My webmarks5 Wix Alternatives for Your Online Business
If you Google the term "website builder", Wix will be the first company the search engine suggests. Created in 2006, this drag-and-drop editor is suitable for building anything from portfolios to small business websites.
But just because it appears first on the search results, it doesn't mean that you have to use it to build your site.
It also doesn't mean that it's the best website builder. It does come with several downsides that people tend to complain about. For example, once you've chosen a template, you can't switch to a completely new one. Or, the loading speeds of the pages might not be ideal, especially on mobile devices.
So, if you're looking for the best Wix alternatives for building your site, here are our top six choices:
Wix Alternative #1: Squarespace
Launched 16 years ago as a blog-hosting service, Squarespace has grown to a million-dollar company that has over 800 employees.
It's a website builder that's beginner-friendly and doesn't require you to have any knowledge of coding. Whether you want to build an e-commerce website or a blog, you can put together a visually appealing website in a matter of hours. What you need to do is create an account, choose your template, and use the editor to customize it.
Best Features
Templates. Squarespace has the best templates of any website builder: fresh, modern, and responsive. Many of them showcase beautiful photography, so they work exceptionally well for bloggers, photographers, and e-commerce sites. Each template is mobile-friendly, and it shrinks down to your device size while retaining its quality. However, keep in mind that you can't design custom templates from scratch without code.
Ease of use. People call Squarespace the Apple of website builders. Although it might not be the easiest builder to use, it's the most intuitive. You can build a page by adding content blocks. Everything is presented as a content block, including forms, buttons, and photo galleries. Your task is to drag and drop a content block into columns to arrange them.
Blog. Squarespace offers some of the best opportunities for blogging. You can add contributors with different roles, share with social media, and use the Blog app to manage your blog from your mobile device. You can even find templates that are specifically designed for blogging so you can have a professional yet attractive site.
E-commerce. Although Squarespace is not a pure e-commerce website builder like Shopify, it does come with several powerful e-commerce features. You can find two e-commerce plans that include a range of tools for e-commerce sites, including inventory management and abandoned cart recovery. You can sell an unlimited number of products, customize your store, and upload product videos.
Pricing. Squarespace lets you choose between four different payment plans. The most basic one is the Personal Package for $12/month. The most popular is the Business Package that costs $18/month. The other two are the Basic Commerce Package ($26/month) and the Advanced Commerce Package ($40/month).
Weebly is another powerful website builder that pairs with Wix and Squarespace. You can create a professional and unique-looking site without worrying about code. It's one of the best website builders for small websites and comes with all the tools you need to maintain an e-commerce site, portfolio, or blog. Its drag and drop editor is easy to use, and its themes are simple, modern, and mobile responsive.
Best Features
Powerful eCommerce tools. It offers a range of tools for simplifying order management, shipping, and payments. You can choose a unique online store design with a customizable theme to showcase your products.
Speed and security. Apart from letting you build a website, Weebly also offers hosting services. They have fast loading speeds (which is a plus for SEO) and protect your website from hackers and spam. If you choose the Business plan, they will install and maintain SSL across your site.
Ease of use. Weebly has one of the easiest to use website editors. There's no need to write CSS or HTML code. What you need to do is drag and drop elements. What you see in the builder is what you get on the website. To build a page, you simply drag elements from the side drawer. The elements are then edited within the page. The interface is clean and is never cluttered.
Onboarding help. As you build your site, Weebly will stay by your side by offering useful tips along the way. You'll get messages like "What kind of website would you like to create?" or instructions like "drag pages to the right to create subpages."
Customer support. Weebly provides email support and a comprehensive Knowledge Base for a free plan. For paid accounts, they also offer chat and phone support.
SEO. You can quickly build an SEO-friendly site with Weebly. It lets you insert all the essential SEO functions, including meta titles and descriptions, URL customization, and adding alt text to images.
Beautiful templates. Weebly offers a collection of nicely designed themes, many of which for free. You can also buy a Weebly theme designed by an independent designer. The majority of Weebly’s newer themes are automatically mobile-responsive.
Apps. When using Weebly’s theme editor, you'll be offered a basic set of tools to add to your site. But if you go to the Weebly App Center, you'll discover an extensive collection of all types of tools. You can promote your content on social platforms by adding social media buttons or boost traffic by inserting a powerful SEO tool.
