9 February 2024
13 Best WordPress Alternatives 2024 For Your Website
Are you looking for the best WordPress alternatives for your website? If yes, you came to the right place.
WordPress is the most popular content management system (CMS) on the internet. It powers over 43.2% of the web and holds a considerable 62.8% market share.
However, there are many great alternatives to WordPress available that may be a better fit for some sites.
In this article, we’ve curated 13 of the best WordPress alternatives in 2024. This list includes everything from hosted website builders like Wix to flexible CMS like Drupal to blogging platforms like Blogger.
Read on to find the platform that’s perfect for you.
Why Look for a WordPress Alternatives?
There are several reasons why someone might look for alternatives to WordPress despite its popularity as a content management system (CMS). Here are some of the main reasons:
- Complexity for Beginners: WordPress has a steep learning curve for those new to website development. Its extensive functionalities and customization options can be overwhelming for beginners.
- Performance Issues: Websites built on WordPress can suffer from slow loading times, especially if they are not optimized properly, have too many plugins, or are hosted on inadequate hosting services.
- Security Concerns: WordPress is a common target for hackers due to its popularity. Regular updates and maintenance are required to keep a WordPress website secure, which can be a hassle for some users.
- Customization Requires Coding: While WordPress is highly customizable, making significant changes often requires knowledge of HTML, CSS, PHP, and other web technologies. Users looking for a more drag-and-drop approach without coding might find WordPress limiting.
- Cost: While WordPress itself is free, costs can add up for premium themes, plugins, and WordPress hosting. Some users prefer a more all-in-one solution that’s cost-effective.
- Better Solutions for E-commerce: Users looking to run an e-commerce site primarily find platforms dedicated to e-commerce, like Shopify or BigCommerce, to be better suited to their needs, offering more specialized features out of the box.
How to Choose an Alternative for WordPress?
When it comes to WordPress alternatives, there are various options to consider. You can use another open-source CMS. Or, if you want hosting and website-building tools all in one place, you may go with a proprietary CMS. A proprietary CMS would typically provide additional functionality, such as built-in SEO tools and better security measures.
However, a website builder like Wix or Weebly may be a better option if you don’t have time to use a CMS’s functionality and add-ons fully. You will get website-building tools and hosting all in one place without having to pay for advanced features you don’t need or use.
Or, if you don’t want to deal with site maintenance, you can set up a free account on a publishing platform such as Tumblr or Medium. That way, you can continue posting multimedia content and expanding your following without paying for features and services you do not use.
It’s important to remember that neither platform is easier or better than the other. They’re just created for different purposes. To choose which tool is best for your site, ask yourself the following questions:
- What is your budget?
- What level of control do you want over the look of your website?
- What about your website’s speed, security, and performance?
- Will many users help you in running your website?
- Would you like to utilize a hosted platform or your own hosting provider?
- Are you going to add a blog to your website?
13 Best WordPress Alternatives
Below are some of the best competitors to WordPress you can check out:
1. Shopify
Shopify is the top WordPress alternative for online eCommerce stores. It’s a comprehensive platform created specifically for building online stores, with several features to make store owners’ lives easier. Unlike other website builders, Shopify is completely focused on providing a streamlined, user-friendly experience for creating and managing an online store. It handles hosting and maintenance, allowing you to concentrate on what’s most important—your business.
One notable feature that sets Shopify as a popular WordPress competitor is the ease of setup, especially for those new to eCommerce. While platforms like WooCommerce may be easy for WordPress users, Shopify provides a far more straightforward setup process. This ease of use is a game changer for people who want to enter eCommerce without technical hurdles.
For more, check out our complete comparison of Shopify vs WordPress.
Best Features:
- Offers over 160+ free and paid themes
- Offers over 8,000 free and paid apps to expand the functionality of your website
- Promote and sell products on platforms like Instagram, TikTok, Google, etc
- Analytics to track your store performance
- Sell as many products and services as you want
- Free SSL certificate with every plan
- Fully hosted platform with 24-hour technical support
- Location-based inventory tracking
- Offers a variety of payment options
Shopify Pricing:
Shopify offers a three-day free trial and $1/mo on your selected plan for the next three months. After that, you can explore their full-featured premium plans, starting from $29/mo.
