Monthly cost: $25 for 6 months
Renews at: $50 per month
Pro with Ecommerce includes everything in the Plus+Store and Pro non-commerce plan, in addition to:
- Advanced ecommerce features like favorites, wish lists, and product filters
- Advanced product SEO
- Popular payment methods
- Social Selling
IONOS provides solid features for affordable prices. Its plans are all-inclusive, with a free domain name, email address, and SSL certificate. See why it nearly always tops our list of the best cheap website builders.
IONOS offers one of the fastest and cheapest ways to create and publish a website for any small business. Your site will look professional and have built-in SEO to get found online and the marketing tools needed to spread the word about your products or services.
Dorik: Best for Paid Memberships
All Dorik CMS (short for content management system) plans include member-based access, including the free one. Starting with the $48 a year for the Personal plan, you can charge for memberships, subscriptions, services, and other types of digital products. The Personal plan accommodates up to 3,000 paid memberships. For unlimited memberships, you can upgrade to the Agency plan for $399 a year.
Here are some key factors when comparing Dorik and Wix:
- Dorik includes memberships on all accounts and paid memberships and subscriptions in the base tier. With Wix, you’ll need the second Business plan for paid memberships.
- Dorik offers unlimited storage and bandwidth on all plans. Wix caps storage on all plans.
- Dorik supports unlimited blogging, while Wix is limited to about 4,000 posts.
- Dorik offers 75 templates vs Wix’s 900-plus templates.
Dorik CMS is available in four tiers, including the free-forever introductory tier. On that tier, your website is hosted on a Dorik subdomain. Beginning with the Personal plan, you can connect a custom domain—which is included in your purchase for the first year. Dorik also offers a drag-and-drop page builder, enabling you to drop modules and content sections into professionally designed templates. It’s an intuitive and powerful tool for building your website.
Another feature of Dorik CMS is the ability to have multiple collaborators working together on your site. The Personal plan allows up to five collaborators, while the Agency plan lets you have unlimited numbers of team members empowered to work on your website.
Dorik Pricing & Plans
Monthly cost: $0
What’s included:
- Unlimited storage and pageviews (bandwidth)
- Free SSL certificate
- Global Content Delivery Network (CDN)
- Up to 500 non-paying members
- Unlimited blog posts
- 25 web pages
Monthly cost: $4, billed annually
The Personal plan includes everything in the Free plan, plus:
- Up to five collaborators
- Up to 3,000 paid members
- 100 web pages and unlimited blogging
- Image optimization
- Premium templates and content blocks
Monthly cost: $33.25, billed annually
The Agency plan includes everything in the Personal and Free plans, plus:
- Up to 25 custom domains
- Unlimited paid memberships
- Unlimited collaborators
- Unlimited pages
- White labeling
While Dorik offers unlimited storage and bandwidth on all plans, even the free one, both the Free plan and Personal plan have caps on the number of pages you can host. The Free plan allows you to create up to 25 static pages, while the Personal account expands that to up to 100 static pages. Unlimited pages are available starting with the Agency plan.
Dorik CMS’ free-forever plan means you can build your website and experiment with the CMS risk-free. The Personal plan has most of the features small businesses need to build a website. Get started today for free and then upgrade to a paid plan for as little as $48 a year.
Hostinger: Best AI Tools & Writing Assistant
Hostinger features a state-of-the-art artificial intelligence (AI) writing assistant that can make quick work out of web copy. Simply feed the AI assistant a little information about your subject and it will produce text you can then edit to fit your needs. Hostinger’s AI assistant is one of the most advanced AI writing assistants in this emerging field, and it’s included in the $2.99 per month package.
When deciding whether Hostinger or Wix is better for your website, consider the following:
- Hostinger is significantly cheaper than Wix ($2.99 per month the first year or $11.99 month to month).
- Hostinger includes ecommerce in the base plan, whereas with Wix this will cost at least $27 a month.
- Wix ecommerce plans are far more robust, including recurring payments for subscriptions or memberships, which isn’t supported by Hostinger.
