9 Best Wix Alternatives in 2023 | Find the Best One for You

Squarespace isn’t just a pretty face. For one thing, it comes with unlimited bandwidth and storage on all its plans, plus a free domain for one year if you choose an annual subscription.

We were particularly impressed by Squarespace’s marketing features. Like Wix, it comes with an in-house email marketing tool as well as social media integrations and a social post creator. Its blogging features are strong too, and include categories, comments, scheduling, and blog-specific SEO tools.

Wix still has the highest-scoring website features we’ve tested, but Squarespace’s are an impressive second.

Design is where Squarespace really shines – it has the best quality templates we’ve seen so far. It has a small collection compared to Wix, but every single one is beautifully designed and stylish (unlike some of Wix’s more outdated templates!)

Squarespace has specific templates for different industries, including:

• Photography
• Health and Beauty
• Personal and CV
• Local Business
• Restaurants
• Events
• Real Estate
• Travel
• Online Store
• Blogs
• Portfolio

It’s worth browsing all of Squarespace’s templates to find your specific niche. It’s a good idea to pick a template within your industry, because you’ll get relevant features already built in!

If you found Wix’s endless customization options overwhelming, then Squarespace is a great choice – its templates provide a more structured editing experience compared to Wix’s drag-and-drop freedom.

Squarespace has four plans – two for building websites, and two dedicated to ecommerce:

• Personal: $16 per month, billed annually
• Business: $23 per month, billed annually
• Basic Commerce: $27 per month, billed annually
• Advanced Commerce: $49 per month, billed annually

Squarespace doesn’t provide a free plan like Wix does – instead it gives you a 14-day free trial. You can change your plan at any time, and choose whether to pay monthly or annually. You can save on your Squarespace plan by using our exclusive discount code – simply enter the code WBE at checkout to save 10% off your plan!

Even without our special discount, Squarespace scored 4 out of 5 for value for money in our research, beating Wix.

Squarespace isn’t as easy to use as Wix, but that doesn’t mean it’s difficult to get to grips with – Squarespace scored 4 out of 5 for ease of use in our testing!

You don’t need coding skills or tech experience to create your website with Squarespace. Instead, you can use blocks to build your website exactly as it appears on screen.

Squarespace also has better customer support than Wix – its knowledge center in particular is incredibly useful, with articles, images, and videos for guidance.

One of GoDaddy’s standout features is its SEO Wiz tool, which helps you optimize your site for search rankings even if you have no experience – you don’t even have to know what SEO stands for (it’s Search Engine Optimization though, if you were wondering).

However, while GoDaddy has beginner-friendly SEO tools, they’re not the most powerful – for example, you won’t find canonical tags or header code, but it covers the basics well.

It’s also worth mentioning that you only get self-managed SEO tools on GoDaddy’s cheapest plan. Once you upgrade, you’ll unlock GoDaddy’s built-in website optimizer to save you time and effort.

GoDaddy doesn’t have an app market, but it does offer a lot of extra services, from domain names to security tools.

GoDaddy uses ADI to create a site for you. All you do is enter in your specific information, such as the name and type of website you’re making, and GoDaddy does the rest! It gives you a fully designed and personalized website in seconds. You can then customize it to suit your own branding.

The benefit of this is that it’s the quickest way to build a website. You don’t need to start from scratch or browse hundreds of templates – instead, you can get straight to customizing.

However, the downside is that GoDaddy’s designs aren’t as unique or stylish as those of Wix or Squarespace, for example. GoDaddy’s designs can be pretty generic, and customizations somewhat limited, so if you’re looking to make a creative impact, it’s not the best choice.

GoDaddy has a totally free plan, and four paid plans:

• Basic: $6.99 per month, billed annually
• Premium: $13.99 per month, billed annually
• Commerce: $14.99 per month, billed annually
• Commerce Plus: $29.99 per month, billed annually

GoDaddy always lets you start building your site for free – you can then choose whether to stay on the free plan or upgrade to a paid plan.

GoDaddy is super easy to use, especially during the setup process thanks to its ADI website creator. In fact, GoDaddy does a lot of the work for you, meaning you can get your site live as soon as possible.

That said, GoDaddy didn’t manage to beat Wix for ease of use in our testing – it scored 4.1 out of 5, which is still impressive! Our users struggled a little due to GoDaddy’s restrictive block elements – you can’t resize or move image blocks outside of set areas in your template, for example.