Hosting. You don't need to pay separately for hosting services, as Weebly can host your site for you. Instead of wasting time looking for a good hosting provider, you can focus on building a great and unique website for your visitors.
Pricing. Weebly offers a free starter plan in addition to four paid plans. The entry-level Connect Package is available at a reasonable $5/month when paid annually. The Pro plan costs $12 per month if paid annually with which you'll get a free domain and $100 in Google ads credit. The Business and Business Plus plans cost $25 and $38 a month, respectively, when paid annually. The Business plan is ideal for creating a small and simple site, while Business Plus is more suitable for larger and more complex online stores.
Wix Alternative #3: BigCommerce
If you're looking for an all-in-one and powerful e-commerce builder, then BigCommerce is a great pick. It lets you create a one-of-a-kind online store, add products, and start making money. You can take advantage of a broad array of built-in sales tools, fantastic SEO tools, and data tools. It's certainly a great alternative to Wix that you should consider.
Best Features
Sales tools. BigCommerce is the website builder that has more built-in sales tools than any other competitor. Meaning, you'll rarely need to add third-party apps to your online store. It's also the only builder that lets you sell physical, digital, and service-based products. Another significant benefit is that it lets you choose your own payment gateway without any extra charges or fees. You can choose between more than 65 integrated payment gateways, including PayPal, Stripe, and Apple Pay. There's a range of shipping options to keep your customers happy, such as shipment tracking, in-store pick-up, and next day delivery.
Most importantly, there's the option for abandoned cart recovery. If a customer adds a product to their card, inserts their email, but then leaves the page, you can send an automated email to draw them back to their purchase. The cherry on top in that with BigCommerce, you can quickly sell your products on every platform. Using multichannel integrations, you can sell the products on Amazon, Pinterest, Instagram, eBay, Facebook, and more.
Security. Its collection of built-in features also includes essential security tools, such as an SSL certificate. The user data will be encrypted, meaning they will be able to make payments safely.
Themes. You'll never be short of amazing themes when building your site. The website builder offers more than 100 themes, out of which 12 are for free, and the rest are paid. The price for a paid theme ranges from $145-235. The best part? You can switch a theme at any time you like.
Customer support. When you sign up for a free trial, the company offers a 10-minute call so that you can discuss your business goals. With the Standard Package, you'll receive 24/7 email, phone and chat support. There's also the BigCommerce Help Center and video tutorials.
Pricing. You can test all aspects of the builder by signing up for a free trial that lasts for 15 days. After that, you have three packages to choose from, including Standard ($29.95/month), Plus ($79.95/month), and Enterprise (custom pricing).
When you hear the word "e-commerce platform", the first platform that probably crosses your mind is Shopify. And with good reason! It's a great alternative to Wix and one of the best builders for creating scalable online stores. It comes with a set of built-in features and a myriad of apps. As with all other website builders on the list, you don't need any coding skills to create a beautiful website.
Best Features
Ease of use. What people seem to love the most about Shopify is its ease of use. It has a very user and beginner-friendly interface that's clean, simple, and clear to navigate. During the set-up process, Shopify will walk you through every step of the way with questions and prompts. It has a free trial, so make sure you check it out before making a decision.
Themes. All themes look professionally designed, clean, and modern. There's an extensive collection to choose from, and your job will be to pick the one that suits your brand the most. Themes are divided by different industries like furniture, photography, art, and more, so it's easier for browsing. You can even filter the themes by price and popularity. All themes are mobile-friendly, SEO-friendly, have social media icons, and come with customizable content sections on the home page.
Sales tools. Regarding sales tools, there are a lot of them. It has more than 1,200 apps in its app store, so if your theme doesn't come with the tool you need, you can easily find it in the Shopify App Store. You can choose between more than 100 integrated payment gateways, including PayPal, Stripe, and Apple Pay. Similar to BigCommerce, you can quickly sell your products on every platform. Using multichannel integrations, you can sell the products on Amazon, Pinterest, Instagram, eBay, Facebook, and more. If you're selling digital goods, you can easily do it on the platform. The only thing you'll need to do is install an app so that your customers can download the digital product. Other features include dropshipping, abandoned cart recovery, and product management.