In addition, Shopify has a Starter Plan starting at $5/mo, which allows you to sell products through social and messaging apps.
2. Wix
Wix is a cloud-based website builder that allows you to create a website using their drag-and-drop editor. It offers a number of website templates and designs, making it easier for you to create your website without any coding skills.
Furthermore, if you do not want to spend time building your site, you can use Wix ADI, a free AI website builder that will ask you a series of questions before creating a site for you.
Wix also provides free marketing tools and basic SEO optimization, allowing you to rank better on Google while growing your organic web traffic.
Overall, WiX is an excellent option that provides you with extremely intuitive site-building tools.
For more, check out our complete comparison of Wix vs WordPress.
Best Features:
- 900+ free, customizable website templates
- 300+ apps to add more power to your site
- Advanced SEO tools and integrated marketing solutions
- AI technology that builds a website for you
- Custom domain, logo, and other brand tools
- Powerful eCommerce solution for selling online
- Easily create a free blog
Wix Pricing:
Wix offers a free plan where you’ll get access to an easy-to-use drag-and-drop editor, unlimited pages, 500 MB storage, etc. However, it comes with a Wix-branded subdomain and ads. To provide users with an ad-free experience, you’ll need to upgrade to a premium version.
The most affordable plan is Light. At $16/mo, it is ideal for basic and personal sites. To unlock eCommerce functionality and online payments, you need to purchase the Core, Business, or Business Elite plans, which cost $27-159/mo.
3. Squarespace
Squarespace is the ultimate solution if you’re searching for a better WordPress alternative to creating a beautiful website. It provides everything you need to start a website, including domain registration, hosting, themes and templates, eCommerce, and support.
Like Wix, it provides more than 100 website templates, which can be customized with Squarespace’s feature-packed drag-and-drop editor. Most layouts offer bold, minimalist styling, making Squarespace excellent for creatives and influencers looking for a visually appealing website. However, you cannot install plugins or extra modules, so you are restricted to the functionalities provided by Squarespace.
The main reason most people choose Squarespace, despite its high cost, is because it handles most of the SEO and technical aspects of website creation. Squarespace automatically generates sitemap.xml, robots.txt file, automatic tagging, clean URLs, and other features out of the box.
So, if you want a website-building platform that allows you to focus only on content production while still improving your search rankings, Squarespace is the way to go.
For more, check out our complete comparison of Wix vs Squarespace vs WordPress.
Best Features:
- Customizable, mobile-responsive design templates
- User-friendly interface for easy editing
- Tools for online stores, including inventory management and secure checkout
- Integrated tools for email campaigns, social media, and website analytics
- Option to add custom CSS and HTML for advanced customization
- Robust CMS for managing blogs, portfolios, and events
- 24/7 support via live chat and email, with an extensive knowledge base
- Squarespace mobile app to lets you manage your website on the go
- Offers blogging tools like post scheduling, custom permissions, and monetization features
- Built-in SEO and marketing tools
Squarespace Pricing:
Squarespace provides a 14-day free trial to test the platform. Premium plans start from $16/mo. However, the eCommerce functionality is available from the Business plan onwards, which costs $23/mo.
4. Weebly
Weebly is another great drag-and-drop website builder that is used by millions of users worldwide.
With over 50 free, mobile-friendly website designs, you can create a Weebly website in minutes without any coding or design expertise. The drag-and-drop editor allows you to effortlessly change your website’s header and footer and build pages and blog posts with videos, images, galleries, online forms, and other features. In addition, social media integrations make it easy to post and sell on Facebook, Instagram, and other websites. Plus, you can also change Weebly themes without losing your site content, unlike some other site builders in this list.
Are you planning to sell products or services or start an online membership site? Weebly’s built-in e-commerce features allow you to create almost any type of web-based business. Furthermore, Weebly is owned by Square, allowing you to connect online and in-person sales with Square POS easily.
For more, check out our complete comparison of WordPress vs Weebly.