- Hostinger allows up to 100 websites on its plan; you can only build one website per each paid Wix plan.
- Hostinger includes business email accounts; Wix doesn’t.
- Hostinger provides far more storage.
An AI writing assistant isn’t the only reason to consider Hostinger. The Hostinger builder includes dozens of attractive, contemporary templates that you can use to get your website up and fast. The templates are fast-loading, visually appealing, and easy to customize with Hostinger’s drag-and-drop editor.
Hostinger Pricing & Plans
Cost per month: $2.99 for the first year, with annual billing renewing at $8.99 per month. Or pay $11.99 month to month, plus a $4.99 one-time setup fee.
What’s included:
- Free domain and unlimited SSL certificates
- Up to 100 email accounts, 1GB of storage each
- Up to 100 websites, 100GB total (shared) storage
- Unlimited bandwidth
- Ecommerce for physical or digital products
- Easy integration of Google Ads, Facebook Ads, remarketing, and AdSense
- AI content generator, logo maker, and heatmap page engagement analyzer
- Build with the Hostinger site builder or on WordPress in the same plan
- 24/7 customer support
Unlike Wix, Hostinger does not have a robust app market for additional functionality. So if you’re looking for tons of functions beyond the basics, you’ll need to go to Wix. But if you’re looking for standard functionality like ecommerce, online appointment booking, or selling digital downloads, Hostinger is a great choice for the money.
HubSpot: Best Wix Alternative for Advanced Marketing Features
If you’re looking to develop long-term customer relationships or generate sales leads, HubSpot CMS is a Wix alternative you should seriously consider. The template-driven editor incorporates many of HubSpot’s sales and marketing features. This gives you easy access to over 30 free HubSpot marketing, customer relationship management (CRM), and customer support tools.
These tools include multiple dashboards and reports, email tracking and notifications, advertising management, a ticketing system, email marketing, and more. HubSpot even includes contact management and activity tracking for free. Gaining similar functionality on Wix can be very expensive when the functions are available at all.
HubSpot’s free-forever plan makes this an exceptional offer for small businesses that have a revenue operations team structure. You can integrate HubSpot’s CRM for free for lead management and nurturing through built-in or third-party email marketing tools, like Mailchimp. Create content for every stage of your sales pipeline to move leads through the buying journey from awareness to conversion and loyalty.
Keep the following in mind when choosing between Wix and HubSpot CMS:
- HubSpot has more advanced sales and marketing tools, even in the free plan.
- You can use HubSpot CMS to build a free website on a domain you own, whereas your free Wix site will be on a subdomain.
- HubSpot is fairly intuitive, but not as fully customizable as Wix.
- Wix offers far more (and better quality) templates and premade content blocks.
- Both have extensive app marketplaces and integration capabilities.
- HubSpot’s paid plans start at $23 vs $16 with Wix.
- Wix has native robust ecommerce; with HubSpot, you’ll need third-party apps to replicate.
Notably, HubSpot is the only all-in-one website builder that allows you to build for free on a domain you own. However, this site will be limited to 25 pages, 20 landing pages, and 100 blog posts, and will display HubSpot branding (which detracts from your own brand presence).