Weebly’s features are decent – it scored 3.5 out of 5 in this category of our research. It has a well-stocked app market, good blogging tools, and a strong range of SEO tools and guidance.

One big drawback is its performance in our site speed testing – Weebly has the worst server response time out of all the builders we tested!

Design is the area where Weebly struggled the most during our research, scoring only 2.5 out of 5. This is partly because its templates look outdated and haven’t been modernized since we first tested Weebly around three years ago.

One thing that’s particularly worrying is Weebly’s poor mobile formatting – even features built into template designs don’t format properly on mobile, which is a big red flag for anyone who cares about achieving good rankings on Google. Customization is also very challenging, meaning you need to stick very closely to your template’s design.

This is where Weebly really shines – we highly recommend its free plan if you’re looking for a budget-friendly way to build your website. We don’t recommend it for long-term use – we never recommend any free plan for that – because you’ll quickly outgrow it, but for a short-term solution it has a lot to offer, including the option to embed custom code, integrate your Instagram feed, and even sell online.

Weebly’s paid plans range from $6 to $26 per month when billed annually:

• Personal: $6 per month, billed annually
• Professional: $12 per month, billed annually
• Performance: $26 per month, billed annually

You’ll need to choose one of these plans in order to remove Weebly adverts and connect a custom domain – the good news is, they all offer great value!

Weebly isn’t as easy to use as Squarespace, Wix, or GoDaddy. It only scores 3.4 out of 5 for ease of use, whereas all three of its top competitors score at least 4 out of 5. One reason for this is how limited Weebly’s customization is – in testing, our users found it pretty frustrating trying to create the exact site they wanted because of Weebly’s limited block-based design.

Still, its drag-and-drop editor doesn’t require coding skills, so you don’t need to have tech experience in order to use Weebly. It just isn’t as user-friendly as other website builders.

Zyro isn’t the most powerful website builder out there. In fact, its limited functionality is one of the main reasons it’s so easy to use.

Compared to competitors, Zyro has particularly limited marketing tools – you don’t get email marketing, for example. There’s also no app market, meaning you’re reliant on Zyro’s in-house features to scale your website.

Our users liked Zyro’s templates during testing, although they noticed there isn’t much room for customization. This seems to work in its favor, however – where Wix can feel pretty overwhelming with its endless creative freedom and design choices, Zyro keeps things simple and streamlined.

One thing we particularly like about Zyro’s editor is its useful grid layout, which helps to keep elements in line with each other – think of it like having a handrail there to guide you.

First off, Zyro doesn’t offer a free plan or free trial – instead, it gives you 30 days to cancel and receive a full refund.

It has four price plans ranging from $4.41 to $17.01 per month (billed annually):

• Website: $4.41 per month, billed annually
• Business: $6.21 per month, billed annually
• Online Store: $10.90 per month, billed annually
• Advanced Store: $17.01 per month, billed annually

It’s worth noting that you can save money by choosing a longer subscription – for example, the Website plan only costs $2.61 per month if you sign up for two years.

Zyro scores 4.2 out of 5 for value for money, meaning it’s a better value option than both Wix and Squarespace!

Zyro scores 4 out of 5 for ease of use, putting it at the same level as Squarespace. The grid layout in the editor is a real help for beginners, and its extra tools are also designed to make your life easier – for example, there’s an AI writing tool that writes copy for you, plus a heatmap and logo maker. 

However, our users would still have liked a little more onboarding to help them get to grips with Zyro even faster.

We’ll be totally upfront with you – out of the nine best Wix alternatives, Jimdo came last for features in our research with a score of 1.9 out of 5. Why did it score so poorly? Well, it lacks a lot of major features provided by other platforms – for example, there’s no blogging functionality, no app market, and no members login feature.

SEO tools are basic and marketing features are limited – you can only integrate Facebook and Instagram, and there are no in-house email marketing tools.

In short, Jimdo doesn’t have the features to grow a website, and isn’t suitable for ambitious websites or businesses.

Like GoDaddy, Jimdo uses ADI (Artificial Design Intelligence) to help you create your site. This is a quick, easy way to create a website – we particularly recommend it for people who need a helping hand with their design.

Jimdo’s templates are simple and stylish, but its standout design feature is its mobile editor view. This attention to mobile formatting is worth shouting about because it helps you create a website that looks good on all devices, which is vital for SEO success.

