Wix Alternatives and Competitors

Wix, an Israeli software company launched back in 2016, is currently one of the leading website-building platforms in the market. It allows an average user to create an HTML5 site exploiting a wide range of drag-and-drop tools, social plugins, contact forms, etc. Moreover, the most basic features are free, making it accessible to anyone with a stable internet connection and a laptop or PC.

Anyway, some users may still find out that Wix doesn’t meet all their requirements. For instance, the company’s business model doesn’t lend itself to businesses that look to grow and expand without going bankrupt on the upgrades.

So, depending on your expectations from a site-building company, I would like to introduce my expert review of the most worthwhile alternatives to Wix.

Best Wix Alternatives for Business Sites

If you aim to create an online presence for your business, your website builder must have appropriate templates and robust business features. Here I have reviewed the strongest alternatives to Wix for business owners.

Squarespace

Squarespace is one of the most popular Wix alternatives, especially when it comes to creating business websites. The service allows users to create professional-looking sites without prior coding experience by exploiting fully customizable templates. As a result, the new website perfectly reflects the brand’s aesthetics and mood.

Why Squarespace Is Better than Wix for Business

Squarespace is a better option than Wix in terms of creating business sites because it includes strong built-in features, such as scheduling blocks and maps, on all its plans; introduces premium customer support, which is more helpful and reliable than that of Wix; features third-party extensions that integrate seamlessly with a website, and no site visitor will feel they are redirected to an external service (see Squarespace website examples).

Squarespace users get such a unique business-oriented tool as Scheduling: it allows site visitors to schedule appointments with the company. At the same time, you, as the business owner, can offer your customers subscription-based packages.

How Much Squarespace Costs

Furthermore, unlike Wix, Squarespace’s all plans come with unlimited bandwidth and storage, which makes it a more cost-effective option. Generally, prices at Squarespace start at $16 per month, yet the Business tier best-suited for running an online store or representing a brick-and-mortar company costs $23 per month.

Weebly

Weebly – had quite a humble beginning, yet it grew to new heights once Square, Inc. acquired the company. Today Weebly is a strong contender for those site developers or business owners looking for a worthwhile Wix alternative (read my Wix vs Weebly comparison).

Why Weebly Is Better than Wix for Business

As a better option for creating business sites than Wix, Weebly has a huge bulk of in-built eCommerce features – actually, its whole impressive functionality comes fully integrated with no need for a third-party app that would hike up one’s overall service cost.

By choosing Weebly, you get robust eCommerce tools such as selling unlimited items (both physical and digital), a shopping cart, coupons, inventory management, etc (see Weebly website examples).

Additionally, Weebly introduces unique IFTTT (If This, Then That) automation features, which makes it a far better choice than Wix if you have a small business and want the same ease of use that Wix provides yet with more robust functionality.

How Much Weebly Costs

The prices of Weebly start at $10 per month, while the Business plan that delivers the best of Weebly is priced at $25 per month.

SITE123

SITE123 is a perfect alternative to Wix regarding building a business website since it guarantees the entire process of launching and running the site will be without all the bells and whistles.

Why SITE123 Is Better than Wix for Business

Unlike with Wix, here you won’t be limited by the number of business-oriented templates since there are roughly 89 themes, and ALL of them are fully mobile responsive and have simple pre-built page layouts. You can change the structure of every page with only a couple of clicks (the Gallery section, for instance, has nine layouts varying from carousel to grid views).

The selection of eCommerce tools is even broader than that of Wix. For instance, the company automatically sorts the site products into categories; the Gold plan allows processing an unmetered number of orders per month, while all the transactions are SSL encrypted to let the site customers shop in complete security.

Additionally, the SITE123 editor is even easier to use than Wix, as you can add/delete content blocks and edit site elements with just one click.

How Much SITE123 Costs

SITE123 has a free plan with 250 MB storage and bandwidth, while the paid plan costs $7.8 per month.

Best Wix Alternatives for eCommerce Sites

If you are going to set up an online store but doubt whether Wix is a good choice or not, I suggest considering the following most appropriate alternatives. They have better marketing tools and better pricing systems.

Shopify

Shopify is another giant in the industry of website building (especially if the user has eCommerce in mind) and one of the strongest Wix competitors.

Generally, I wouldn’t recommend Shopify if your intentions regarding website building referred to blogging or personal portfolio creating. But as far as you need a powerful online store, you won’t go wrong with Shopify.

Why Shopify Is Better than Wix for eCommerce

Shopify eCommerce is an ideal Wix alternative, no matter how big your business is and what niche it covers. The main advantages over the mentioned website builder include impressive scalability and an astonishing amount of both integrated functions and add-ons with over 6000 apps available.

