Best Website Builder Software 2021

Wix Competitors & Alternatives

Are you considering using Wix to build your website and run your ecommerce business? Before choosing a software, it’s important to learn about other website builder software platforms for small businesses. The top five alternatives are listed below, along with valuable insights about their features, pricing, and usability.

The information in this article is based on our research, interviews with customers, as well as dozens of hours hand-testing each solution. The details of our review process and research methodology can be found in the Why You Should Trust Us section on our website builder category page.

Wix is one of the most popular website builder software solutions with over 200 million users. The platform is easy-to-use and feature-rich. We recommend Wix for beginner website creators and ecommerce store owners who need a robust platform with a very flexible website builder.


There are five website builder solutions that are worth considering before you purchase Wix. They differentiate based on feature quality, feature-richness, and ultimately the website creator type each is best suited for. Understanding these differences will determine how well a platform will integrate with your business.

  • Squarespace is a powerful website builder that is intuitive and great for displaying visual work
  • Weebly is strong, but is best for building simple websites
  • WordPress is slightly more expensive, but is better able at building an advanced website through the installment of plugins
  • Webflow is more expensive and less user-friendly, but is the best for designing a professional, complex website
  • GoDaddy is a basic website builder with high quality in-platform digital marketing features

Here’s a breakdown of our review criteria. We rate each piece of software based on their features, usability, pricing, and customer support availability. Here is how Wix and Wix’s competitors rank in each category.

Software CompanyAnalyst RatingFeaturesUsabilityPricingCustomer Support
Wix929109.58
Squarespace909999
Weebly898.51098.5
WordPress868.5898
Webflow86888.59
GoDaddy8388.58.59

In this article, we’ll provide an overview of Wix as a platform. Afterwards, we’ll compare and contrast Wix against its top competitors. If you’d like a full description of Wix, check out our in-depth Wix review.

Table of Contents

Wix’s Top Features

Wix offers all of the standard features needed to build professional, no-code websites and run smaller ecommerce businesses. This includes a drag & drop website builder, a WYSIWYG blog editor, ecommerce tools, marketing tools, and various performance analytics. Below, we describe the top 10 most important features in Wix.

Wix FeatureDescription
Drag & Drop Website BuilderWix offers one of the most flexible drag & drop builders available. With it you can add over 20 types of site elements – including images, text, videos, buttons, social media icons, custom code, and forms. Unlike other solutions, Wix also offers grid lines that help you arrange your site elements symmetrically on screen.
WYSIWYG Blog EditorA WYSIWYG blog editor lets you edit your content as it will appear when published. Wix lets you upload different types of multimedia into your blog posts – including images, video, code, and files. Wix also lets you tag your posts, optimize them for SEO, and edit their metatags.
Ecommerce ToolsWix offers ecommerce tools that can help you manage your inventory, orders, and calculate your tax and shipping rates. Wix also includes information icons that define certain ecommerce terms that might be confusing for first time ecommerce business managers – for example, handling fees.
SEO OptimizationWix offers a wide variety of tools that help optimize your pages for SEO. This includes sitemaps, a robots.txt file editor, site verification, a URL redirect manager, and SEO patterns.
Email MarketingWix lets you build basic email campaigns that can encourage visitors to consistently visit and interact with your website. When designing your email campaigns, you can start from scratch or use one of Wix’s templates. You can also insert different kinds of multimedia into your emails, including images, text, buttons, social media links, and videos.
Social Media MarketingWix includes an in-platform social media marketing tool that you can use to create still and video posts. For still posts, you can include images, text, and shapes. For videos, you can upload images, videos, and include text and business information. You can share these posts on platforms like Facebook and Instagram.
Wix App MarketThe Wix App Market offers applications or integrations that can add or extend the functionality of your website. Wix currently offers over 250 applications for ecommerce, analytics, and SEO.
Traffic AnalyticsWix offers a dashboard that lets you view how your website is performing in terms of traffic. It lets you view your total site sessions, number of unique visitors, top referring sites, traffic by location, and average session duration. You can also view this information graphically in Wix.
Sales AnalyticsIf you choose to run your ecommerce business through Wix, you can view your sales information in a dashboard. With it you can view your total sales, total number of orders, average order value.
MobileWix offers a mobile app that you can use to manage your website. Some of the functions that you can perform through Wix’s mobile app include writing blog posts, creating email marketing campaigns, and checking your sales and payment information.

