Free Website: 20 WordPress Alternatives

WordPress is the most popular website/blog builder platform that powers 41% of websites across the world. Website owners prefer WordPress because of its many features like it’s free, SEO friendly, customizable, has ecommerce ready, advanced features, multilingual language support, free web design templates, fast loading themes, social media tools, and blogging tools and many more features.

Further, WordPress is an open-source platform that is easy to use and with drag and drop website building tools such as Divi, SeedProd, Beaver Builder and their WordPress visual editors that can help you create a custom website without writing any code. Still, WordPress can help rank higher in search engines.

However, this is not the ideal solution for everyone. Some people are looking for a beginner platform, while others want a platform that is specifically dedicated to building eCommerce websites, thus the search for WordPress alternatives.

The post has compiled 20 WordPress alternatives that you can use to build professional websites from scratch.

WordPress Notable Downfalls

Inconsistent Backend

WordPress offers several customization options, and so each WordPress site’s backend is extremely different. This is frustrating to agencies that manage other websites for their clients because they have to learn how each WordPress account is set up before making any simple changes on these websites.

Also, it’s not easy for beginners to troubleshot issues because its step-by-step walkthroughs are not one size fits all solutions, which makes finding the needed support extremely difficult.

Page Speed

WordPress sites have a problem of slow page load time due to generic code and excess plugins that cause users’ computers to take longer to process the information. While marketers and developers get frustrated with a slow load time, your visitors are turned off and exit the site, thus negatively impacting lead generation.

Security Issues

The positive aspect of WordPress is that it uses an open-source structure that allows programmers to access the source code of the page and look at how it’s working, customize it and share it online with others. However, this makes your site vulnerable since all of the codes of your system are available online, and hackers can compromise them.

Also, several malicious codes are placed into published code, and this can allow hackers to access your guarded information without you knowing. However, this is a common challenge with several other PHP sites, but you should be cautious when hosting on a WordPress platform.

Too Many Updates

WordPress has been rolling too many updates with a view of counteracting its security issues. Although they are helpful and necessary, the number of them presents a huge headache because updating the system now and then causes some plugins and themes to become incompatible with the site.

Website Building Alternatives

Wix: The platform allows you to select your template from a wide range of options as well as customize it to suit your business needs. These templates are mobile responsive and optimized. You can select by navigating through its drag-and-drop editor, which allows you to pull in and remove elements from your site without learning code.

Further, you don’t have to look for a different web hosting platform because you can host your site with Wix. This WordPress alternative supports 16 different languages, which makes it for site owners to build multilingual websites as well as add an online site with its eCommerce packages.

Additionally, you can create password-protected pages, allow people to create their own login information as well as revert to the previous website state because it comes with version control.

However, you can only make limited changes to the template and can’t edit the CSS or HTML of the template because of a lack of access to the source code.

HubSpot: The software helps you create a beautiful, high-performing website, while its full-funnel inbound marketing website platform gives you tools to track the key metrics. The platform has space for bloggers because its blogging software allows you to easily write, edit and format your content.

Further, it offers on-page SEO advice and as-you-type keyword suggestions that can help you drive traffic to your site and outrank your competitors.

Still, you can add forms in order to start generating subscribers whom you can send update emails whenever you publish a new article, as well as track the performance of your newsletter, such as those clicking through the email and opening it.

However, it has no eCommerce integration with the platform, and so you have to host such functionality on another platform. Also, you can’t run PHP on its website.

Weebly: The platform allows you to choose your preferred template from its online gallery using its drag–and–drop tool. Also, the platform has an excellent drag-and-drop editor that removes elements that are not needed, thus giving a beginner in website editing an easy time.

Since Weebly handle the tech part while the website owner deals with the design part of the pages, the multiple pre-designed layouts of the templates will help you with editing and dropping in the appropriate content such as the homepage, contact us, about page, pricing, etc.

On the other hand, you can only make limited changes to the templates; otherwise, you will need code to carry out slightly advanced changes. Also, the platform doesn’t introduce new tools or updates as fast as expected and has basic blogging capabilities.

Concrete5: The open-source CMS is PHP-powered and ideal for small to medium businesses without experience in coding. You can add content using WYSIWYG editor to any sections without touching the code, and its templates are mobile responsive.

