Squarespace
$25at 1 site
$16 a month dearer$75 at 3 sites
A small business or creative that wants a polished site, shop, memberships and payments from one subscription without touching code.
- Does not list email marketing and a staging site
Home › Website software › WordPress.com › Alternatives
WordPress.com alternatives
The 9 closest of 10, each with its real monthly cost at 1 site and what it does that WordPress.com does not. See all 17.
Carrd does everything we verified about WordPress.com for $9 a month less at 1 site, $0 against $9. It is a price cut rather than an upgrade: on the two features checked against the vendors’ own pricing pages the two are level. The trade: WordPress.com is built for running WordPress and a mature platform with a large ecosystem and Carrd is not, so this is a swap with a cost.
Why people look for an alternative
Monthly billing is more than twice the yearly rate, the free plan shows WordPress.com ads and allows no plugins, bookings and multilingual sites are not on the page, and payments taken on the cheaper plans carry a transaction fee of up to 8%.
It runs $9 a month at 1 site with the add-ons it forces on you included. One of the 10 alternatives to WordPress.com costs less than that.
The closest thing to WordPress.com
Ranked by how much of what we record for WordPress.com each platform also does. Squarespace is the nearest, and it is $16 a month dearer at 1 site. Nothing we verified is missing; the only gaps are features WordPress.com lists and Squarespace does not, which is weaker evidence.
The rest, in order of how close they are
Prices are the real monthly cost at 1 site with the add-ons each platform forces on you included, from the same engine the shortlist quiz uses.
Wix
$17at 1 site
$8 a month dearer$51 at 3 sites
A business that wants the widest spread of built-in tools (shop, bookings, pricing plans, forms, AI design) on one platform and is happy to pay a year up front.
- Also lists appointment booking
- Does not list email marketing and a staging site
GoDaddy Website Builder
$19.99at 1 site
$10.99 a month dearer$49.99 at 3 sites
Someone who wants to describe a business and have a site, store or simple web app generated and hosted by a household-name registrar, starting free.
- Also lists appointment booking
- Does not list email marketing, a members area and a staging site
Webflow
$25at 1 site
$16 a month dearer$75 at 3 sites
Designers and marketing teams who want full visual control over layout and a real CMS, and are willing to pay per site plus per seat for it.
- Also lists a multilingual site
- Does not list email marketing, a free domain for the first year and a members area
10Web
$20at 1 site
$11 a month dearer$45 at 3 sites
Someone who wants an AI-generated site but on real WordPress they can take elsewhere, with hosting, staging and a free domain in the same price.
- Does not list a blog, email marketing, forms and a members area
Hostinger Website Builder
$11.99at 1 site
$2.99 a month dearer$11.99 at 3 sites
Getting a first site, or several, online for the least money when you are willing to pay a year or more upfront and let the AI draft it.
- Also lists appointment booking
- Does not list custom code, forms, a members area and a staging site
Durable
$25at 1 site
$16 a month dearer$75 at 3 sites
A one-person service business that wants a site, bookings, a CRM and invoicing generated in minutes and is happy to let AI do the design.
- Also lists appointment booking and a multilingual site
- Does not list selling products online, email marketing, a members area and a staging site
Duda
$25at 1 site
$16 a month dearer$69 at 3 sites
Agencies and freelancers building and hosting many client sites from one account, with client logins, team seats and white-labelling priced in.
- Also lists appointment booking and a multilingual site
- Does not list a blog, email marketing, a free domain for the first year, a members area and a staging site
Framer
$15at 1 site
$6 a month dearer$45 at 3 sites
A designer or startup that wants a visually exact marketing site with AI agents and staging, and does not need a shop or bookings.
- Also lists a multilingual site
- Does not list a blog, custom code, selling products online, email marketing, forms and a members area
What WordPress.com is still the best answer for
Someone who wants real WordPress (plugins, themes, their own code on Business) with hosting, backups and updates handled, from a free blog up to a WooCommerce store.
On this site it is the pick for running WordPress, a free plan you can publish on and a mature platform with a large ecosystem. If that is you, read the savings above and then ignore them.
WordPress.com against one other, side by side
The pairs people actually search for, each one priced at the same four sizes off both vendors' own pages.
WordPress.com vs CarrdBoth priced at four sizes WordPress.com vs FramerBoth priced at four sizes WordPress.com vs GoDaddy Website BuilderBoth priced at four sizes WordPress.com vs Hostinger Website BuilderBoth priced at four sizes WordPress.com vs SquarespaceBoth priced at four sizes WordPress.com vs WebflowBoth priced at four sizes WordPress.com vs WixBoth priced at four sizes
Questions people ask about WordPress.com alternatives
What is the closest alternative to WordPress.com?
Carrd. It is $9 a month cheaper at the size we compare on and gives up nothing we verify, though you should read why it exists before swapping: no two of these do exactly the same job.
How much does WordPress.com cost?
WordPress.com is $9 a month at 1 site and $90 at 10 sites, read off their own pricing page and re-checked every week.
Why do people look for alternatives to WordPress.com?
Monthly billing is more than twice the yearly rate, the free plan shows WordPress.com ads and allows no plugins, bookings and multilingual sites are not on the page, and payments taken on the cheaper plans carry a transaction fee of up to 8%.
How many alternatives to WordPress.com are there?
We compare 10 of them here, every one priced at the same size off its own pricing page, and the whole list of 17 is on the website software page.
Should yours be on this list? If you make website builders and WordPress hosts and it is not compared here, ask to be shortlisted. Listings are free and cannot be bought.
How to read the feature lines
Two features were checked against each vendor's own pricing page: a free plan and running WordPress. Those are the ones written above as does and does not. The other twelve are read out of each vendor's own pricing page, so an absence there means we did not find it listed, not that the product lacks it, and those lines say lists and does not list instead. How all of this gets checked.
Or let it pick for you
This page compares everything to WordPress.com. The shortlist asks 7 questions about the site you need and how hands-on you want to be, and gives you four picks priced at your own numbers, which is a better question than “what is like the one I already have”.
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