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Congratulations, you’re well on your way to building your eCommerce business! There are a lot of things to consider when thinking about how to start an eCommerce business and ways for you to grow your eCommerce business. Still, today we will focus on one very specific factor in particular: understanding the best Wix alternatives out there for building your eCommerce website!
If you are interested to see why you should be looking for websites similar to Wix, what website builders like Wix are out there, and what their pros and cons are, then stick around!
Sure, Wix has built up a great reputation for itself as a best website builder for small businesses out there. Why? Mainly because it’s simple to use, especially for people who have little to no experience in website design. So with such a friendly interface, why would you need to look for a Wix alternative?
While it does have a limited free plan, you’ll need to pay up if you want to remove that annoying automatic Wix ad from your page. And as for the paid version, there are plenty of alternatives to Wix out there that charge less.
If the cost doesn’t bother you, then the slow loading times might. The larger your site gets, the slower it will load.
That’s not a huge problem for those who want a simple landing page or a smaller-scaled portfolio. But if you are trying to build, say, a sizable eCommerce business website, for example, you can’t afford to have a slow-loading website putting your potential customers off.
So, if you’re interested in creating a stable, aesthetically pleasing, and fast-loading website while on a budget, then you might be better off looking for a Wix alternative instead.
There are several factors to consider when choosing a Wix alternative. Here are some of the top things to take into account on your hunt for the best Wix alternative for you:
Of course, one of the main things for you to pay attention to is how well the option fits your budget. How much will it cost to build and host your website? What are the different plans offered by the platform? Which plan fits your needs best?
What makes Wix such a popular tool is the fact that you can build beautiful websites simply by dragging and dropping elements into place without a lick of knowledge of coding. If you’re on the hunt for a Wix alternative, that’s probably one of the main features you’ll want to look for.
When it comes to the user experience (UX) of a website, Wix knows that it’s important for websites to be responsible. Not only will a responsible and mobile-friendly website get you a higher ranking on Google, but it also makes your future customers happy with your website and brand. Whatever Wix alternative you choose should also allow you to make your website mobile-friendly and responsive and, ideally, will also allow you to preview what your website will look like when it loads on a mobile device.
Does the platform have advanced eCommerce features included? If you are trying to build a website for your eCommerce business, then you ought to make sure that the platform not only supports eCommerce but has all the fixings and trimmings for you to set up your business and grow with time.
Making changes and trying to migrate an existing website with all its data to a different platform down the line can be a huge hassle, so when it comes to building your eCommerce website, choose your platform wisely. And when it comes to Wix, not only are you NOT given that option, but you are also not given a choice in hosting. That is, your website can only be hosted on Wix.
When it comes to choosing your Wix alternative, you want to make sure that it supports all possible features, both the ones you need now and ones you may need in the future when you want to scale up. Otherwise, you may face a technical roadblock that will force you to manually enter your content on a totally new website from scratch.
We’ve covered topics like Shopify vs Wix and Squarespace vs Wix in depth before if you are interested, but we’ve gathered a list of some of the best Wix alternatives out there and tried to map out their pros and cons for your consideration.
First, let’s take a look at GoDaddy website builder vs Wix. GoDaddy is considered one of the top Wix competitors, and with its easy-to-use website builder, one has to ask, is Wix better than GoDaddy? The best way to determine that is by looking at the pros and cons of GoDaddy.
GoDaddy Pros | GoDaddy Cons |
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As a Wix alternative, using GoDaddy is one of the quickest ways to build and customize a website. You don’t need to start from scratch or browse through hundreds of templates. It’s a simple matter of filling out some information and getting a fully designed website in a matter of seconds. |
You’ll get a foolproof design but not many options to choose from. Some feel that GoDaddy’s designs are a bit too generic, and the customizations are not flexible enough. If you want to get super creative, GoDaddy might not be your best choice. |
GoDaddy’s SEO Wiz is great for beginners who want their website to rank in Google but don’t know where to begin. |
Some of GoDaddy’s SEO features might actually hurt more than help. For example, GoDaddy will automatically generate new URLs when you change your page titles. |
At a marginally extra cost, you can get access to amazing marketing tools that will help you to boost the number of visitors you get and turn them into clients. |
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GoDaddy lets you start for free, giving you a choice to upgrade to a paid plan whenever you need it. |
Next on our list, we took a look at Weebly vs Wix. Weebly supports over 40 million websites, so it isn’t a Wix alternative to ignore, especially as its pricing is pretty similar to Wix. But does it live up to its hype?
Weebly Pros | Weebly Cons |
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The big selling point to Wix and Wix alternatives is that you don’t need to know code to be able to build a pleasing and functioning website. Weebly’s drag-and-drop editor helps you to achieve that without any tech experience. Though, according to our observations, the interface isn’t quite as easy to use as other alternatives like GoDaddy, for instance. |
Weebly is a great Wix alternative for those who are looking for a short-term fix that is free. But if you are trying to create something for the long haul, something that will grow with you as you scale your eCommerce, then Weebly might not be the choice for you, as you’ll hit a brick wall before long. |
You’ll be able to find plenty of options on the app market, and Weebly delivers on good blogging tools. It also offers a decent amount of SEO tools and guidance to make your website a better success. |
You won’t have many options for customization with Weebly, which can be a bit of a disappointment considering that the templates are a bit old and outdated-looking. You won’t be given much wiggle room. |
If you don’t mind the ads, Weebly offers plenty in its free plan, making it a budget-friendly option for building your website. Take this with a pinch of salt, however, because while Weebly offers a great quick fix to your website problems, we wouldn’t necessarily recommend it in the long run. |
Quite possibly, the biggest con on the list is how slow the server response time is compared to other top competitors. Unfortunately, the site speed and mobile designs aren’t up to par, which could seriously hurt you regarding both User Experience and your website’s Google ranking. |
One of the Wix alternatives is Jimdo. Supporting around 20 million websites so far, they are steadily growing in popularity among small business owners. Here we tried to gauge who would win if we had to pitch Jimdo vs Wix.
