Best Wix Alternatives for Website Building and CMS (2025)

Wix is one of the most popular website builders on the market, and with a 13.08% market share, it’s second, right after WordPress. It’s highly user-friendly and intuitive, with a vast selection of templates and apps, built-in SEO tools and e-commerce features, and AI capabilities that make building easier. 

However, Wix is not without flaws, which is why many people are looking for great Wix alternatives. Templates can be restrictive, and there’s not always enough control over design elements. The platform also exhibits some scalability issues. Moreover, the built-in SEO tools and e-commerce features are unsuitable for advanced users. 

With all that in mind, let’s consider the best alternatives to compensate on these and other fronts. 

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1. Webflow — Best Overall Alternative to Wix 

Webflow is a website experience platform with a built-in CMS. It focuses on allowing designers, marketers, and others to create and launch highly responsive and scalable websites quickly. The platform has a slight learning curve and lets users focus on the tiniest details, allowing them to develop websites that completely fit their goals. 

It focuses on visual development but replicates the control you get with traditional coding. In other words, you build with a graphical interface while still controlling the underlying HTML, CSS, and JavaScript structure. This makes Webflow better than Wix, as the customization level is unprecedented.

Whereas Wix relies on templates, Webflow lets you create custom designs so you can build the exact website you want to build. With its advanced SEO tools and features, you can have an easier time implementing robust SEO strategies that will ensure your site ranks better. 

Webflow also has a powerful CMS that allows you to create and optimize dynamic content like product listings, blog posts, portfolios, customer testimonials, knowledge bases, and news. 

What are the ideal users? 

Webflow best suits design-heavy sites, CMS-driven websites, entire marketing teams, and enterprise businesses. 

Pros:

• Great design flexibility
• Allows for better search engine rankings
• Robust tools for complex animations
• Great for website scalability
• Integrated hosting
• Internal testing and analytics tools for marketing teams

Cons:

• Somewhat steep learning curve
• Pricing structure more complex than Wix

How does it compare to Wix? 

Wix may be simpler to use and comes with a more straightforward pricing structure, but Webflow outperforms it on several levels. You have much more freedom in your site’s design and get advanced SEO tools, while the CMS is more powerful. Overall, it might be more challenging to create a website with Webflow than with Wix, but it will be a lot better and thus worth the extra effort. 

2. Squarespace — Best Alternative for Portfolio Sites and Small Businesses 

Squarespace is one of Wix’s main competitors, and it’s also an all-in-one website builder that lets users create professional-looking websites, as well as online stores and portfolios. It doesn’t require coding knowledge and comes with a user-friendly interface and customizable templates. 

It focuses on design so you can easily create modern, clean, and visually pleasing sites. Although the number of templates is limited compared to Wix, they are often much better, more customizable, and more beautiful. 

Squarespace comes with several integrated marketing tools, reliable hosting, and a robust selection of e-commerce tools for building a quality online store. 

What are the ideal users?

Squarespace is best suited for small business owners, creative professionals, online stores, and content creators. 

Pros:

• Very easy to use
• Design-focused
• An all-in-one website builder
• Offers strong e-commerce functionality

Cons:

• Could offer more customization
• The price is higher than Wix
• A limited selection of plugins

How does it compare to Wix? 

Wix is a bit more flexible than Squarespace and has a lower price tag, but Squarespace offers better templates, more marketing tools, and better e-commerce functionality. It also comes with very reliable hosting and is more suited to e-commerce sites and small businesses, while creatives will find it easy to showcase their work. 

3. Framer — A Design-Focused Alternative to Wix 

Framer is a website builder that also acts as a prototyping tool through which you can create advanced interactive animations, interactions, and transitions on your site. It focuses on design, like most Wix alternatives, to enable users to create interactive and visually pleasing websites. 

Due to this, it draws strong parallels to Webflow and has positioned itself as the company’s direct competitor. 

Framer is also a no-code web-building tool, meaning you don’t need to know code to create highly functional websites. The platform's integrated AI allows you to work on your website with prompts instead of manually. 

What are the ideal users?

Framer is best suited for individual designers and small teams, small businesses, design-first projects, and prototypers and UX/UI designers.

Pros:

• Design-first approach without coding
• Strong prototyping features
• SEO and CMS functionalities
• AI-powered website building

Cons:

• A steep learning curve
• Not suited for complex backend projects

How does it compare to Wix? 

Wix is much easier to use than Framer and offers more e-commerce functionalities, but Framer excels in several other areas. It’s better at designing intricate and customized websites, which isn’t a focus of Wix. Framer also offers better CMS and SEO features. It also comes with a seamless Figma integration and strong AI-powered capabilities. 

4. WordPress — A CMS-Driven Wix Alternative 

WordPress is the world's most popular open-source CMS that powers 43.4% of all websites, placing it well ahead of Wix and all other solutions. This is mainly because WordPress itself is completely free, while premium themes and plugins are paid for. 

It was primarily created for building blogs but is now versatile enough to create powerful business websites, portfolios, e-commerce sites, and more. 

The key thing about WordPress is that it’s highly flexible and customizable, all due to the massive library of themes and plugins. However, it also excels with SEO functionalities, content management, and scalability. 

What are the ideal users?

The platform is best suited for bloggers, small businesses, freelancers, and medium-sized businesses, among others. 

Pros:

• Massive ecosystem of themes and plugins
• Highly flexible and customizable 
• Lots of SEO plugins
• Extensive community support

Cons:

• Takes time to learn to use
• You’re responsible for website maintenance
• Scalability is an issue as the site grows and gets more expensive

How does it compare to Wix? 