Jimdo has a free plan, and two premium plans:

• Start: $9 per month, billed annually
• Grow: $15 per month, billed annually

This doesn’t give you much room to scale up over time, but the good news is that Jimdo comes in as the best value Wix alternative in our research, scoring 4.8 out of 5! It offers great prices for the amount of features you get.

Jimdo is easy to use, but there are easier options out there. Despite its automated setup process, Jimdo only scored 3.4 out of 5 for ease of use – that makes it more difficult to use than Squarespace, GoDaddy, and Zyro!

The reason for Jimdo’s rather average ease of use score is its limited customization and features. Our users found this builder pretty restricting, which resulted in a tricky – and, at times, frustrating – building experience for those wanting to take their site to the next level.

If you want a really smooth experience you need to stick closely to Jimdo’s designs and capabilities – the closer you stick to Jimdo’s template, the more user-friendly you’ll find it.

Shopify has better sales features than Wix, but its website features – like blogging tools, for example – aren’t quite as strong. Shopify’s inventory system is particularly impressive, and helpful for merchants with large or complex product catalogs. But if you’re only selling a few items, then you may find Shopify’s full range of sales features to be overkill.

The highlights of Shopify’s features include:

• Diverse multichannel integrations
• Huge app store
• Built-in abandoned cart recovery
• Shipping management (including dropshipping and printable labels)

Shopify doesn’t include a free domain like Wix does, and its blogging features aren’t as developed, but Shopify does provide a solid suite of marketing tools to help grow your store.

Finally, it’s worth mentioning that in our testing, Shopify displayed the best server response time on both mobile and desktop out of all the ecommerce platforms we analyzed. That means your store should load quickly!

Shopify’s templates are all professionally designed and cover a wide range of industries, with tailored features built into each one. There are around 80 Shopify themes to choose from, 10 of which are free to use.

You can edit your chosen theme to reflect your brand. That said, when it comes to customization, Shopify is more restrictive than competitors such as Wix – if you want endless freedom over your branding and layout, then it’s not the most flexible option.

Shopify is more expensive than platforms like Wix, with a starting price of $29 per month:

• Basic Shopify: $29 per month
• Shopify: $79 per month
• Advanced Shopify: $299 per month 

You can try Shopify free for 3 days before signing up to a paid plan, and if you choose the Basic plan, you only pay $1 per month for the first three months, which is a nice opportunity to see if it really is the right platform for you.

It’s worth mentioning that you’ll need to pay extra for any premium apps you want to add to your site. Shopify relies a lot on apps rather than built-in features, which is great for customization but can quickly hike up your overall cost.

In addition to this, if you don’t use Shopify’s in-house payment gateway, Shopify Payments, you’ll pay a transaction fee of 0.5-2% depending on your plan.

Because of its expensive starting price, Shopify doesn’t score too highly when it comes to value for money – at 3 out of 5, this is the area it scored lowest in.

Shopify scores 3.5 out of 5 for ease of use in our testing – it’s harder to use than Wix, but mostly because its design editor isn’t as intuitive. In terms of inventory management, Shopify does a lot to help you out, and predicts what merchants need during setup – its starter checklist and prompts are particularly helpful.

Square Online is a step down from Wix and Shopify in terms of features – it scores 3.5 out of 5 for both website and sales features, whereas neither Wix or Shopify score below a 4 for either category.

What this means is that Square Online is more suited to small stores. The features it offers make it ideal for physical stores – for example, syncing with Square POS, self-serve ordering via QR codes, and in-store collection are included on all plans, even the free plan!

This is simple ecommerce without complicated bells and whistles – it’s not meant for complex inventories with tons of product variants.

It’s worth noting that Square Online doesn’t provide blogging tools or dropshipping functionality.

Design is the category Square Online scored lowest in, at 2.7 out of 5. There are a few reasons for this: for starters, its designs only cover two industries – clothing, and food and drink. In addition to this, its customization options are pretty limited!

One of the best things about Square Online is how budget-friendly and affordable its plans are. You can even sell unlimited products for free!

To remove adverts and connect a custom domain, you’ll need to choose one of Square Online’s paid plans:

• Personal: $6 per month, billed annually
• Professional: $12 per month, billed annually
• Performance: $26 per month, billed annually
• Premium: $72 per month, billed annually

No wonder Square Online scored 4.5 out of 5 for value for money!

The only hitch is Square Online’s transaction fees, which cost 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction on all plans except the Premium plan, which reduces this fee to 2.6% + $0.30.