Best Features:
- Drag and drop builder to easily create stunning websites
- Advanced eCommerce tools to sell online
- Edit and manage your site on the go with Weebly’s mobile app
- Beautiful, responsive templates for your site, blog, or store
- Built-in tools to track site performance and visitor behavior
- App center where you can find hundreds of apps for extra functionality
- Comprehensive blogging tools to create and manage blog posts
- Powerful SEO tools to help search engines find you
Weebly Pricing:
Weebly offers a free plan that offers basic, limited functionality. However, to make the most of this website builder, you’ll need to upgrade to a premium plan. Premium plan starts from $10/mo and allows you to connect your custom domain.
5. Web.com
Web.com is a low-cost website builder and a popular alternative to WordPress among small company owners.
It provides a drag-and-drop website builder that is easy to use, even for non-technical users. In addition, it offers thousands of pre-made website templates to choose from. You can also create a totally customized website with a single click.
Furthermore, its eCommerce features provide all you need to build a basic online store.
Finally, it offers unlimited chat and phone support, allowing you to contact their web professionals whenever you need help. Overall, Web.com is ideal for a small business owner who is building a website for the first time.
Best Features:
- Easy AI-powered site builder
- Number of customizable templates suitable for different business types
- Custom website design services by professionals
- Integrated email marketing tools to engage with customers and grow audience
- Analytics and reporting tools to track website performance and visitor behavior
- Services for domain name search and registration
- Offers SSL certificates for website security
Web.com Pricing:
Web.com plans to start at $4.95/mo for the first year’s offer. After the first year, the plan renews at $15.99/mo.
6. Hostinger Website Builder (Formerly Zyro)
Hostinger Website Builder, formerly known as Zyro, is a cheap WordPress alternative. It provides a simple site builder with a drag-and-drop editor, pre-built templates, and useful AI tools. It helps beginners and non-technical users to create and publish modern and appealing websites.
This website-building solution is offered with all Hostinger hosting plans, allowing you to select one that meets your needs and budget. You will need a custom domain name to launch your website. However, you will get a free domain name for every plan you purchase for the first year.
Best Features:
- Use AI tools to build a website from scratch
- Sell up to 500 products at no additional transaction fees
- Built-in SEO tools
- 150 responsive and fully-customizable templates
- 20+ payment methods for a seamless checkout process
- Monetize your website by displaying targeted ads
- AI Logo Generator to make a catchy logo
- Google Analytics integration
- 24/7 live support
Hostinger Website Builder Pricing:
Hostinger Website Builder comes with Hostinger hosting plans, which start from $2.49/mo.
7. Joomla
Joomla is the second most popular open-source CMS and one of the top WordPress competitors. You may use its page builder to design your website and add plugins and extensions to expand its basic functionality.
Joomla has more out-of-the-box functionality than WordPress. Many of your site’s settings can be configured from the backend. These include articles, banners, menus, redirects, and SEO settings.
In addition, Joomla’s built-in multilingual support and advanced user and content management options allow you to manage hundreds of users, create custom post types, and publish in multiple languages.
Joomla, similar to WordPress, provides an extensive community support system where you can ask other Joomla users for help with any issue. Additionally, it is compatible with most web hosting providers.
Best Features:
- Offers thousands of extensions and templates to customize and extend website functionality
- Provides advanced user management and ACL (Access Control List) for managing user permissions
- Built-in multilingual capabilities for creating websites in multiple languages
- Search engine optimized out of the box
- Built-in caching & minification to improve website performance and loading times
- Easy creation and management of navigation menus
- Easily redirect URLs when needed
Joomla Pricing:
Joomla is a free-to-use and self-hosted CMS. However, you’ll need a domain and Joomla hosting to create a business website.
8. Drupal
Drupal, like WordPress or Joomla, is a highly flexible CMS with limitless customization options. It is ideally suited for developers and other users who are comfortable with HTML, CSS, and PHP.
You can extend and change the functionality of your Drupal site by selecting one of the many modules available in Drupal’s directory. In addition, you can change the design of your site using hundreds of free themes from Drupal’s official theme repository or download premium themes from ThemeForest.
