WordPress Competitors & Alternatives
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.
WordPress is one of the most well-known website builder solutions that hosts over 75 million websites. The platform is advanced and one of the most customizable through the use of plugins. We recommend WordPress for intermediate website creators and ecommerce store owners who know the best plugins to download for their website.
There are five website builder solutions that are worth considering before you purchase WordPress. 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.
- Wix is more user-friendly, robust, and offers one of the most flexible website builders for design
- 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
- 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 WordPress' competitors rank in each category.
In this article, we’ll provide an overview of WordPress as a platform. Afterwards, we’ll compare and contrast WordPress against its top competitors. If you’d like a full description of WordPress, check out our in-depth WordPress review.
Table of Contents
- WordPress's Top Features
- WordPress Competitor Overview: Features
- WordPress Competitor Overview: Pricing
- Top WordPress Competitors
- Bottom Line
WordPress Top Features
WordPress offers most of the key 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 eight most important features in WordPress.
| WordPress Feature | Description |
|---|---|
| Drag & Drop Website Builder | WordPress offers one of the most flexible drag & drop builders available. With it you can add over 50 types of site elements – including images, text, videos, buttons, social media icons, custom code, and forms. Unlike other solutions, WordPress lets you view your website and its sections in a "list" format. This helps you view the structure of your website and access certain sections without having to scroll all the way down. |
| WYSIWYG Blog Editor | A WYSIWYG blog editor lets you edit your content as it will appear when published. WordPress lets you add the same multimedia elements that you can add to your website pages into your blog posts – including images, video, code, and files. WordPress also lets you tag your posts, which helps readers find related content and search engines understand what your content is about. |
| Ecommerce Tools | WordPress offers ecommerce tools that can let you manage your inventory, orders, and calculate your tax and shipping rates. We recommend taking full advantage of WordPress’s plugin Woocommerce for your ecommerce needs. |
| SEO Optimization | WordPress lets you customize the page titles for different sections of your website including your front page and posts. Afterwards, you can preview these changes on Google, Facebook, and Twitter. WordPress also lets you edit your front page’s meta description. |
| WordPress Plugins | WordPress offers the most extensive library for plugins. It offers plugins for SEO, analytics, ecommerce, malware, data backup, and UX & UI design. To fully optimize |
| Traffic Analytics | WordPress offers a dashboard that displays information about how your website is performing in terms of traffic. You can see how many visitors, and views, your website receives and those who refer, and link to your website. WordPress also shows you your most popular search terms, and which pages get the most clicks. |
| Sales Analytics | When you run an ecommerce business through WordPress, WordPress will provide a dashboard that displays your sales information. With it, you can see your total sales, total orders, and average order value. You can also view trends for the number of products purchased, coupons used, refunds given, shipping charged, and tax charged. |
| Mobile | WordPress offers a mobile app that you can use to manage and edit your website. You can also manage your website’s traffic statistics, media used in pages and posts, and comments. |
WordPress 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.
WordPress Competitor Overview: Pricing
Considering WordPress’ functionality, WordPress is expensive. This is because WordPress’ own platform without plugins is not as feature-rich as some of its competitors like Wix and Squarespace.
WordPress' website plan pricing starts at $7 per month, and its most expensive website plan costs $33 per month. Its most popular website plan, its Premium plan, costs $14 per month. WordPress’ only ecommerce plan costs $59 per month.
| Website Builder Software | Website Plan Pricing | Ecommerce Plan Pricing |
|---|---|---|
| WordPress |
| Ecommerce: $59 per month |
| Wix |
|
|
| Squarespace |
|
|
| Weebly |
| Performance: $29 per month |
| Webflow |
|
|
| GoDaddy |
| Ecommerce: $29.99 per month |
Top WordPress Competitors
WordPress is more advanced than basic solutions like GoDaddy, but is less robust and user-friendly than platforms like Wix and Squarespace. Overall, WordPress can be intimidating for beginner website creators and ecommerce business owners.
The top WordPress competitors are:
1: Wix
Wix is one of the best website builders available for small businesses. Compared to WordPress, Wix is much more affordable, user-friendly, robust in native features, and much better suited for beginner website creators and ecommerce business owners. If you prioritize only using one platform for all of your website and ecommerce needs, then we recommend looking into Wix.
Read a direct comparison in our WordPress vs. Wix article.
- You have more experience building websites
- You want higher quality traffic and sales analytics
- You want to customize your platform through the use of plugins
- 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
2: Squarespace
Squarespace is a popular website builder that cusotmers use to build high-quality, design-forward websites. Unlike WordPress, Squarespace is more intuitive for beginner website creators and ecommerce business owners. Its platform is also better for those who want to design modern websites, but do not need the level of customizability WordPress offers through plugins.
Read a direct comparison in our WordPress vs. Squarespace article.
- You have more experience building websites
- You want stronger SEO optimizations – including editing your page titles and descriptions
- You want to customize your platform through the use of plugins
- The visual design of your website is highly important to you
- You prefer a more user-friendly platform
- You want email marketing tools – including email newsletters, promotional emails, and sign-up confirmations
3: Weebly
Weebly is one of the most user-friendly website builder platforms available in the market. It is much cheaper than WordPress and is very well-rounded for a basic platform. Overall, Weebly is best for those who are beginning their website building and ecommerce business journey, and only need to build simple website pages.
- You want to customize your website’s functionality through the use of plugins
- You want SEO optimization tools – including customizing page titles and editing your front page’s metadata
- You want higher quality traffic and sales analytics – i.e. more data points.
- You want a more affordable website builder solution
- You want to build more basic, yet effective websites
- You want an in-platform email marketing tool
4: Webflow
Webflow is an advanced website building platform that gives you the most control over your website’s aesthetic. Webflow offers a superior website builder in terms of web page customizability. However, WordPress’s platform is more intuitive and better for certain functions like blogging and ecommerce.
Read a direct comparison in our WordPress vs. Webflow article.
- You want a WYSIWYG blog editor that lets you upload the same elements you can include in your web pages in your blog posts
- You want higher quality ecommerce tools – including filters to organize your inventory and orders
- You want to customize your platform using plugins
- You want an advanced website builder with Photoshop level customizability – including editing borders, padding, and adding drop shadows
- You want higher quality SEO tools – including sitemaps, and web page indexing
- You want a single platform that includes all necessary website features, without the need to download and install multiple plugins
5: GoDaddy
GoDaddy is a basic website builder solution that includes high quality in-platform digital marketing tools. GoDaddy’s platform is best for building basic websites. WordPress is better for more experienced website creators who have a better sense of how they want their website to look and operate.
- You want a more advanced website builder that lets you build more complex websites
- You want a WYSIWYG blog editor
- You want to enhance your website’s functionality through the installment of plugins
- You want a basic platform to build simple website pages
- You want higher quality SEO, social media, and email marketing tools
- You want higher quality customer support
Bottom Line
WordPress is a website builder that is best for intermediate website creators. Its features are effective, and is one of the more advanced platforms available. It is also one of the least user-friendly. We recommend WordPress to those who want the most control over their website’s functionality and are willing to take the time to research the best plugins for their website.
Here’s a quick recap of who we recommend each website-builder software for:
- If you’re looking for platform that is user-friendly, robust, and need a very flexible website builder for design, then we recommend Wix
- 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 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