WordPress is popular, and we love it, but it is not the only publishing platform. There are WordPress alternatives that you can use to build your website.
Each of these WordPress competitors is different and has its own pros and cons. You need to understand those differences and limitations when choosing a WordPress alternative.
In this article, we will show you some of the most popular alternatives to WordPress currently available on the market.
Why Do People Look for WordPress Alternatives?
WordPress powers over 43% of all websites, and it is the most popular website builder in the world.
There are a lot of reasons why people choose WordPress: free, customizable, SEO friendly, blogging tools, social media tools, advanced features, eCommerce ready, multilingual language support, thousands of free web design templates, and more. See all the reasons why people use WordPress.
Since 2003, the WordPress open-source platform has come a long way when it comes to ease of use, with many drag-and-drop website-building tools like SeedProd, Divi, and Beaver Builder that let you create custom websites from scratch without writing any code.
Oftentimes, business owners prefer using WordPress because it’s the best solution that helps you rank higher in search engines.
If you want to make a WordPress site with an affordable pricing plan, then you can get started with Bluehost.
→ Start Your WordPress Site Today (Special Offer) ←
But while WordPress is popular, it is not a good fit for everyone.
That’s because some business owners don’t want the hassle of managing their own website backups, security, and updates.
If you’re looking for the best WordPress alternatives, then you’re in the right place.
We have tried just about every WordPress alternative in the market, and here are the top WordPress competitors.
1. Web.com
Web.com is an affordable website builder and a very popular WordPress alternative among small business owners.
Their plan starts at $1.95 per month and comes with a free domain, business email address, autosave & backup features, website security solution, SEO tools, website analytics, and other powerful website optimization tools.
Web.com has a drag-and-drop website builder that’s extremely easy to use, even for non-techy users. They have thousands of pre-made website templates that you can pick from. You can also create a completely custom website with just a point and click. They make customizing a website design really easy.
Their eCommerce features give you all that you need to create a simple online store.
Lastly, they have unlimited chat and phone support, so you can talk to their web experts when you need help, which is great to have as a small business owner who is building a website for the first time.
2. HubSpot Website Builder
HubSpot CMS Hub is a powerful website builder and WordPress alternative that lets you build a custom website within minutes.
It combines the power of its drag-and-drop website builder, marketing automation tools, and CRM so you can deliver a personalized digital experience to your users.
You can use their conversion-optimized website templates to quickly build a website that delivers results.
The best part about HubSpot’s website builder is that it lets you do adaptive testing, so you can choose up to five variations of a page, and HubSpot will monitor & serve the best-performing option.
It comes with many other powerful features, including SEO tools, powerful analytics, blogging tools, live chat software, email marketing features, multi-language content support, and more.
Their starter plan includes free SSL, CMS hub (website builder), marketing hub (CRM, live chat, popups, etc.), sales tools, and business operation tools.
3. Wix
Wix is a popular website builder platform that is a leading alternative to WordPress. It offers a limited free plan to use for personal or small business website. Both free and paid plans come with pre-designed templates that users can modify using a drag-and-drop page builder.
Wix also has eCommerce support with its paid plans, which allows site owners to accept online payments using PayPal or Authorize.net.
If you want to see how Wix compares with WordPress, then see our article on Wix vs WordPress for a side-by-side comparison of the two platforms.
If you are already using Wix and want to transfer it to WordPress, then see our article on how to properly switch from Wix to WordPress.
4. Gator by HostGator
Gator is a fully hosted website builder created by HostGator. They are one of the top website hosting companies in the world and know their stuff when it comes to hosting websites.
Gator comes with ready-made website designs that you can customize with a user-friendly drag-and-drop website builder. Even absolute beginners can quickly familiarize themselves with the app without any learning curve.
Their Starter and Premium plans are suitable for small business websites. You will need their eCommerce plan to add a shopping cart and other eCommerce features. Each plan also includes a free domain name and a free SSL certificate.
5. Domain.com Website Builder
Domain.com offers an easy-to-use drag-and-drop website builder for small businesses. You can use it to create a website, blog, or even an online store within just a few clicks.