While Drupal has fewer modules and themes than WordPress, they are more flexible. That means you have more control over the functionality and appearance of your site.
Due to the vast array of customization options, setting up a Drupal site takes longer and is more difficult than setting up a WordPress site. But in the end, you’ll have a highly customized, secure website that can manage a lot of traffic and data.
For these reasons, Drupal is ideal for major enterprises, government organizations, and colleges with dedicated developer teams.
For more, check out our complete comparison of Drupal vs WordPress.
Best Features:
- Highly scalable for complex content structures
- Robust API for integration with web services and third-party applications
- Themes and modules for extensive customization and functionality
- Strong focus on security with regular updates and a dedicated security team
- Built-in multilingual support for creating and managing content in multiple languages
- Backed by a large community of developers and users
Drupal Pricing:
Drupal is an open-source CMS that you can download for free. However, you’ll need a domain and Drupal hosting to create a website.
9. HubSpot CMS Hub
HubSpot CMS Hub is a fully integrated content management system that puts your team, tools, and data all in one place. It is also fully hosted, which means HubSpot handles all of the technical parts of hosting your website. These include updates, upgrades, security issues, and bugs, allowing you to concentrate on your content and customers.
HubSpot CMS contains many of the features you’d expect. These include domain and file managers, drag-and-drop content editors, staging environments, design and blogging tools, and so on.
In addition to these site creation tools, you have access to other HubSpot products that may help you with your inbound marketing strategy. These include CTAs, lead forms, marketing automation, list segmentation, live chat, email, and reporting. Many other CMS platforms need the integration of third-party software to provide this functionality to your site.
What sets CMS Hub apart from other systems is its ability to be used together with the HubSpot CRM. By having all your user data in the same place as your website, you will easily manage and boost your relationships with your contacts.
Best Features:
- Beautiful, pre-designed website themes
- Direct integration with HubSpot CRM features
- SEO suggestions to improve your search rankings
- Comprehensive analytics to track website performance and user behavior
- Easy-to-use drag-and-drop editor that makes design customization a breeze
- Support for creating and managing content in multiple languages
- Built-in lead generation tools to generate leads directly from your website
HubSpot Pricing:
HubSpot offers free CMS tools to get you started. For more advanced features, the premium plan starts from $20/mo.
10. Blogger
Blogger, which is owned by Google, is a free WordPress alternative. It offers fully hosted solutions with a .blogspot subdomain. If blogging is your primary focus, Blogger is worth considering.
As a beginner, you can create a Blogger blog, connect a domain name, choose and customize a template, and start blogging in less than an hour. You can change your design at any time, and you can customize the look and functionality of some or all of your posts and pages. Blogger also allows you to organize posts by topic, known as labels, and show them as menus using the gadget function.
Blogger, unlike other WordPress competitors, does not provide built-in e-commerce functionality for managing products, payments, orders, and customers. Users and small companies who want to monetize Blogger often use affiliate marketing and Google AdSense ads. You can, however, turn Blogger posts into sales pages by including buy buttons from e-commerce platforms such as Shopify.
For more, check out our complete comparison of Blogger vs WordPress.
Best Features:
- You only need an active Google account to start building your blog
- A number of customizable templates to design your blog
- Allows multiple authors to write for a single blog with customizable permissions
- Integrate your blog with third-party applications to streamline workflows
- Seamless integration with Google Analytics, AdSense, and Drive
- Option to use a custom domain name for your blog
- Tools to share your content on social media platforms
- Potential to monetize your blog through Google AdSense
Blogger Pricing:
You can create a blog for free on Blogger.
11. Ghost
WordPress started as a basic blogging platform in 2003. However, it has since grown into a multi-purpose CMS with hundreds of plugins and WordPress themes. If all you want to do is start a blog, using WordPress may result in you paying for features and services you don’t need. Instead, use Ghost.
Ghost is a blogging program that runs on NodeJS. It is intended to be a simple and lightweight CMS for developing and monetizing sites with recurring subscriptions. In return for this simplicity, you will lose most of WordPress’s flexibility. That’s OK if you’re a blogger or someone just looking to build and run a simple website.