Wix Competitor Overview: Features

The chart below shows you the main features found in website builder software, and the solutions offered by each solution. We recommend paying attention to the kinds of ecommerce, and marketing tools each platform includes because this is where solutions differ the most from one another.

Wix feature comparison chart vs. competitors

Wix Competitor Overview: Pricing

Considering Wix’s functionality, Wix’s pricing is very competitive. Even though it isn’t the cheapest tool available in the market, its feature-richness makes Wix worth the cost.

Wix’s website plan pricing starts at $14 per month, and its most expensive website plan costs $39 per month. Its most popular website plan, its Pro plan, costs $23 per month.

Website Builder SoftwareWebsite Plan PricingEcommerce Plan Pricing
Wix
  • Combo: $14 per month
  • Unlimited: $18 per month
  • Pro: $23 per month
  • VIP: $39 per month
  • Business Basic: $23 per month
  • Business Unlimited: $27 per month
  • Business VIP: $49 per month
Squarespace
  • Personal: $16 per month
  • Business: $26 per month
  • Basic Commerce: $35 per month
  • Advanced Commerce: $54 per month
Weebly
  • Free: $0 per month
  • Personal: $9 per month
  • Professional: $16 per month
Performance: $29 per month
WordPress
  • Personal: $7 per month
  • Premium: $14 per month
  • Business: $33 per month
Ecommerce: $59 per month
Webflow
  • Basic: $15 per month
  • CMS: $20 per month
  • Business: $45 per month
  • Enterprise: Contact Webflow
  • Standard: $42 per month
  • Plus: $84 per month
  • Advanced: $235 per month
GoDaddy
  • Basic: $14.99 per month
  • Standard: $19.99 per month
  • Premium: $24.99 per month
Ecommerce: $29.99 per month

Top Wix Competitors

Wix is most similar to Squarespace in terms of website design capabilities and Weebly in terms of ease of use. Overall, Wix is one of the most well-rounded platforms in terms of features, and can support beginner website creators and small ecommerce business owners.

The top Wix competitors are:

1: Squarespace

Squarespace is a popular website builder that helps its users create high-quality, design-forward websites. Its platform is intuitive enough for beginners and feature-rich enough for experienced users.

However, Wix is easier to use and offers a more flexible website builder when it comes to site element arrangement. Also, as you can see in the chart above, Wix includes marketing tools that are not available in Squarespace.

Read a direct comparison in our Wix vs. Squarespace article.

You'll prefer Wix if:

  • You want to build your website from scratch
  • You want a solution that is friendly for first-time website builders
  • You want stronger SEO tools – including sitemaps, site verification, and a URL redirect manager
You'll prefer Squarespace if:

  • You prioritize the visual aesthetic of their website
  • You want higher quality traffic and sales analytics
  • You want a mobile app that lets you edit your website
Squarespace
Rating: 90
Starting Price: $16 per month

Squarespace is a website builder with one million paying customers. Its main features are highly customizable website builder, a WYSIWYG blog editor, ecommerce features, SEO customizations, email marketing, and traffic, sales, and engagement dashboards. Overall, Squarespace is the best solution for design-forward websites and displaying visual work.

Pros:
  • Squarespace is one of the best solutions for building a design-forward website
  • Squarespace’s mobile app lets you edit your website’s pages
  • Squarespace lets you customize your blogs for SEO – including editing a post’s URL slug, description, and title
  • Squarespace includes a visitor engagement dashboard that highlights how a visitor behaves on your website
Cons:
  • Squarespace’s website builder limits your overall design to the template you choose
  • Squarespace’s website builder does not let you edit specifically for desktop or mobile
  • Squarespace does not offer extensions for malware protection, data backup, and UX & UI design

2: Weebly

Weebly is one of the easiest to use website builder solutions available in the market. It is cheaper than Wix and is a simpler platform. Overall, Weebly’s system is better for those who are beginning their website building and ecommerce business journey. It is also suitable for those who only need to build simple website pages.

