When it comes to building a website from scratch, not many people look for other solutions than WordPress. With amazing flexibility, thousands of plugins and themes, great user-friendliness, the platform’s popularity is not difficult to understand.
However, no tool is perfect, and the same principle can also be applied to WordPress. For some website owners, its drawbacks are something that they cannot overlook, which is exactly why they might actively consider an alternative CMS.
In this article, we will look at 6 of the best alternatives to WordPress and discuss the features that might make them a viable option for your own website.
1. Our own Hostens website builder – a universal solution for small e-shops and personal websites
While WordPress is renowned for its ease of use and many customization options in a variety of areas, it still requires you to take care of many things before you can actually go live with a proper website. This includes website security, SEO, analytics, widgets, plugins and so on.
Some people want everything to be taken care of for them already, which is exactly what you get with the Hostens website builder.
Our tool is designed for both commercial and personal use and can help you go online with your website within an hour!
Try our website builder here!
Some key features of the Hostens builder include:
- A straightforward drag-and-drop interface – forget programming or endless plugins to design something to your liking. Here, you can build pages using a simple drag-and-drop interface and use our wide selection of widgets.
- Blog section that’s ready to go – content is king when it comes to building a reader base and generating website sales. Our blog plugin is already set up for you to start creating engaging and valuable content for your niche.
- Easy Google Analytics connection – Google Analytics is one of the most powerful tools in monitoring your website performance. Websites built with our tool can be easily connected with their Analytics account.
- Many widgets and social media integration options – As mentioned before, our builder offers plenty of functionality in the form of pre-made widgets. This includes pictures, video, text and even custom buttons. As for integration, you can easily embed your social media feed and other media content as well.
And many more.
For those that don’t want to bother themselves with the hassle of setting up a website, our tool can be the perfect alternative to WordPress that lets you launch a fleshed-out website in no time.
2. Wix – for those that value flexibility of design over everything
Don’t get us wrong. WordPress is amazing when it comes to building a website, even as a complete beginner, applying a variety of themes and plugins to your liking.
Nevertheless, if you are less prominent in the field of programming, you might find it a bit challenging to design a website that completely reflects your needs.
Wix, meanwhile, offers amazing design customization capabilities, almost all of which can be done by simply dropping an element where you want on your website pages. Adding more advanced components like a video background or gorgeous animations is also no big deal.
Apart from the visuals, specific apps can make it easier to set up query or reservation forms and other business-related features. This can be especially helpful for restaurants, hotels, and other similar operating enterprises.
It’s not all roses, however. Notable shortcomings of the platform include limited access to the core website files, and not enough SEO and website speed optimization capabilities.
Still, Wix is a great WordPress alternative to consider if you want to launch a simple website with only a few pages without any hassle.
3. Weebly – for those that want unmatched easiness of use
Another great alternative that should especially interest small business owners is Weebly. While a bit lesser known than other platforms on this list, since its launch, this free CMS has helped create more than 40 million websites to date.
As with Wix, Weebly offers users the ability to customize their website layout any way they wish using a variety of elements. This includes contact forms, photo galleries, blog post categories, video and audio players, among other things.
There is also flexibility in terms of migration as well. If you upgrade to the paid plan which is 6$ per month, you can use any domain you want as well as have flexibility over your hosting providers.
As with all platforms, however, it doesn’t come without flaws. The biggest one of which is without a doubt, the lack of updates for the platform from its developers. They happen so rare, that your website might be exposed to security risks, until an upgrade eventually rolls out.
Still, if you’re looking for an extremely easy to use website builder that offers plenty of flexibility, consider Weebly as an option.
4. Joomla! – for those that are tech-savvy and want powerful tools
For those that like to get to the nitty-gritty of website design and are not afraid of more technical challenges, Joomla! can be the perfect WordPress alternative that can offer similar, and in some respects, even better functionality.
As with WordPress, Joomla! offers users immense flexibility options in terms of what can be added to the website, as well as customize their design and technical aspects.
Moreover, unlike some other CMS platforms, Joomla! also comes with tools to build the right SEO for your website. So, with the correct strategy, you can easily develop a strong presence for your business in terms of ranking on search engines.
Another strong suit of the platform is a big focus on security. Not only does it come with built in features like two-factor authentication and user access control, it has been developed with security in mind from day one. This might just make it the most secure CMS out there.
The biggest downside to Joomla! is arguably, its complexity. As we mentioned earlier, the platform can offer many powerful tools to build the ideal website, however, you have to know what you’re doing to maximize its potential.
So to summarize, Joomla! can be the perfect alternative to WordPress if you’re willing to get more involved in the technical details of your website development.
5. Squarespace – arguably the best alternative for bloggers out there
Another major platform that has gained popularity in recent years is Squarespace, which has become an especially desired alternative to WordPress for bloggers and other creators that want to build a website in a similar vein.
One of its strongest points, without a doubt, is the design customization options that it offers for developers. Not only can you choose from a number of neat layouts to start with, you can easily adjust them to your liking to create the professional look you want.
Since it’s primarily oriented at bloggers, the system offers plenty of plugins, widgets, and applications to help you launch an engaging and easy-to-follow blog section, menus and other key parts.
These tools, along with those oriented towards SEO and website security, are already integrated from the start, so there is no need to worry about finding the right elements as it might be with WordPress.
The main disadvantage of Squarespace is that it is a paid-only platform, which means you have to allocate a certain monthly budget for your website to keep running. For many businesses, this is a no-go, since there are plenty of free website builders out there.
Nevertheless, if you want a platform that can help you launch a great-looking and functional website with a flexible blog section, Squarespace might just be the platform for you if you’re willing to pay for its use.
6. Shopify – the best e-commerce outlet out there
Last but not least, we have to talk about those website owners that want to build a simple yet effective commercial website for their business. If you don’t want to use WordPress and its popular WooCommerce plugin to create a sales-oriented website, then Shopify is your best bet.
Arguably the biggest advantage the platform offers is the extremely easy setup for those that want to launch an online store without many technical hassles that would normally be in such a project.
Similarly, there are plenty of neat templates and designs you may use to make your shop more attractive for users on PC and mobile. All you have to do here is customize it the way you see fit.
Since this system is oriented toward e-commerce, you can also find all of the necessary tools for setup, such as product listings, variants, taxation, shipping, etc. There’s even a section to track your website analytics and see what type of actions users usually take.
The biggest drawback of the platform might be that it is a bit more challenging to set up advanced shop functions such as transactions involving multiple currencies and others.
Still, for those looking to launch a simple online shop, Shopify can be a wonderful tool to start with.
All in all
Today we’ve talked about what we think are the 6 best alternative platforms to WordPress.
Depending on your priorities, each of these systems can help build a bespoke website that will help you reach your business goals.