Best Features:
- Robust content management with a Markdown editor for writing and scheduling posts
- Tools to build a paid or free subscription base
- Insightful analytics for audience engagement and growth
- Built-in email newsletter functionality to send updates directly from the platform to subscribers
- Option to offer discounts
- Extensive API and third-party integrations for custom functionality
- Hundreds of beautifully designed publication templates
Ghost Pricing:
Ghost, like WordPress, allows you to self-host it for free.
You can also pay Ghost to host your website for you. After a 14-day free trial, its Starter plan starts at $9/mo and can support up to 500 audience members.
12. Webflow
Webflow is a website development tool that allows you to build your website or eCommerce store. It’s a cloud-based SaaS design tool that runs on a web browser and requires a monthly or annual subscription.
There are two methods to use Webflow. First, create and host your website on Webflow (and use the Webflow editor to update it). Second, create a site using the platform, but then export the code and put it on your own server.
Most users prefer the first method: websites created by Webflow are more reliable and easier to maintain when hosted on Webflow’s own servers.
Furthermore, Webflow offers a vast range of customizable templates that can be changed to match your brand and services and several features that allow you to create a unique and visually styling website.
Best Features:
- Create and manage content visually without coding
- Fast, reliable hosting with automatic backups and SSL
- Access to a wide range of customizable templates
- Team collaboration and client editing features
- Leverage Web flow’s API for custom development and integration
- Add custom HTML, CSS, and JavaScript for advanced customization
- Tools to add sophisticated animations and interactions to enhance the user experience
Webflow Pricing:
Webflow, like many other WordPress competitors on this list, provides a free version that includes a default subdomain and site badge. Upgrading to the premium plans removes these limitations and allows you to use premium features.
The General plan starts from $14/mo and allows you 50GB bandwidth, 250k/mo visitors, 150 pages, etc. To build an online store and accept payments, you must purchase an eCommerce plan starting from $29/mo.
13. Medium
Medium is more than simply a publishing platform. It also has a community of writers and readers. Medium’s sleek, simple UI allows you to focus on what really matters: your writing.
Unlike WordPress, which has expanded its functionality to become a full-fledged CMS, Medium serves as a social network and distribution channel. Medium has a built-in audience eager for high-quality content, making it an appealing option for you trying to publish and achieve visibility.
Best Features:
- A diverse range of topics and stories from writers around the world
- Personalized reading recommendations based on user interests
- Social interaction features such as claps, comments, and sharing
- Integrated stats dashboard for authors to track performance
- Partner Program that allows writers to earn money based on reader engagement and membership
- SEO-friendly articles with the potential for high search engine visibility
- Integration of multimedia elements (images, videos, links) within articles
Medium Pricing:
You can start with Medium for free and start publishing great content to reach a large audience and grow your online community.
Conclusion
We think WordPress is one of the best CMSs available today. And it is also the one that we used for our own Pickup WP website.
However, it may not be everybody’s cup of tea. That is why exploring alternatives to WordPress that meet your specific needs is crucial.
This article lists the 13 best alternatives to WordPress in 2024, focusing on major CMSs and website builders. Here are our top picks:
- Shopify: The go-to eCommerce platform for anyone looking to create an online store. It offers a comprehensive set of tools to manage products, payments, and shipping.
- Squarespace: Known for its stunning, professionally designed templates, Squarespace is user-friendly and great for creatives and businesses wanting to build visually appealing websites.
- Wix: Offers a highly intuitive drag-and-drop website builder with an array of templates, making it easy for beginners to create a professional-looking website.
- Weebly: A user-friendly platform with drag-and-drop tools that are well-suited for small businesses and online stores, offering integrated e-commerce capabilities.
- Blogger: A free blogging platform by Google that offers a simple way to start a blog, with basic customization options, making it suitable for personal and hobby bloggers.
We hope this article helps you find the right option that suits your needs and establishes a successful online presence.
For more, check out these other helpful resources:
- 12 Best Website Builders for Small Business
- 7 Best Website Builders for SEO
- 9 Best Free Blogging Sites & Platforms
Lastly, follow us on Facebook and Twitter to stay updated on the latest WordPress and blogging-related articles.