To read a full one-to-one comparison between the two, check out our Wix vs. Weebly article.

You'll prefer Wix if:

  • You want a builder that is better for website design
  • You want higher quality SEO, email marketing, and social media marketing tools
  • You want more control over the organization and distribution of your blog posts
You'll prefer Weebly if:

  • You want a more affordable website builder platform
  • You want to build more basic, yet effective websites
  • You want higher quality traffic and sales analytics – i.e. more data points
Weebly
Rating: 89
Starting Price: Free

Weebly is a website builder solution that supports over 50 million websites. It offers an easy to use website builder, a WYSIWYG blog editor, ecommerce tools, email marketing tools, and analytics dashboards. Weebly is one of the most user-friendly solutions available in the market and best for beginner website creators and ecommerce store owners.

Pros:
  • Weebly is one of the easiest website builders to use
  • Weebly offers a robust free plan that lets you create an effective website and run a small ecommerce business
  • Weebly offers a mobile app that lets you edit your website’s pages and manage your ecommerce store
  • Weebly offers dashboards that display your traffic and sales information graphically
Cons:
  • Weebly only offers advanced ecommerce features like automatic shipping rates for different carriers if you upgrade to its $72 per month plan
  • Weebly does not offer key SEO tools – including sitemaps and web page indexing
  • Weebly does not let you display your most recent blog posts on your homepage

3: WordPress

WordPress is one of the most popular website builder solutions in the market. Compared to Wix, WordPress is better for intermediate website creators.

However, WordPress is less user-friendly and not as robust in terms of native features. If you want to customize your website’s functionality through plugins, however, WordPress is the better choice for you.

You'll prefer Wix if:

  • You want greater design flexibility – i.e. you don’t want your site elements restricted to a grid layout
  • You want a solution that is friendly for first-time website builders
  • You want stronger native SEO tools – including sitemaps, site verification, and a URL redirect manager
You'll prefer WordPress if:

  • You have more experience building websites
  • You want higher quality traffic and sales analytics
  • You want to customize your platform through the installment of plugins
WordPress
Rating: 85
Starting Price: $7 per month

WordPress is a website builder that supports over 75 million websites. Its main features include a robust website builder, a WYSIWYG blog editor, ecommerce tools, an extensive library of plugins, SEO tools, and several analytics dashboard. Overall, while not the most user-friendly, WordPress gives you more control over your website's design and functionality than other solutions.

Pros:
  • WordPress has a robust website builder that lets you add over 50 kinds of site elements to your pages
  • WordPress offers one of the most extensive plugin libraries
  • WordPress includes a dashboard that lets you monitor paid ads performance
Cons:
  • WordPress is one of the least user-friendly website builders for non-technical individuals
  • WordPress does not offer automatic shipping calculations for ecommerce store owners
  • WordPress does not let you manage your ecommerce store through a mobile application
  • WordPress does not come with an in-platform abandoned cart recovery feature

4: Webflow

Webflow is an advanced website building platform that gives you the most control over your website’s design. However, Wix is easier to use, more affordable, and more feature-rich.

As a result, we recommend that experienced website creators and designers who need a solution to create complex websites use Webflow.

You'll prefer Wix if:

  • You want a more affordable, and easy-to-use website builder platform
  • You want a better blogging features – i.e. a WYSIWYG blog editor, and enabling comments
  • You want in-platform social media and email marketing tools
You'll prefer Webflow if:

  • You want an advanced website builder with Photoshop level customizability – including editing borders, padding, and adding drop shadows
  • You want automatic tax calculations
Webflow
Rating: 84
Starting Price: $15 per month

Webflow is a website building platform with over 200,000 users. It offers feature including the most customizable website builder, a blog editor, ecommerce functionality, and SEO tools. It is best for designers and experienced users who want the most creative control over their website's design.

