If you’re looking to build your own site, these alternatives to Wix can help by offering you additional features that Wix may not have.
Wix is a simple and free website-creating site. It gives you everything you need to create a simple website using easy drag-and drop editing tools. You pick a template, and then use the desktop-publisher-like interface to build your website. No coding knowledge required!
However, Wix has limited features unless you buy a premium subscription. You also can’t mix and match templates (or switch them once you’ve picked one), or shut down your account without doing a lot of preliminary clean-up work first. So, if Wix isn’t for you, we’ve got a list of its top competitors, and what they have to offer you.
In this article, we’ll cover:
- Best 9 Wix alternatives to build your own website
- Site builders like Wix comparison table: cost, building style, and more
- How do websites builders work?
- What am I paying for with a site builder?
- Other helpful articles to help you build your website
Read on to learn more about the sites like Wix you can choose from to build your perfect site.
Best 9 Wix alternatives to build your own website
1. Weebly
Weebly.com is probably the most well-known Wix alternative, and is one of the most similar sites to it. It features similar drag-and-drop editing features, and it’s free to start off, just like Wix is. However, like Wix, its advanced customization features, including online shopping capabilities, are locked unless you buy a paid subscription.
2. Shopify
Based in Canada, Shopify.ca is one of the more specialized alternatives to Wix. As you might guess based on its name, it’s bent towards helping you start a small business. This includes making your own website, through using all sorts of different tools. Pick a template to start off, use intuitive commands to make the key changes, tweak the code (if you know how), or get an expert to help you build your online storefront from the ground up. Shopify doesn’t have any free use options, though you can get a two-week trial of it.
3. Jimdo
Jimdo.com is a Wix competitor from Germany. Unlike Wix and Weebly, Jimdo allows users to create an online store with their free service, though you can only list up to 5 items at a time without a premium account. Its paid subscription services, Jimdo Pro and Jimdo Business, alleviate this limit, give you more storage space for your media files, allow you to pick a custom domain name, and remove advertisements by Jimdo from your website (like on Wix and Weebly). Similar to its rivals, Jimdo features easy drag-and-drop website customization options.
4. WordPress
Though more of a high-end blogging website than one for creating an entire website, WordPress.com is often used as an alternative to Wix. Its main focus is on getting web pages noticed by websites, so it’s often used by small businesses that aren’t quite ready to try a full-on web editor like the other alternatives in this article. In fact, we used WordPress for the initial version of TechBoomers! While easy to use, some advanced features require a paid subscription to use (such as uploading videos), and you’re going to see advertisements from WordPress on your site, too.
5. Squarespace
Squarespace.com provides you with simple and easy functions for creating a website, whether it’s just one page or something more complex. It’s great for bloggers, musicians, restaurants, photographers, and all sorts of other users. The main downside of Squarespace is that it you have to buy all of its services at once (e.g. a domain name and a website), whereas sites like Wix allow you to pay only for what you need. Squarespace offers many of the same features as Shopify, such as the ability to edit your website’s code directly (in addition to using the drag-and-drop functions), as well as the ability to integrate common online shopping functions into your website.
6. Strikingly
Hailing from China, Strikingly.com bills itself as one of the easiest websites like Wix to use. It’s free to use (though it has paid upgrade plans), and can connect to Facebook or LinkedIn to create quick, one-page websites with just a few clicks! Strikingly is a good place to start if you have very little experience building websites (or using computers for that matter), but if you’re looking for something a little more fancy (like, say, a multi-page website that has a store that sells more than one product), you will have to buy an upgraded subscription.
7. WebsiteBuilder
WebsiteBuilder.com is a site similar to Wix, and offers many of the same features. WebsiteBuilder has over 10, 000 templates to choose from, and offers even more competitive prices than Wix, which offering many of the same features and pricing plans. Using easy drag-and-drop technology, WebsiteBuilder has some of the easiest templates to work with. They also offer you the ability to set up an eCommerce online storefront!
8. Virb
Run by Brad Smith, Virb.com features a bunch of intuitive tools for building your very own website. These include themes optimized for both desktop and mobile devices, the ability to easily customize different pages of the website based on their content, tools to help you get your website found by search engines, and more. Its features are similar to some of the paid options on Wix; with that said, you have to pay for Virb in order to use it at all.
9. GoDaddy
Perhaps more well-known for its outlandish advertising campaigns than for what it actually does, GoDaddy.com is a website for creating and hosting websites, like Wix. It has many similar features to Wix, including a website builder with unlimited pages, hundreds of templates, and storage space starting from 1 gigabyte. The downside of GoDaddy is that it can’t be used for free, and some services – such as a mobile-friendly site or one with integrated shopping functions — are only available on advanced premium plans.
Site builders like Wix comparison table: cost, building style, and more
| Website | Pricing | Builder Style | What makes it unique |
|---|---|---|---|
 Read More | Drag-and-drop | The most comparable drag-and-drop features to Wix | |
 Read More | Inventory listings | The best for building online stores | |
 Read More | Template and style editor | Website tailored to specific industries and professions | |
 Read More | Content management/curation | Trusted to power 30% of the top 10 million sites online | |
 Read More | Template and style editor + drag-and-drop | Hundreds of features, all explained for easy integration | |
 Read More | Drag-and-drop | Editing feature allows instant edits with fewer clicks | |
 Read More | Drag-and-drop | All plans come with free ad credits, SEO, and marketing help | |
 Read More | $10/month | Drag-and-drop | Offers unlimited cloud storage space |
 Read More | Drag-and-drop | Works in connection with GoDaddy's amazing range of available domain names |
How do websites builders work?
A website builder is an Internet-based tool that helps people with little to no coding, computer science, or web development experience build websites from scratch. They allow you to choose a template to work from, and modify elements of the design using drag-and-drop tools or style editors.
Essentially, a site builder will have a menu of some kind for you to select elements from, including inserting images, changing font or text size, adding titles, video, buttons, music, and almost anything else you can think of. By building your website in this visual way, you eliminate the need to understand HTML/CSS code.
What am I paying for with a site builder?
Most website building tools require a paid subscription, but also offer a free version of their services. When you pay for it, in general, you get additional features such as connecting your own unique URL, search engin
e optimization, customer service, additional storage space and bandwidth, and more.
Typically, it’s a good idea to try the free version of a website builder to get a feel for how it works before paying for a subscription. It’s also wise if you want to see how the paid version works to only pay for one month rather than committing to a year (even though you will get a discount for a yearly commitment). See how it feels for one month and then choose the site you want to use.
Of the alternatives we listed, you can build a website for free with the following services:
-
- Weebly
- Jimdo
- WordPress
- Strikingly
- WebsiteBuilder
Keep in mind though, that the “free” versions of these sites will most likely force you to have branded ads on your site, meaning anyone who visits your site will know which tool you used to build it.
Other helpful articles to help you build your website
These articles can help teach you more about site builders that might help you, or get you on the right track to managing your website or business.
- Wix vs. Weebly vs. WordPress vs. Shopify – Learn which one of these services has the best web builder that suits your business or personal website needs.
- The Best CMS for Your Business – These sites offer cutting-edge content management services, so read this to determine which one most suits your business.
- Website Builders Case Study – A personal experience testing out the best site builders available on the web.
- Social Media Sites and Apps for Your Business – Learn which social media platforms your business needs, so you can connect them to your newly-built website!
- How to delete your Wix account – If you’re going to use one of these site builders instead of Wix, learn how to fully delete your account and make sure your content is removed from their servers.