Square Online is almost as easy to use as Wix – Square Online scores 3.9 out of 5, compared to Wix’s score of 4!

We like the fact that Square Online does some of the work for you during the setup process – it’s a straightforward, fuss-free building experience that leads you through creating your store step by step.

The only downside is that Square Online doesn’t have the most logical layout, which can feel confusing for beginners, especially because it tends to use terminology that may be unfamiliar.

BigCommerce is an ecommerce powerhouse – it scored the highest for its sales tools in our research with an outstanding 4.6 out of 5! Its inventory system is designed to handle complex product catalogs, making it particularly suited to large online clothing stores.

BigCommerce is also the only platform we’ve tested that lets you send transactional emails, which is just one example of why we recommend it for online businesses – it provides a one-stop shop for everything you need to run and expand your store online. It has email marketing, social media integration, store sales, and more!

BigCommerce’s templates cover a wide range of industries – but unlike Wix, not all of its designs are included for free. Templates range in price from $0 to $300 each.

One of the standout features of BigCommerce’s designs is that they support the most extensive in-house filtering system, so if you’re on the Pro or Enterprise plans you can offer product filtering for your customers.

However, customization is pretty limited – if you want total drag-and-drop creative freedom, you may find BigCommerce restrictive.

BigCommerce has a 15-day free trial, and three main pricing plans:

• Standard: $29.95 per month
• Plus: $79.95 per month
• Pro: $299.95 per month

No plans charge transaction fees, although it is worth pointing out that you only unlock abandoned cart recovery emails on the Plus plan.

BigCommerce bases your price plan on your annual turnover, meaning that if you have a particularly profitable year, you may find yourself automatically upgraded to the next price plan up. However, BigCommerce won’t automatically downgrade you, so this is something to keep an eye on!

BigCommerce is a pretty heavy duty platform, and this means it takes longer to get to grips with than a simple platform like Square Online. The truth is it can be overwhelming to begin with – in testing, our users would’ve liked to see more tooltips and onboarding to help them find their way.

In our research, we were impressed by 1&1 IONOS’ internationalization features. It supports 60 languages, and you can even activate in-house automatic translations. For a multilingual website, you need to be on the $5 per month Plus plan or above.

You get a free domain for one year on all annual plans, plus a professional email address included. There’s also blogging functionality, but you need to be on the $5 per month Plus plan to use blogging features.

So, why did 1&1 IONOS only score 2 out of 5 for its features? Well, it’s missing a lot. There’s no app market, its blogging features don’t include categories or comments, and there are no email marketing tools.

One standout area of 1&1 IONOS’ features is its site speed – it performed well during our analysis of the top website builders. In fact, it has the best mobile site speed performance score out of all the platforms we tested!

1&1 IONOS only scored 2.5 out of 5 for design. If you’re looking for an alternative to Wix that has gorgeous templates and tons of creative freedom, it’s safe to say this is not the right website builder for you!

The trouble is the lack of customization that 1&1 IONOS’ templates provide you with. Our users felt as though it was holding them back from creating something truly unique or personalized, because the editing tools were so restrictive.

In addition to this, the stock imagery provided by 1&1 IONOS in its media library is terribly outdated – this is something that hasn’t changed since we first used it over three years ago!

1&1 IONOS has extremely attractive pricing plans because it offers deals for new users. This means you can sign up for as little as $1 per month!

• Starter: $1 per month for 12 months, then $5 per month
• Plus: $5 per month for 12 months, then $10 per month
• Pro: $10 per month for 23 months, then $15 per month

Just be aware that your initial discount will end after 12 months, so always check the renewal price to avoid surprises later down the line!

Thanks to its super cheap prices, 1&1 IONOS has doubled its value for money score compared to our first analysis – it now scores 4.2 out of 5, which beats both Wix and Squarespace.

However, the main problem with 1&1 IONOS’ pricing plans is the fact that it doesn’t offer a free plan or a free trial, so there’s no way to try it out before committing. You do get a 30-day money-back guarantee though, so if you’re not happy you can get a full refund within the first 30 days of your plan.

With a score of 2.8 out of 5, 1&1 IONOS is the hardest to use website builder we’ve tested. Part of this is because 1&1 IONOS is so hard to customize – if you try to edit your template too much you’re in for a pretty frustrating experience.

In addition to this, the knowledge base isn’t accessible from your editor page, making it harder to follow and implement guidance if you get stuck.