Their platform comes with hundreds of beautifully designed templates that you can start with, and you can easily customize them to match your needs using an easy drag-and-drop interface.
It comes with all essential website features such as website analytics, eCommerce functionality, the ability to add a blog, and a free SSL certificate with all plans. It’s extremely affordable, starting at only $1.99 per month.
Domain.com is consistently ranked as the best domain registrar in the world, and its website builder is a great alternative to WordPress. You can use our Domain.com coupon to get an additional discount.
6. Hostinger Website Builder (formerly Zyro)
Hostinger Website Builder, formerly known as Zyro, is an affordable WordPress alternative with drag-and-drop functionality built by the same folks behind the popular Hostinger web hosting service.
Their website builder allows you to create a website without any design or coding skills. It even comes with a logo maker, useful AI tools, and tons of pre-made website templates that you can start with. You also get access to over 1 million stock images for free.
With each plan, you get new powerful features. For example, on the Premium plan, you get marketing integrations like Google Analytics, Facebook retargeting, visitor remarketing, etc.
They also have eCommerce plans that allow you to add unlimited products, accept online payments, offer discount coupons, manage orders and inventory, and even connect your store with Amazon, Instagram, and Shopify.
7. BigCommerce
If you are looking for an eCommerce-ready alternative to WordPress, then BigCommerce could be the right platform for you. It is a fully-hosted eCommerce platform with drag-and-drop tools and beautiful templates to get you started.
It supports many payment gateways, including PayPal, Stripe, Apple Pay, and Pay with Amazon. One notable advantage of using BigCommerce is that they don’t charge you for transactions.
BigCommerce allows you to add unlimited products, view your store performance, and use built-in tools to optimize conversions and boost sales. It also comes with a native WordPress integration, so you can use BigCommerce for your store while WordPress for your main content website.
BigCommerce works with a lot of other third-party apps that you will need to grow your business.
8. Shopify
If you want to build an online store, then Shopify is a great alternative to WordPress. It provides easy-to-use tools to create your own online shop. You can sell your products and accept payments.
Shopify comes with a simple guided setup that helps you quickly get started with your eCommerce store. It has ready-made templates, apps, and lots of integration options.
Wondering how it compares to WooCommerce (the best WordPress eCommerce plugin)?
See our article on Shopify vs WooCommerce for a detailed comparison of the two platforms.
9. Webflow
Webflow is a no-code platform for web development, and it’s a fast growing WordPress alternative. It allows designers to build professional, production-ready custom websites, in a completely visual canvas without coding.
Basically, Webflow allows you to take full control over HTML5, CSS, and JavaScript without actually writing any code.
You can use it to design simple marketing websites, and they’re slowly expanding into eCommerce as well, but it’s nowhere near as powerful as WordPress.
10. Weebly
Weebly is another completely hosted website builder. It allows you to create your own website using pre-designed templates and their drag-drop page builder.
Weebly has limited eCommerce support, but you can use custom domain names. For a full comparison, see our comparison of WordPress vs Weebly.
If you are already using Weebly and want to switch to WordPress, then see our step-by-step guide on how to properly move from Weebly to WordPress
11. Medium
Medium is a popular publishing platform. It is different than WordPress in many ways. It is not a full content management system. Their focus is on blogging and the community aspect. It aims to connect people with stories and ideas that matter to them.
Medium is designed to provide a clutter-free writing area for publishers and a similar reading experience for the readers. It looks beautiful on all devices and screen sizes. Users don’t have to worry about themes or plugins because there are none.
Instead of comments, Medium has in-line notes and responses. You don’t need to worry about the software, as Medium is a completely hosted platform. Medium does not allow custom domain names anymore, which means you cannot use your own domain name for your publication.
See our comparison of WordPress vs Medium to see the difference between the two platforms.
We also have a step-by-step tutorial for users who want to move their articles from Medium to a WordPress website.
12. Ghost
Several WordPress users who wanted to focus on blogging felt that WordPress was going in a different direction. This gave birth to Ghost, which is a NodeJS-based blogging software.