HubSpot Pricing & Plans
Cost per month: $0
What’s included:
- Connect a custom domain
- Free SSL certificate
- 25 pages, 20 landing pages, and 100 blog posts
- Unlimited storage and bandwidth
- Integrate HubSpot’s freemium Sales, Support, Marketing, and Operations hubs
- Multilingual sites (limited to three languages in free and Starter plan)
Cost per month: $23 or $25 month to month
Starter includes all of the features of the Free plan, plus:
- 50 web pages, 20 landing pages, and 10,000 blog posts
- HubSpot Payments (U.S. customers only) with ACH and card transactions
- Multiple currencies (five)
- 2,000 email sends/month
- Three dashboards and 10 reports/dashboard
- Ad management for up to two audiences
- Marketplace with thousands of Apps/Plugins
- Email and in-app chat support
HubSpot has an extensive collection of “freemium” (free starter plans and premium plans that scale) products you can integrate with HubSpot CMS websites:
- CMS Hub with a website, blog, content creation tools, SEO and content strategy, lead generation webforms, live chat, enterprise-grade security monitoring and threat detection, landing pages, social media, email marketing, advertising integrations, and over 1,000 ready-made plugins in the app marketplace
- Marketing Hub with email marketing, marketing automation, SEO tools, video hosting, social media, website CMS, blogging, landing pages, and more
- Sales Hub with the world-class HubSpot CRM, sales automation, e-signature document signing, predictive lead scoring, drip campaigns, multi-deal pipelines, and custom reports
- Customer Service Hub with ticketing, knowledge base, automations, multi-ticket pipelines, video creation, custom fields, and goals
- Operations Hub with automation, data quality automation, datasets, data sharing, workflow extensions, team management, permissions, and more
Though it might have impressive marketing and service features, HubSpot’s design features are fairly basic, and it’s not as intuitive to use as Wix. While upper-tier plans are extremely expensive, the Starter tier gives businesses plenty of tools to work with—especially for businesses looking to generate leads with scalable, enterprise-quality tools to align sales and marketing efforts.
Learn more about building websites on HubSpot:
- Find out why HubSpot CMS is one of the best blogging platforms for beginners
- Learn how to build a HubSpot website
- Read our expert HubSpot CMS review
On the Free and Starter plans, you get HubSpot’s live chat features, social media marketing tools, forms, and basic analytics. Paid plans start at $23 per month with additional functionality like email marketing, custom reporting, and ad management. For businesses looking to engage potential customers or create a better relationship with them, HubSpot is the best Wix alternative.
GoDaddy: Best Wix Competitor for Appointment Booking
GoDaddy includes a fairly robust appointment booking system on all plans. However, if you want to book recurring appointments or take online payments for appointments, you’ll need to upgrade to the Premium or either of the Commerce plans. These plans include advanced appointment features, as well as a host of other options not available on lower plans.
As a top Wix competitor, here are a few key considerations as far as the GoDaddy website builder:
- Comparable GoDaddy plans are cheaper than Wix, albeit less full-featured, especially for ecommerce.
- GoDaddy’s plans all have unlimited storage, which Wix only offers on its most expensive plan.
- Wix allows up to 100 pages and 4,000 blog posts; GoDaddy caps this at 50 total.
- Wix has far better SEO features.
- Wix has much more advanced design capabilities.
- Wix has unlimited products on all commerce plans; GoDaddy’s cheapest commerce plan has a limit.
- Wix Bookings comes in its $27 per month plan with advanced features, while GoDaddy has one-time appointments on its free plan; advanced booking features start in the Premium plan at $21.99 per month for the first year.
- GoDaddy’s plans come with built-in email marketing tools; with Wix, you’ll need a plugin.
GoDaddy’s AI-powered template builder creates your template and populates it with placeholder text based on your answers to onboarding questions. After that, you’re free to customize it with your own content and images, and set global controls for colors, fonts, and more. See how easy it is to build a website on GoDaddy in a few simple steps.
There is no app store, so the functions that are included are all you get. For some, the simplicity is a drawback. But for beginners, it’s a much simpler way to quickly make a small business website.
If you’re looking for a good, simple site fast, GoDaddy may be the solution for you. While GoDaddy lacks the advanced functionality and design freedom of Wix, it’s more affordable than Wix if you don’t need advanced or niche tools.