Shopify provides its users with a decent range of upgradable reporting tools and analytics; flexible inventory management that lets you add/import products manually using CSV files; multi-channel and omnichannel functionality to boost sales (social commerce, POS, and marketplace integration); over 100 payment processors and robust shipping tools.

Shopify’s elegant and tidy themes, which all have premium usability and functionality, are catered to the business of possibly all online store spheres; hence, finding an excellently fitting one won’t be daunting.

How Much Shopify Costs

Currently, you can start using Shopify at only $1 per month with the Basic plan. But to unlock the company’s best features, I recommend upgrading to the Shopify plan, priced at $69 per month.

WooCommerce

WooCommerce is one of the best WordPress plugins and the crown jewel of the eCommerce world. Although it requires some knowledge regarding hosting, website design, and domain, WooCommerce doesn’t have the limitation within the feature and theme departments typical to all “packaged” services such as Wix.

Why WooCommerce Is Better than Wix for eCommerce

WooCommerce is way better than Wix in terms of eCommerce since, being built as an eCommerce plugin, it has an unrivaled level of functionality. Particularly running on WordPress, WooCommerce is a beautiful content management system that lets you customize your design either through the code or with a visual builder, having thousands of plugins and more than 400 extensions available.

It allows you to access the REST API to integrate and manage everything from orders to plugins. Also, WooCommerce has customizable checkout areas, tax options, automated emails, free shipping, and more. Furthermore, everything at WooCommerce is pretty unlimited, which you won’t find when dealing with Wix.

As for pricing, WooCommerce is free. You have to pay only for hosting. As a result, it may cost you only a couple of dollars per month, provided that you get along with a free theme and don’t pay for website design work or plugins.

How Much WooCommerce Costs

As a hosting option for your WooCommerce eCommerce site, I will definitely recommend HostGator. It is priced cheap – $2.75 but provides a 99.9% uptime guarantee, easy WP installs, a free SSL certificate, and a free domain for one year.

BigCommerce

BigCommerce is an all-in-one eCommerce platform better suited for big stores than Wix. It is completely scalable and integrates well with WordPress.

Why BigCommerce Is Better than Wix for eCommerce

BigCommerce is a better eCommerce solution than Wix because it has all possible tools required to set up and run an effective online store, including creating customer groups to develop unique membership groups or mailing lists; multi-channel integration with such marketplaces as eBay, Amazon, and social networks; Google AMP support; mobile app supported.

BigCommerce appears especially a preferable option to Wix for clothing stores and international retailers. It even allows the creation of individual versions of online stores for international retailers.

How Much BigCommerce Costs

BigCommerce pricing plans start with the Standard plan at $29.95 per month.

Best Wix Alternatives for Portfolio Sites

Do you need a website to serve as your online portfolio? Well, Wix is quite a good option, yet not the only one in the market. So, if you are an artist and need a portfolio, here I have reviewed some of the best Wix alternatives, especially for those needing a robust portfolio website.

Zyro

Zyro is a super easy website builder supplied by Hostigner oriented to beginners yet richly packed with features. It was made for portfolios yet evolved to other spheres, too.

Why Zyro Is Better than Wix for Portfolios

Zyro is a better variant for creating online portfolios than Wix. It allows auto-generating a pre-built website based on the data you provide. Besides, the company has Artificial Intelligence tools, such as blog title and slogan generators to help you save time; premium SEO tools with Google Analytics included; a bulk of fabulous templates for portfolio sites covering different niches. Zyro even features a section dedicated to professional CV websites.

How Much Zyro Costs

Prices at Zyro start at $2.33 per month and offer unmetered storage and bandwidth, SSL security, premium designer templates, etc. This plan is perfectly bending backward to provide an effortless route to creating a beautiful portfolio.

IM Creator

IM Creator is a decent website builder that yields to Wix in terms of features but significantly prevails if you want to set up an online portfolio.

Why IM Creator Is Better than Wix for Portfolios

At a flat low monthly fee, the company provides users with unlimited website hosting, incorporated eCommerce functionality with all plans, and premium class templates (see IM Creator website examples).

The robust templates are packed with standard and advanced tools, including customer checkout, store layouts, inventory management, etc. Unlike Wix, all templates by IM Creator are fully mobile responsive and can even be modified from a mobile device through the IM XPRS mobile app. All these features make IM Creator a far better option than Wix for setting up virtual portfolios.

How Much IM Creator Costs

Although IM Creator has a free plan with unlimited hosting and access to all themes, the more robust Premium account comes at $8 per month.