The difference is that Ghost is entirely focused on blogging and keeping the clutter away. It provides a clean writing and browsing experience for bloggers and readers.
13. Joomla
Joomla is a popular CMS software and an open-source WordPress competitor. It is a strong, multi-purpose, and flexible CMS platform with a large community of users and developers.
Joomla allows you to do many of the things that WordPress can do and then some more. Like WordPress themes and plugins, Joomla comes with extensions and templates. It is already used by millions of users, small businesses, corporations, governments, and nonprofits all over the world.
Just like WordPress, Joomla has a community support system with extensive documentation, and it runs on most web hosting platforms.
Click here to start a Joomla website »
Wondering how it stacks up against WordPress? See our article on WordPress vs Joomla vs Drupal for a comparison of these three open-source CMS platforms.
We also have a step-by-step tutorial for users who want to move from Joomla to WordPress.
14. Drupal
Drupal is another very popular open-source CMS. Just like WordPress and Joomla, Drupal has a strong user base and developer community. It powers nearly 2.1% of all websites on the internet, including The White House, The Economist, State of Georgia, and many more.
Drupal has modules and themes just like WordPress plugins and themes. It shares the same software requirements as WordPress and Joomla, so it can run on pretty much any web host that supports WordPress.
Their backend is a bit complicated, but it does offer a lot of customization options.
Click here to start a Drupal website »
15. Jekyll
Jekyll is a static site generator. It is written in Ruby and requires NodeJS. It is a lot different than WordPress. For starters, it is a static site generator which means it takes your text and generates static HTML pages for your site (no database).
You can use free hosting provided by GitHub Pages with Jekyll. This means that if you are familiar with Markdown, SVN, Git, and the command line, then you will be up and running in no time. In other words, this is made for developers!
16. Tumblr
Tumblr is a popular free blogging platform. Tumblr combines blogging with social and makes it quite fun. It has a strong user base despite the fact that it was acquired by Yahoo in 2013.
Tumblr allows users to choose from free or premium themes. Users can also use custom domain names for their Tumblr blogs. Apart from your blog, you can also create pages. It is a completely hosted solution, so you don’t have to worry about installing or maintaining any software.
Tumblr has several limitations when compared to WordPress. You cannot easily monetize your content or run an eCommerce store. You also have to follow their content guidelines; otherwise, your website will be suspended.
We have a step-by-step tutorial on how to move from Tumblr to WordPress for users looking for a Tumblr alternative with more freedom.
17. Squarespace
Squarespace is a paid site builder that can be used as a WordPress alternative. It is extremely easy to use and a completely hosted solution.
Just like Wix and Weebly, Squarespace also offers ready-to-use templates that you can customize. There are no plugins or additional modules to install. You can only use the features provided by Squarespace. See our comparison of Squarespace vs WordPress.
Due to its limitations, many Squarespace users eventually moved to WordPress. For those users, we have a step-by-step guide on how to move from Squarespace to WordPress.
18. Expression Engine
Expression Engine is a PHP+MySQL-based paid CMS. There is a basic free version with very limited features available for download. Unlike other open-source CMS in our list, Expression Engine requires a license fee, and most additional features are available as paid add-ons.
19. Blogger
Last but not least, Blogger is still alive. It is a free blog service by Google. It has most of the features you would need for blogging. A commenting system, built-in social capabilities, easy-to-use templates, and the option to use your own domain name.
We have written a full comparison between Blogger vs WordPress (Pros and Cons). If you are using Blogger and want to switch to WordPress, then follow this guide.
Which is the Best WordPress Alternative (Expert Pick)
We believe that WordPress is the best website builder in the market. However, if you’re looking for the best WordPress alternatives, then we believe that Web.com is the best WordPress alternative.
HubSpot and Wix are also among the popular WordPress alternatives that some small business owners choose for their website builder.
We hope this article provided you with a chance to look at some popular WordPress alternatives. While looking at these alternatives, you may want to take a look at our complete WordPress review and top reasons why you should use WordPress.
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Disclaimer: This list of best WordPress alternatives is in reference to the open-source WordPress platform, not the hosted WordPress.com service.