Wix handles maintenance for you and is more user-friendly, providing an easy method for building a website. However, WordPress is significantly more flexible and offers you almost complete control over your site. On top of that, with the extensive range of themes and plugins, you’ll be able to customize your site as much as you want. 

5. Shopify — An Ecommerce Alternative to Wix 

Shopify is the world’s leading e-commerce platform designed for businesses and individuals looking to create and manage online stores. This means it’s not designed to help you create any type of website like Wix, but it does excel for online stores, so if that’s what you need, Shopify will be the ideal alternative. 

This specialization allows Shopify to offer a robust set of tools and features you need to create a powerful and highly functional online store that can scale exceptionally easily. It’s also why there are more than 5.6 million Shopify stores in the world, with the number growing fast and steadily.

The platform offers e-commerce features like inventory management, order processing, payment processing, and marketing tools. More than that, it has a large app store with third-party apps that can improve the functionality of your store. 

What are the ideal users?

In essence, Shopify is ideal for almost any small to medium-sized business running an online store.

Pros:

• Specializes in empowering online stores
• Highly scalable
• Store with a wide range of third-party apps
• Powerful SEO capabilities

Cons:

• Focus on e-commerce only
• Costs can significantly increase as your store grows

How does it compare to Wix? 

Wix is designed for a wide range of websites, while Shopify is not. However, if you compare the two's services for e-commerce businesses, Shopify wins because it’s fully specialized in this niche, has a robust set of e-commerce features, is highly scalable, and has a strong app store. 

How to Choose the Best Wix Alternative for Your Project

It’s crucial to view Wix alternatives under a similar lens and by using the same criteria. This will help you find the best solution for your current needs. I’ve narrowed down your choice to five excellent tools, but I’ve also prepared the criteria you should focus on to determine which one to pick, while you can also add a few of your own that are specific to your use case. 

Ease of Use 

Consider your technical knowledge for website building. Do you want to have an easy time creating a website, using an intuitive drag-and-drop interface with no coding involved? Or are you ready to dig in and create intricate designs with a lot of customizations? 

Wix is primarily made for beginners, and if you want the same, Squarespace can do the trick, while others, including Framer and Webflow, will require some knowledge but will offer complete freedom. 

Overall best option: Squarespace

Customization & Design Flexibility

You need to decide how much control you want over your website. Wix is not the best option here, and this is one of the main reasons why many teams and companies are looking for an alternative. 

Some platforms allow you to tinker with many things and create pixel-perfect designs, like Weblow, which excels at precisely that. 

Overall best option: Webflow

CMS Capabilities

CMS is important for some business owners and marketers looking for a web builder or Wix alternative. If you’re unsure, evaluate how much you need dynamic content like blogs and product listings, and consider how frequently you need to update your content. 

If all of this is important, look for a web builder with robust CMS functionalities like Webflow and WordPress, both of which have CMSs with extensive features. 

Overall best option: Webflow

SEO Features

Do you need some SEO functionalities, or do you want advanced features and built-in SEO tools that allow you to do things like customize meta tags and fully control URL structure?

Once again, WordPress and Webflow are at the top of the list because they provide extensive SEO capabilities. 

Overall best option: WordPress and Webflow

E-commerce Support

If your focus lies in strong e-commerce features like product management and payment processing because you run an online store, then the best choice is almost always Shopify, as it specializes in supporting e-commerce businesses. 

Overall best option: Shopify

Scalability

Consider whether you need a standard site that you’re not looking to grow much or one that will have to grow heavily in the future. If you need the former, any quality builder will do the trick, but if you need the latter, you have to get a highly scalable platform like Webflow or Shopify for ecommerce sites. 

Overall best option: Webflow

Integrations & Plugins

If you require a bunch of different features that are not always available in the basic package, like social media tools, marketing features, and analytics, you need to look for a Wix alternative with a large selection of integrations and plugins. One of the best choices here is WordPress.

Overall best option: WordPress

Pricing & Value

Much of what we need eventually comes down to price, so you’ll have to consider the pricing and available plans for the alternatives to Wix you’re considering. Look for a good price-to-value ratio. 

If you’re budget-minded, consider Squarespace, and if you’re willing to pay more for more customization and features, consider Webflow and Shopify for e-commerce needs. WordPress is neither here nor there as it depends on how many plugins you need, most of which cost, so if you need a lot, it will quickly become the most expensive solution. 

Overall best option: Squarespace

Hosting & Performance

If you want the highest speeds and constant uptime, you’ll need a solution with praised and reliable integrated hosting, like Webflow, Squarespace, and Framer. WordPress doesn’t have managed hosting, so you’ll have to choose one. This makes it ideal only for teams that want to manage hosting themselves. 

Overall best option: Webflow

Customer Support

Availability of different support channels and the quality of responses are the main things you need to consider if you’re looking for a Wix alternative with good customer support. 

Webflow and Squarespace generally have good support, while WordPress has extensive documentation and a large community. Shopify likely has the best support, but it’s designed for e-commerce projects. 

Overall best option: Webflow

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Bottom Line

Despite being a quality web builder, there are many reasons why you’d want to look for Wix alternatives. I’ve made things easier here by giving you the five best options on the market and with my guide on choosing a platform as an alternative to Wix, you have all you need to settle on one. 

If you’re interested in migrating to Webflow, Flow Ninja can help you. We specialize in this website experience platform and all you need to do is reach out to see what we can do for you.