So you’ve been searching for the best WordPress alternatives? In this article, we will review some of the best alternatives to WordPress.
Millions of websites are built on WordPress. The platform’s drag-and-drop block editor, coupled with its tons of plugins, themes, and widgets, makes it appealing to users of all skill levels.
Despite the huge number of users that WordPress has, it cannot meet the needs of everyone. If you need website building tools and web hosting in one place, then you will need to look for an alternative to WordPress.
To help you find the best alternative that aligns with your needs and business goals, we will take a look at some of the best WordPress alternatives in this article.
Quick Review
Here are the WordPress alternatives that we will consider in this article:
- BigCommerce: Perfect for companies that want to build their e-commerce store and boost their conversion rate.
- WIX: Ideal for beginners that want to build their websites quickly without any coding requirement.
- Squarespace: An easy-to-use website builder that emphasizes convenience and functionality.
- Drupal: An open-source, fast-loading, and highly scalable website builder.
- Ghost: A secure platform with a series of modern and powerful publishing tools.
5 Best WordPress Alternatives
1. BigCommerce
BigCommerce is a great WordPress alternative for companies that want to build their store and boost their conversion rate. It provides a good opportunity to customize the website and also provides many interesting options. The platform is not only great for professional website developers, but it is also perfect for newbies.
Even if all you want is to create a blog and share useful information with your potential clients, you can use BigCommerce. Unlike other platforms that offer most of their templates on a paid basis, BigCommerce offers interesting templates for free.
BigCommerce Pros
- Most of the advanced features that other platforms charge expensive rates for are available at an affordable rate on BigCommerce.
- BigCommerce makes it easy to sell in multiple currencies.
- It gives you access to third-party real-time shipping calculations irrespective of the plan that you choose.
- BigCommerce does not charge any transaction fees.
- Unlike other platforms, it provides a set of good reporting tools on all its plans.
BigCommerce Cons
- You will need to pay a lot to have access to the features offered by the abandoned cart functionality.
- It places limits on annual online sales. If you exceed the limits, you will need to upgrade to another more expensive monthly plan.
- The free themes are too similar to each other in most cases.
Pricing
BigCommerce has four monthly pricing plans as stated below:
- Standard: $29.95 per month
- Plus: $79.95 per month
- Pro: $299.95 per month
- Enterprise: The price depends on your business requirements.
You can enjoy a 10% discount on the ‘Plus’ and ‘Pro’ plans if you pay annually for them. BigCommerce also offers a 15-day free trial.
2. WIX
Over 200 million users use WIX. The platform is flawless for beginners that want to build their websites quickly without any coding requirement or learning curve. The platform offers a good number of templates. It is also easy to manage the content by adding the sections that you need.
However, due to its level of simplicity, the platform is not as flexible as it ought to be. Also, you will need to pay to have access to some features. Yet, its advantages surpass the disadvantages.
WIX Pros
- It has an easy-to-use drag and drop interface.
- The platform is reasonably priced.
- It has over 800 templates that are of high quality and contain sample content.
- Although it is not as comprehensive in terms of its e-commerce features, you will still get a good value for your money in terms of its selling features.
- It has a built-in email marketing tool.
WIX Cons
- You cannot apply another template to your website after building it.
- WIX does not make it possible to export digital products.
- It is not possible to export blog posts.
- The platform does not support selling in multiple currencies.
Pricing
WIX has the following pricing plans with different features:
- Free
- Combo: $14 per month
- Unlimited: $18 per month
- Pro: $23 per month
- VIP: $39 per month
- Enterprise: $500 per month
3. Squarespace
If you want convenience and functionality when using a website builder, then you can turn to the easy-to-use Squarespace.
Although it is not too flexible, it is very effective. If your goal is to design a website as quickly as possible, Squarespace is the platform to choose.
However, its cheap plans have some restrictions. Squarespace is good for users that are not skilled in website creation and programming. You need to understand the specific features you need to choose the best plan that suits your personal and business needs and goals.
Squarespace Pros
- It has contemporary and beautifully designed templates. Its design is also responsive; this means websites designed using the platform will look great on desktop, tablets, and mobile devices.
- Squarespace has a fantastic and user-friendly interface.
- The platform has excellent management options.
- It has different import tools that you can use to import your content from other platforms.
- If you are on one of the platform’s Commerce plans, you will not pay any transaction fee.
Squarespace Cons
- It has poor GDPR compliance in terms of its cookie consent. You will need to buy a third-party tool so that your Squarespace site can be completely compliant.
- Squarespace does not support multi-currency selling. If you want to build a store that caters to a global audience, you will need to go for other alternatives.