SEO. Shopify comes with a good set of SEO tools that you can use to optimize your site. It might not have all the SEO tools, but it does provide you with the most essential. For example, every time you add a product, Shopify will prompt you with SEO best practices.
Customer support. If you stumble upon a problem, Shopify provides help via different channels. You get to choose the one that best works for you. You have 24/7 phone support, live chat support, email support, social media support, community forum, help center, and video tutorials.
Pricing. You can choose between three types of pricing plans, Basic Shopify, Shopify, and Advanced Shopify. The Basic Shopify Package starts at $29/month and includes basic features like unlimited products, 24/7 customer support, and two staff accounts. The Shopify Package will cost you $79/month and includes additional features like gift card options and professional reports. The Advanced Shopify Package comes with advanced features for scaling your business and is available at $299/month. It includes advanced reports and third-party calculated shipping rates.
Regardless of whether you're a gallery owner, retail merchant, or blogger, Jimdo is another alternative to Wix that's worth checking. Its two editors (Jimdo Creator and Jimdo Dolphin) are created with the beginner in mind. You don't have to be a tech expert to design the site of your dreams. Adding images and dragging elements into positions can be done with a few clicks. You'll manage to build a site in a matter of a few hours and start generating revenue.
Best Features
Ease of use. When building your site with Jimdo, you have two ways of doing so: by using the Jimdo Creator or the Jimdo Dolphin. The Jimdo Creator is a website builder that lets you customize your site. You will be able to add content, resize images, change colors, and drag elements into different positions. The Jimdo Dolphin, on the other hand, will create your website for you. You simply need to answer a few questions regarding the type of website you would like to create, and the ADI (artificial design intelligence) software will design the best website for your needs.
SEO. The platform comes with all the essential tools for creating an SEO-friendly site. You can easily add meta titles and descriptions, add alt text to photos and edit URLs. You can even add third-party apps that will further boost your SEO score.
Customer support. Jimdo has a vast knowledge base that can give you answers that are clear and concise. The knowledge base is a combination of text, images, and videos. Apart from a knowledge base, the platform also offers email support, social media support, and FAQ sections.
Sales tools. If you're selling hand-made jewelry, for example, Jimdo lets you set up an online store by subscribing to their Business Plan or higher. With that subscription, you'll get e-commerce templates, the opportunity to create coupons and discounts, and secure checkouts. However, if your site is large and complex, consider using a more powerful platform like BigCommerce or Shopify.
Pricing. Jimdo has several plans to offer, divided into two sections: website and online store. The website section provides four types of plans: Free plan, Start plan, Grow plan, and Unlimited plan. The free plan is perfect for testing the platform to see whether it matches your needs. The Start plan costs $9/month, and it's suitable for personal or creative projects. The Grow plan is a bestseller, and you can get it for $15/month. If you're looking for unlimited storage, bandwidth, and pages, the Unlimited plan might be the ideal choice, costing $39/month. If you want to create an online store, you have to subscribe to one of the three plans: Basic, Business, or VIP. The Basic plan ($15/month) comes with all basic online store features but has 10GB of storage. The Business plan ($19/month) comes with additional features extra product layouts, product variants, and 15GB of storage. The VIP plan ($39/month) provides unlimited storage and an unlimited number of pages.
As you can conclude from the article, there are many amazing Wix alternatives that can help you create a modern and powerful website for your online business. They all have a few things in common, and a few things that make them different from the others. To sum up, this is our final verdict:
- Squarespace is ideal for creating professional websites, just like Wix. It has some of the most sophisticated template designs and combines them with powerful built-in features. It's especially suitable for photographers, artists, designers, and bloggers.
- Weebly is the easiest website builder and suitable for anyone who doesn't feel tech-savvy. It's simple, uncluttered, and easy to navigate. It's great for building portfolios, business sites, blogs, or online stores.
- BigCommerce is one of the best e-commerce website builders on the market. It's designed to help large and fast-growing businesses scale. If you have a large store that is more complex, definitely consider using BigCommerce for your site.
- Shopify is similar to BigCommerce in that being a powerful builder for online stores. It’s designed to help businesses build scalable online stores with hundreds of built-in features, and tons of apps.
- Jimdo is one of the best choices for either personal or small business websites. It comes with a range of amazing features and apps that can help you build a unique site. However, if your site is large and complex, consider using a more powerful platform like BigCommerce or Shopify.