Jimdo Pros | Jimdo Cons |
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If you are easily overwhelmed by too many options, bells, whistles, features, and so on, Jimdo might be the best option for you. It offers the bare minimum with a clean interface, great options for customizing your colors and fonts all in one go, and, of course, no need for coding knowledge. They aim to be the easiest and fastest website builders, not the most complicated ones. |
Once again, this is kind of their selling point. Simple and minimalist is their mode of being. But if you want features like blogging functionality, an app market, and a feature for non-members to log in, this isn’t the place to find it. This means their SEO tools are fairly basic as well. What’s more, you can only integrate Facebook and Instagram, and they don’t offer any kind of in-house email marketing tools. If you want to grow in the long run, Jimdo might not be your best option. |
Here Jimdo excels. Like its competitors, Jimdo uses Artificial Design Intelligence (ADI) to help you design your ideal website. The nice feature here, though, is its mobile editor view design feature, which helps you to build a website that looks simple and stylish on all devices. This will be a great boost to your SEO. |
Like Weebly, you’ll find an easier time making use of Jimdo if you stick closely to the templates offered. Make too many customizations, and things can get complicated, and you may run into some snags. It’s a safe but restricting builder that can be a pain to scale up in the long term. |
Jimdo offers a free plan for those who want to start immediately, plus the ability to upgrade, offering two premium plans. In terms of price, it truly does stand out as a great alternative to Wix, as it offers a great price for the features it does give. |
Jimdo is great for freelancers looking to build a portfolio, for someone looking to build a simple landing page or very simple website, but once you get into building a complex eCommerce website, it might not work best for you. Again, the key issue is that it’s not scalable. |
HostGator is known for being a hosting service, but they actually offer a fairly decent website-building tool called Gator for building your own website. Compared to the other Wix alternatives, Gator is still fairly new, though they offer something very similar to Wix in terms of their friendly interface.
Gator Pros | Gator Cons |
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Their menus are simple, their interface easy to understand and navigate, and making a website with Gator is as simple as it gets. |
For some reason, the source coding (HTML) doesn’t allow for heading tags (like H1, H2, etc.) which is pretty bad in terms of SEO. |
There isn’t much flexibility when using Gator’s online store module. It is, in itself, quite simplistic and may not offer everything you need for your growing eCommerce site. |
Liked a previous version of your website more than the one you created as you lost yourself down the rabbit hole of website design? No problem. Gator offers you the chance to restore your website to a previous version, safeguarding you from any mishaps or mistakes along the way. |
Gator offers almost everything that Wix does, save a few features here and there, but it comes at a cheaper price point, making it one of the best Wix alternatives on the market! |
Given the fact that Gator is still a growing platform, it has a lot of kinks it needs to iron out, particularly in the features department. There are crucial features missing from their blogging system, including the ability to schedule posts or allow native commenting systems. And other features, like password protection options, need some improvement. Overall, Gator shows a lot of promise, but they aren’t quite there yet. |
If you are looking to build a website for WordPress, then SeedProd is probably the best option for you. SeedProd makes it possible to design your ideal WordPress theme with its simple drag-and-drop page builder.
SeedProd Pros | SeedProd Cons |
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Drag and drop is the way to go if you are trying to be an alternative to Wix, and in that department, SeedProd delivers. With SeedProd, you can control everything from fonts to colors, shapes, and backgrounds with a few simple clicks. |
If you want to grow your eCommerce website for free, you may find the free version of SeedProd a bit frustrating, though a simple upgrade to one of their paid plans will solve the problem quickly enough. |
Almost reaching Gator’s numbers, SeedProd comes with over 150 website templates to fit your specific business niche’s needs. |
While some may find SeedProd’s compatibility with WordPress to be a blessing, others may be frustrated by the fact that SeedProd ONLY works with WordPress and not any other CMS. |
SeedProd is exclusively compatible with WordPress, giving you many robust options for creating a blog, online store, or even a membership site. It has built-in subscriber management, email marketing, and dynamic personalization options, among many other great features. |
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The free option is quite limited. However, there are two paid options that offer a risk-free 30-day money-back guarantee and which come with a custom theme builder, email marketing integrations, over 2 million stock photos, and much more. Basically, giving you a bang for your buck. |
Wix offers so much for those building an eCommerce website that truly makes it hard to beat, but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t options out there. If you are looking to build a solid eCommerce website for your business that offers all the features you need, gives you room to grow and scale your eCommerce business. All at an affordable price point, we hope that this article helps you to find the best Wix alternative that fits you best!
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