- Its automatic calculations are limited to the United States.
- The platform’s gateway options are limited to only PayPal and Stripe.
Pricing
Squarespace has four plans as stated below:
- Personal: $16 per month
- Business: $26 per month
- Basic Commerce: $35 per month
- Advanced Commerce: $54 per month
You can, however, enjoy monthly rates of $12, $18, $26, and $40 respectively on the four plans listed above if you pay upfront for a year.
4. Drupal
Drupal is one of the most popular content management systems (CMS). It is an open-source, fast-loading, and highly scalable website builder. Drupal also has features that are suitable for any type of website.
Some of its useful features include the following:
- Its modular structure promotes flexibility to craft versatile content. It has themes that help to create different presentations and add-ons that enhance functionality.
- Drupal has packaged Drupal content that serves as starter kits. They can be integrated with external apps or services to boost scalability.
- It is reliable and very secure.
- The platform has good media support for images, audio, and video files.
- Drupal is API-driven. It also has multi-channel content delivery in decoupled and hybrid decoupled modes.
- It offers customizable workflows and a mobile-first platform.
Drupal Pros
- Highly secured platform.
- It has great flexibility.
- The platform is very powerful.
- There is no limitation to its scalability.
- It is easy to manage content on Drupal.
Drupal Cons
- Its interface is not so friendly.
- Drupal has a steep learning curve.
- It has limited modules.
Pricing
You can start using Drupal for free. However, you will need to find a web hosting service on your own. You will also need to pay for technical expertise if you don’t have any coding skills.
5. Ghost
Ghost is a great platform for anything that has to do with blogs, publishing, and magazines. It is also perfect for any form of writing. The platform can also self-host your Ghost-powered website.
Here are some of the features that make Ghost one of the best WordPress alternatives:
- Ghost is a secured platform that includes a series of modern and powerful publishing tools.
- Its fully extensible editor allows users to use different types of content like images, videos, embeds, and text.
- The platform has a dynamic routing and robust tagging functionality that enables users to create custom URL structures, homepages, and content in different languages.
- It offers complete SEO optimization, integrated AMP support, full RSS feeds, detailed structured data, subscription capture form, and slack integration. All these make it easy for you to distribute your content to a wider audience through social media and online forums.
- Ghost features a JSON API that gives users full control over having access to and displaying data. It also allows you to customize the user experience.
Ghost Pros
- It has a minimalist and user-friendly design.
- Ghost features a minimalist editor.
- It features a built-in editor.
- You can make money from your Ghost blog by getting paid readers.
- It has a free email marketing feature.
Ghost Cons
- You will need to learn about the basics of blogging so that you can get the best results from Ghost.
- Ghost is expensive. I’d advise you shouldn’t use this platform if you won’t be writing consistently. You need to write and publish weekly.
- You need to have some knowledge about coding.
Pricing
Just like WordPress, Ghost allows you to self-host the platform for free. You can also choose any of the premium plans below after their 14-day free trial:
- Basic: $29 per month
- Standard: $79 per month
- Business: $199 per month
FAQs
1. Is Ghost better than WordPress?
The main feature that makes Ghost better than WordPress is its speed. Ghost is powered by a modern technology stack that uses Node.JS (which is fast). Independent tests also revealed that Ghost is about 1900 percent faster than WordPress.
2. Is WIX better than WordPress?
WordPress is superior to WIX as a website publishing platform for any type of website. While Wix offers a platform that is easy to use for building websites, you can do a lot more with WordPress.
3. Is WordPress the best CMS?
WordPress.org is the go-to choice for the best CMS platform. It is the most popular CMS and powers about 35 percent of all the websites in the world.
4. How many WordPress posts can I create?
There is no limit to the number of posts that you can create on WordPress. You can create as many posts as you want.
Read: 8 Reasons Why WordPress Is The Best Website Builder
Conclusion
And that brings us to the end of our collection of the best WordPress alternatives. To recap, we considered:
- BigCommerce
- WIX
- Squarespace
- Drupal
- Ghost
Irrespective of what you want to achieve with your blog or website; whether you want to build brand awareness or convert your site visitors to loyal customers, you can use any of the platforms discussed in this article to take your business online. You need to figure out what you want to achieve so that you can choose the right platform for your business or brand.
Although publishing platforms and website builders can go a long way in helping you to quickly create website content and increase your audience, a content management system will help you to build and easily manage a website that aligns with your business goals over time.
Blogamigo is focused on bringing you useful blogging tips that will help you get the best from your blogs. Check out this beginner-friendly guide to learn how you can build a blog that makes you money.
Here’s another guide that will show you how you can increase your website’s conversion rate. You will love it.