GoDaddy Pricing & Plans
Cost per month: $0
What’s included:
- Free SSL certificate
- Unlimited storage and bandwidth
- One-time appointments
- Website chatbots
- Ability to connect and manage your Google My Business (GMB) and Yelp listings
- GoDaddy Studio to create branded content (limited access)
Cost per month: $11.99 with annual billing or $16.99 month to month
The Basic plan includes everything in the Free plan, plus:
- Unified inbox for chat and messaging
- Scheduled social posts for one social media platform
- 100 email marketing sends monthly
- Appointment confirmation emails
- GoDaddy Payments and point of sale
- Sales tracking dashboard
- Full access to GoDaddy Studio
- Built-in website optimizer
Cost per month: $21.99 with annual billing or $26.99 month to month
The Premium plan includes everything in the Basic and Free plans, plus:
- Recurring appointments
- Online payments for appointments and deposits
- Email and text reminders for appointments
- Google Smart Campaign paid search ad integration
- Boost social posts and advertise on Facebook and Instagram
- Free business phone number
- 25,000 email marketing sends monthly
Cost per month: $24.99 with annual billing or $29.99 month to month
The Commerce plan includes everything in the Basic, Free, and Premium plans, plus:
- Ecommerce for up to 5,000 physical or digital products
- 50 orders/month Marketplace and social selling
- Auto-inventory syncing
- Discounts, coupons, promotions, and sales badges
- Sell gift cards
- Shipping discounts and real-time shipping rates
- Order email automations
- Shoppable social posts
GoDaddy provides unlimited storage and bandwidth on all plans, while Wix only offers unlimited storage on its most expensive plan. However, storage and bandwidth aren’t the only factors to consider. GoDaddy limits websites to 50 pages, whereas Wix websites allow up to 1,000 plus a blog. If you’re building a content-rich site with many pages, Wix is the better choice.
Learn more about the GoDaddy website builder:
- Learn how to build a website on GoDaddy in just five steps
- See how Wix vs GoDaddy stack up against each other in detail
- Find out which GoDaddy alternatives could be a better choice
- Read our full GoDaddy website builder review for more information
Where GoDaddy edges out Wix is for online appointment booking. All GoDaddy plans have appointment booking, including the Free plan. For recurring appointments or accept online payment for appointments, upgrade at least to the Premium plan.
Squarespace: Best Wix Competitor for Sleek Website Design
Squarespace is one of the most popular Wix competitors and one of the best website builders for small businesses we reviewed. Its popularity is based on sleek, modern templates that allow you to easily create a professional-looking website in very little time. With Squarespace’s Fluid Engine, it’s now easy to move design elements around with full drag-and-drop editing, as well as to add a more custom look to the templates.
What draws users to the platform are Squarespace’s free templates. Though there are only 110 (vs 900-plus with Wix), the templates are visually stunning and streamlined. They load fast, provide design flexibility, and the resulting websites are visually powerful. However, if you’re looking for a larger number of templates, Wix is going to win, hands down.
Here are some key considerations when deciding if Squarespace is a better fit for your website than Wix:
- Squarespace has unlimited storage in all plans (Wix only offers this in the highest tier).
- Change templates any time with Squarespace, whereas with Wix, you have to start over or create a new site and copy your content over.
- Squarespace templates are more mobile-friendly than Wix. With Wix, you’ll need to tweak your design across device types (smartphone, tablet, desktop).
- Both have drag-and-drop editors.
- Squarespace has 100-plus modern, sleek templates, but far fewer than Wix (over 900).
- Wix’s SEO tools are easier to access and use as well as more advanced, thanks to auto-image compression and schema markup.
For further customization, Squarespace supports custom CSS code and has a few dozen third-party apps. Both Wix and Squarespace perform well when it comes to SEO, though Wix is more advanced.