The platform has a lot of add-ons that can extend your site’s core functionality to handle sales, customer management, eCommerce inventory, sales and more. You don’t have to worry when in trouble because the WordPress alternative has a dedicated community to assist you.

On the other hand, Content5 is not multilingual or as flexible as some website owners seeking more complex customization integrated would want.

Pinegrow: The downloadable wireframing tool has drag and drop capabilities that help it post a visual editing interface, thus quick and easy layout creation.

Additionally, a user can edit WordPress themes from an existing template or scratch, thus giving them a wide range of templates to work with instead of a limited library created by the Pinegrow community.

Still, you can export your new templates and upload them to the CMS editor and use them as an option or download some applications to your computer and work on them offline.

On the other hand, it’s not easy to use the interface when you’re new to using a visual editor due to the many elements that it shows. Also, the platform lacks hosting services and built-in FTP, so you have to get an additional tool to host your website.

Squarespace: This robust software is all in one web solution offering site hosting, website building and blogging platform. The platform offers a generous amount website template options with modern design, visual appeal and responsive functionality. Squarespace allows you to pick something pre-built with basic functionality and can be easily customized.

There is no need to look for web hosting services because you can host your website. It has an already integrated eCommerce, and so you can just add an online store whenever you want and enjoy a seamless experience.

It has a built-in analytics platform that gives you the site performance and visitor’s behaviors. Additionally, you can easily drag and drop and duplicate elements with its page editor.

However, you must have intermediate coding knowledge to make changes to the template or add a large number of functionality. It’s also hard to find the most advanced options like integrating Google analytics, redirects and more.

Joomla: The open-source CMS resembles Drupal and WordPress in so many ways. It’s an excellent software for users seeking advanced controls over their website’s design and development. You can mold your site in whatever way you want using its plugins and integrations.

Thus with its generous amount of open-source plugins and modules, you can integrate components like shopping carts, chats, comment forms, social integrations and more to your website.

Although the platform is open-source, you must invest time in learning it and how to use it. Also, it has a limited marketplace such that you can’t add specific types of modules to the website.

Shopify: The platform allows you to create a marketplace or online store for your products, thus an excellent option for new online businesses. Also, you don’t have to worry about the design and development of a clean storefront design because you can pick it from its large theme store; however, you have to pay some.

Further, the platform has tools that can assist you in managing the store, such as shipping automation tracking, inventory management, popup plugins, inventory management, etc. Still, you can integrate Shopify with Payment providers, and customers can pay with minimal website load time due to its built-in speed checkout.

However, the WordPress alternative will become costly when you integrate it with several premium apps, it’s not multilingual, and there is no option for one-page checkouts, which can affect your conversion rates.

Craft CMS: The platform is created using a templating engine, and developers can use coding blocks to quickly build dynamic pages and use them on many pages of your website.

With the WYSIWYG website editor, you can easily edit your website and blog post in real-time and live preview using the template modules.

Craft CMS has an active community ready to answer your questions and offer the resources you need to solve your problems and more.

The platform is costly for small businesses, requires a developer to create the templates, especially for those without HTML/CSS experience, and you must integrate an additional plugin for you to create an analytics dashboard.

Drupal: You can download and modify this free open source CMS. Drupal is the closest WordPress competitor. It is developers-centric as it gives them the ability to download vital assets and build custom websites with its framework once you understand it.

The platform has a dedicated community ready to assist and innovate new ways to support this software.

On the other hand, the platform has no drag-and-drop functionality, requires come coding experience and overwhelming those who need many 3^Rd party plugins because they can contribute to slowdowns.

Jimdo: The platform allows its users to create a website with a WYSIWYG editor, making it user-friendly to beginners. Jimdo online store is one of its thought-out features and takes few minutes to start using it, and as a result, the platform has more than 20 million websites built using it.

Users are shifting to Jimdo because, although simple, it has complex possibilities that help them manage their websites. Its pro and business packages have email hosting and domain name making its services appealing and competitive for individuals seeking all-inclusive web purchases.

While Jimdo online store is an excellent integration, it lacks credit card gateway, and the alternative options are PayPal or manual payments.

Ghost: This is a professional publishing platform targeting bloggers. Unlike WordPress that offers tools for creating a blogging website, Ghost integrates more features to give bloggers a better experience when publishing their content.