Gator

Gator is catered to users with little technical expertise, especially if you aim to set up a virtual portfolio since it comes with a handful of templates and an intuitive drag-and-drop editor.

Why Gator Is Better than Wix for Portfolios

Gator is a decent alternative to Wix. Whatever site you create will be automatically adjusted to any mobile screen size; the company offers robust website analytics, a broad image gallery, and a LogoMaker. Meanwhile, the Appointment Booking feature, which incorporates scheduling and calendar tools, makes it easier to use your online portfolio to communicate with potential clients.

The templates within the website builder Gator look elegant and sleek – perfect for a professional virtual portfolio. It’s easy to design the site since your content gets automatically adjusted when you add a new feature or element.

How Much Gator Costs

Gator website builder offers plans starting at $3.84 per month if paid annually. The introductory Start tier includes a free domain, three email campaigns for a month, a free SSL certificate, and all the perks of the intelligent site builder.

Best Wix Alternatives for Blogging

As far as you are interested in the blogging property of Wix, I will state for sure its features are somewhat cumbersome. I have several more appropriate options which will help you make your blog a standout in the market.

WordPress

WordPress CMS is the most powerful website builder for those who intend to use it for setting up a blog. It can be used for creating anything from a simple personal site to a robust eCommerce platform. And yet, being primarily established via a blogging tool remains unbeatable, particularly in this.

Why WordPress Is Better than Wix for Blogging

WordPress is a more powerful website builder than Wix within the scope of blog building thanks to such features as an immensely more powerful Gutenberg block editor that lets you add different content blocks such as images, text, headings, etc.

The inexhaustible plugins of the WordPress plugin market cover thousands of third-party options, most of which are offered for free. And while Wix limited bandwidth and storage on all plans except the top tier, WordPress offers unmetered storage and bandwidth completely for free!

And finally, the selection of WordPress themes prevails over that of Wix, with over 4362 blog-related themes available completely for free! These are all premium options with sleek designs and elegant constructions.

How Much WordPress Costs

Generally, WP is free to download and use. However, you need a reliable hosting provider to make your blog go live since it’s a self-hosted platform. I will personally suggest considering HostGator. The latter is a WordPress-recommend option that offers full service at only $2.75 per month.

Weebly

I have highlighted Weebly as a decent alternative to Wix in business sites. And yet, it has its decent place within the best blog builders, too.

Why Weebly Is Better than Wix for Blogging

Weebly appears to be a better option than Wix regarding blogging. Like Wix, it features a drag-and-drop interface which makes it possible to set up great blog sites without mastering coding, yet the selection of features is even more robust.

All the themes are mobile responsive and have great aesthetics, while the editor is uncluttered and much more understandable.

Unlike Wix, all this platform’s features are incorporated, eliminating the need for a third-party app. This website builder will decrease your expenses by providing a range of in-house features.

How Much Weebly Costs

The introductory Connect plan comes at the cost of $10 per month. Although the platform offers a completely free plan, I recommend passing straight to the Connect plan with the intention of upgrading it if you want to establish an individually operating blog and not just as a part of your site.

Medium

I have highlighted Medium is a website and blog publishing platform based in California. Actually, it’s way more than simply a blogging tool. Today this platform majorly serves as a social media network catered to storytellers.

Why Medium Is Better than Wix for Blogging

Medium is a powerful alternative to Wix for creating blogging sites since it combines blogging and social media while also providing users with incredible ease of use.

Medium is a quick fix for writers who want to share their unique stories and establish a virtual personal brand. It features unique simplicity and beautiful design, which keep on spreading among more and more bloggers, narrowing down the number of users who still leave their blogs on Wix.

Medium stands out as a blogging platform for enabling its users to successfully share their content on an already popular platform with multiple readers, thus making building readership easier. This is definitely not what you can expect from Wix.

How Much Medium Costs

Medium offers its platform to users for free, yet it differs from all the services I have addressed in this article in its operating system. It is best used for those bloggers who have a strong following on social media and want to attract the same fans here, too, to establish a reputation in the Medium community. If you are a dedicated blogger, Medium is definitely the better option than Wix.

Final Words

And there you have it! If you are still searching for the best alternative to Wix, think twice about which alternative to pick up before taking the step. The best website builder alternative to Wix depends on your expectations and what you will use the platform for. For instance, if WordPress is much better for blogging than Wix, the same is no longer true if you need an eCommerce site. Here we have such powerful “players” as Shopify and BigCommerce.

As long as you have a premium business site in mind, all the three Wix alternatives I reviewed can make good choices, while the preferable option for a portfolio site to Wix is IM Creator.