Squarespace Pricing & Plans
Cost per month: $16 with annual billing or $23 month to month
What’s included:
- Free domain and SSL
- Unlimited storage and bandwidth
- Third-party integrations
- Video Maker
- SEO guides and checklists
- Google Analytics integration
- Two contributors
- Custom merchandise design
Cost per month: $23 with annual billing or $33 month to month
The Business plan includes everything in the Personal plan, plus:
- Advanced analytics
- Pop-ups and banners
- CSS and JavaScript code access
- Google Workspace plus email for one year
- Integrated ecommerce (3% transaction fee)
- Sell physical or digital goods, or custom merchandise
- Unlimited contributors
Cost per month: $27 with annual billing or $36 month to month
The Basic Commerce plan includes everything in the Personal and Business plans, plus:
- 0% transaction fees
- Advanced merchandising features
- Social selling on Facebook and Instagram
- Low stock labels to create urgency
Cost per month: $49 with annual billing or $65 month to month
Advanced Commerce includes everything in Basic Commerce, Personal, and Business plans plus:
- Cart abandonment
- Advanced shipping
- Advanced discounting
- Sell subscriptions
- Commerce APIs (application programming interfaces, or custom integrations)
Perhaps the biggest differentiator between Squarespace and Wix is cost. Wix provides a ton of functionality in even its most basic levels of service. With Squarespace, your cost for appointment booking, member areas, email marketing, and hospitality tools for restaurants can go from ultra-affordable to uber-expensive quickly. Wix manages the same functions at a much lower cost.
Learn more about Squarespace:
- Check out our video tutorial and learn how to use Squarespace to build your site
- Read our expert Squarespace review for a deep dive into the platform’s pros and cons
- See what makes Squarespace one of the best drag-and-drop website builders
- Get more options in our list of the best Squarespace alternatives
Squarespace Personal plan includes everything you need to build a simple, elegant website, starting at $16 per month when billed annually. For ecommerce, you’ll need to step up to one of the higher tiers of service. Take advantage of the 14-day free trial to see whether it’s the best option for your website.
Bluehost: Best for WordPress Sites & Multiple Websites
Bluehost Builder is the proprietary WordPress page builder that comes free in all Bluehost web hosting plans. The page builder includes about 300 free and (in upper tiers) 30 premium templates with section-based editing, premade content blocks, and easy access to your site’s global settings for fonts, colors, menus, and more.
Here are some things to keep in mind when comparing WordPress and Bluehost Builder to Wix:
- Bluehost’s site builder for WordPress is a bit less intuitive and beginner-friendly than Wix (as is WordPress overall).
- Bluehost includes free emails on your domain; Wix doesn’t.
- Base tier is cheaper than Wix, but WordPress websites cost more in the end.
- Bluehost’s ecommerce plans cost less than Wix’s but aren’t as robust.
- Bluehost offers unlimited storage and bandwidth; Wix only offers it on the highest-tier plan.
- Wix has dozens of native features and capabilities whereas all WordPress (WP) functionality comes through plugins you need to find, vet, install, and maintain.
- It’s far easier to build and maintain a website on Wix vs WordPress.
- WordPress websites are better for search engine optimization (SEO), though harder to set up as it requires plugins and code embedding.
- WordPress website capabilities are virtually limitless; Wix, while very robust, can’t match WordPress in this respect.
Because Bluehost Builder uses WordPress, you’ll have access to tens of thousands of plugins to add endless functionality to your website. There’s a WordPress plugin for everything from hotel reservations to inventory management systems to image editing. In fact, the sheer number of plugins can become overwhelming, and this may deter you from building your site using Bluehost Builder.
Learn more about building a WordPress website:
- Before you decide to build a WordPress site, prepare yourself for the challenge with our list of WordPress tips and tricks
- Check out the steps for building a WordPress website
- Explore alternatives to Bluehost Builder in our guide to best WordPress website builders
- See which WordPress alternatives might be better and easier for you to use
Bluehost offers preconfigured ecommerce plans from $9.95 a month (the first year), and you can choose from a number of plugins to build your online store. However, as with most of the plugins you choose, you’ll have to set up payment methods yourself. This can be challenging for novice website designers, as WordPress and the plugins you need for website functionality don’t always make configuration easy.
You’ll also be in charge of installing a security plugin and any security updates for the plugins you’ve installed—and with WordPress plugins, there are frequent security updates. Plugins can break your site or provide hackers an easy target if they aren’t properly maintained by the developer. For true beginners, we recommend a website builder like Wix, Squarespace, or GoDaddy.