The WordPress alternative has a version where you can self-host your blog and a paid version where it does the hosting. It has built-in email subscriptions, social sharing features and SEO settings; thus, you don’t have to download external plugins.

Further, you can integrate a 3^rd party service to help you customize your templates, and the software falls under a free open source license.

However, you can’t integrate Ecommerce into your website and has no complex customization ability.

Magento: This is an eCommerce solution that has empowered more than 200,000 retailers. This platform has plenty of powerful and flexible features that help you transform the look and feel of your storefront and website. It also offers tools that can optimize your website SEO as well as to measure its performance.

This open-source platform has multicurrency and multilingual support as well as can handle different storefronts. It’s scalable, so there is no need to worry because you can expand the storefront as the business grows and so you don’t have to switch platforms.

Magento is very expensive, and it’s a big challenge finding a team of its developers because of the software complexity and sheer size. Also, you have to host it on a capable platform due to its size; otherwise, you will experience slow load times, which can be frustrating to your users.

Webflow: You can design and develop your website without touching code using this CMS tool. With its dynamic design editor, you can create expansive websites without creating the code as well as edit and update your site’s content instantly and easily.

Further, you can host your website with Webflow instead of getting another tool for that, and their server fleet is more spread out than what is seen in an ordinary hosting situation.

Additionally, the platform has Google fonts integrated into it, similar to Photoshop, and its team is constantly releasing updates and responding to issues quickly.

The downside of Webflow is that it’s pricey, and the platform’s and software’s robustness have some learning curve.

Webydo: The website creation software is similar to WordPress and alternative to Webflow because both are similar to Photoshop and follow equivalent goals in reducing technical barriers imposed by web development and design. Thus the WordPress alternative is design-centric and code-less.

Also, a website owner can build interactive websites with animations and parallax scrolling features as well as edit and update their content instantly.

It’s a perfect solution for users looking for eCommerce platforms because it provides a widget integration with Ecwid to help you manage your shipping needs and other shops’ functionalities.

On the other hand, this is a complicated software for users unfamiliar with Photoshop and has fewer widgets compared to other builders.

Zoho Sites: The platform is an all-in-one solution that allows users to quickly build beautiful websites with functionality that you can use to analyze the website and social networks analytics.

With Zoho sites, users can professionally craft themes using its drag and drop builder and without having to touch any code. These themes are mobile-ready.

Further, the CMS has already integrated easy and reliable hosting, quick domain registration, and analytics to manage traffic, thus minimizing the need to getting additional analytics plugins.

While collaborators can easily manage content, they can’t invite others to documents and collaborators they want them to review. You can’t have a unique website because it has a limited amount of templates just to get you started.

Blogger: The platform is a great blogging alternative to WordPress because it allows users to easily publish their content and host any blog free of charge. You can easily customize it if you have coding knowledge, and it is more secure because of Google security.

The platform allows you to download Blogger templates online and convert your website to a news website, ecommerce store, business website, blog etc.

On the other hand, Bloggers doesn’t offer advanced plugins, it has limited features, and you must have coding knowledge to create a website using Blogger.

Tumblr: The blogging platform cum website for microblogging because it’s specially designed for short-form content, quotes, thoughts, articles, videos and images. However, you can publish these concise posts without any limitation and see the free subdomain that can give your blog a distinct identity.

You can select your templates and access multi formatting tools, but the WordPress alternative lacks sorting options and has limited features.

Site123: The free website builder tool helps users to create professional websites with its intuitive website editor without coding. The responsive web design fits well with different device screens.

Further, you will get features of free templates, many integrated tools, custom domains and hosting when you use Site123 while its SEO tools optimize your website on SERP.

Although the platform is multilingual, it has layout restrictions, limited features, and you have to purchase a plan for placing ads.

IONOS: The platform helps small businesses to go online by providing several features like SEO tools, built-in email marketing, social media integration, free domain for the first year and more. Other features are contact forms, social buttons, drag and drop, maps and more.

Spending $7 a month can allow you to use IONOS to build various professional websites. However, the platform has limited process capabilities, no cloud web-hosting service, and it’s costly.

Conclusion

The list of free and paid for WordPress alternatives can be long, but this post has reviewed 20 web building platforms that can help you easily build different types of professional websites.

These alternatives offer features like drag and drop, SEO tools, free subdomain, social buttons and more. Therefore, use these features to build a website with a classy and elegant look.