Pros:
  • Webflow offers the most advanced and customizable website builder in terms of website design
  • Websites built with Webflow are well-optimized for SEO – the platform provides SEO tools such as a sitemap, web page indexing, and customizable page titles, URLs and descriptions
  • Webflow offers a wide range of high quality customer support channels including robust help articles and video tutorials
  • Webflow offers a free plan that lets you build a simple website
Cons:
  • Webflow has a steep learning curve – it would be helpful to have familiarity with HTML & CSS concepts before you start designing your website
  • Webflow does not offer a WYSIWYG blog editor
  • Webflow’s traffic dashboard is basic – it only displays the total views and unique visitors that your website has received
  • Most of Webflow’s templates are not free
  • Webflow can get expensive if you have a large team managing your website

5: GoDaddy

GoDaddy is a basic website builder platform that offers high quality in-platform digital marketing tools. However, when compared to Wix, GoDaddy is not as feature-rich. Also, GoDaddy’s website builder is not drag & drop and has low usability.

Overall, we recommend choosing Wix over GoDaddy because it is a better platform and not that much more expensive.

You'll prefer Wix if:

  • You want a drag & drop website builder that gives you more control over your website’s design
  • You want more advanced traffic analytics – i.e. more data points
  • You want to enhance your website’s functionality through application integrations
You'll prefer GoDaddy if:

  • You want a more affordable, basic solution
  • You want higher quality SEO, social media, and email marketing tools
  • You want higher quality customer support and a wider range of customer support channels – including live chat and a community forum
GoDaddy
Rating: 83
Starting Price: $9.99 per month

GoDaddy is a website building software with over 20 million users. Its main features include a website builder, a WYSIWYG blog editor, ecommerce functionality, SEO tools, social media tools, email marketing, and analytics reports. Overall, GoDaddy is one of the more user-friendly solutions available and offers better digital marketing tools than those found in other solutions.

Pros:
  • GoDaddy offers high-quality social media and email marketing features
  • GoDaddy offers an in-platform SEO keyword research tool
  • GoDaddy offers analytics reports for your sales and customer data
Cons:
  • GoDaddy’s website builder is not the most intuitive and is not drag & drop
  • GoDaddy does not offer extensions or plugins that expand the functionality of its platform
  • GoDaddy’s blog feature is far more basic than what’s offered by alternatives
  • GoDaddy’s traffic dashboard is incredibly basic – it only displays how many visits your website has received

Bottom Line

Wix Website is a user friendly website builder that provides the best value in terms of features offered. It gives you a lot of control over your website’s design, and is more powerful than its cheaper competitors. We recommend Wix for beginner website creators and small businesses who need a more robust tool than Weebly and GoDaddy.

Here’s a quick recap of who we recommend each website-builder software for:

  • If you’re looking for a platform that is great for displaying visual work and prefer to use templates when design your website, then we recommend Squarespace
  • If you’re beginning your website building journey and want to create basic, but effective website pages, then we recommend looking into Weebly
  • If you’re an intermediate website creator that wants full control over the customization of your website’s functionality through plugins, then we recommend looking into WordPress
  • If you’re an experienced website creator, and need an advanced builder that lets you edit your website pages with Photoshop level customizability, then we recommend looking into Webflow
  • If you need a basic website builder platform and want powerful in-platform digital marketing tools, then we recommend looking into GoDaddy
Amy Yang

Amy Yang is a Junior Research Analyst at SoftwarePundit, where she conducts in-depth analyses on software markets and products. Amy has expertise in content production and managing digital and social platforms. She has a Bachelor of Science in Communication & Media, and a Minor in Web Programming and Applications from NYU. You can connect with Amy on LinkedIn.

Amy is an expert in several software categories including:

  • Course creation software
  • Electronic signature software
  • Social media software
  • Website builder software

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