Bluehost Builder Pricing & Plans
Cost per month (first year): $2.95
Renews at: $10.99
The Basic plan includes the following:
- Free domain and SSL
- Unlimited storage, bandwidth, websites, and email accounts
- Third-party integrations via WordPress plugins
- SEO tools and features via plugins
- WordPress installed and core updates managed for you
- Free email marketing plugin preinstalled
- Advanced analytics via plugins and/or Google Analytics and Search Console code integration
Cost per month (first year): $9.95
Renews at: $16.99
The Pro plan includes everything in the Basic plan, plus:
- 30-plus premium templates
- WooCommerce pre-installed for ecommerce
- Unlimited physical product sales
- 10-plus pricing and packaging templates
- Private domain registration
Cost per month (first year): $12.95
Renews at: $39.95
Get everything in Basic and Pro, plus:
- Discount code generator
- Online appointment booking
- Sell subscriptions and memberships
- In-cart product customization
- Local and country tax management
- Free backups (Codeguard Basic Backup)
Bluehost Builder is competitively priced, with ecommerce plans starting at just $9.95 a month (though this probably won’t be your full cost for building an ecommerce site). We compared the cost of WordPress sites vs website builders in our article on the hidden costs of WordPress.
Bluehost Builder is one of the most affordable website builders for WordPress. If you can overcome the WordPress learning curve and have the time needed to build on WordPress, you’ll be able to create a beautiful, fully customized website with all of the features of Wix and more.
How We Evaluated the Best Wix Alternatives
The best Wix competitors have comparable services and pricing, as well as features that set them apart. We judged Wix alternatives on design-forward features and templates, the number of integrations (like ecommerce) each offers, and the ease of use with which users can accomplish their small business website goals. Click on any of the tabs to learn more about our evaluation criteria.
Wix offers great value for the price, including a free-forever plan you can start with. The best Wix competitors were judged not only for their plans and pricing, but also for the features they provide on each plan tier, the length of the tie-in period, and discounts offered during the first year or for annual prepayment.
The best website builders offer unlimited storage and bandwidth, free SSL certificates, and free backups ranked highly in our evaluation.
Small businesses need unique features, depending on what the business does. Each of these Wix alternatives offers niche features that set them apart, from inventory management and ecommerce to online booking, social media, and marketing tools. The website builder you choose should have features aligned with your business needs.
Building a website isn’t the easiest thing to do, so having a good support system to help you troubleshoot any problems is a must. We rated these website builders on whether they offer 24/7 support, publish helpful articles and tutorials, the channels on which support can be reached, and the quality of the support provided.
We evaluated each of these Wix competitors based on our years of website building experience and hands-on experience using the site builders. We looked at how intuitive and beginner-friendly they are, the ease with which you can design and build the website you envision, and how well we think these builders perform in general.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Wix, Squarespace, Weebly are some of the best website builders for small businesses, and Wix offers enterprise-grade tools in plans that scale. They make it easy and affordable to build a professional-looking website with good features and capabilities, quickly, despite having no background or experience in website development.
Using an all-in-one website builder like Wix or any of the top Wix alternatives listed above is the easiest way to build a website for a business. These all-in-one platforms help you design your website, add the features you need, and host everything once your site is published. Everything is done step-by-step, so you don’t have to look elsewhere for your building needs.
Although Wix comes with over 900 free templates, a true drag-and-drop editor for heavy site design customization, and a large selection of plugins, WordPress is still more customizable. WordPress has thousands of templates, plugins, and code-enabled integrations for an endless number of combinations—but that does come with the additional learning curve, time, and expense. Read our breakdown of Wix vs WordPress to decide which is better for you.
Bottom Line
Each of the top Wix competitors makes it easy to build a website from scratch. Some offer more design freedom, while others provide niche functionality, such as appointment booking or reservations. Overall, the best Wix competitor we reviewed is Weebly. It provides plenty of functionality and design freedom at a price you can afford. Try Weebly risk-free with their free-forever plan.