Most lists of WordPress alternatives name fifteen platforms and never say when you shouldn’t switch at all. This one covers the six worth considering for a business site, with each one’s price, who it suits and the one limit that should stop you. I checked every price and limit on the platform’s own pricing page or help center on October 19, 2026.
When staying on WordPress is the right answer
Start here, because switching platforms costs real time: rebuilding the design, moving the content and redirecting every old URL so you keep your rankings.
Stay on WordPress if most of these are true:
- The site works and ranks. A move puts that at risk, and a new platform won’t rank it better on its own.
- Several people edit it. WordPress users are free. Webflow charges a seat per extra editor, and Framer charges per editor too.
- It does something specific, like bookings, memberships, a directory or a custom form, through a plugin. Check the alternative can do the same thing before you go.
- It has a lot of content, or you plan to add thousands of pages.
The usual reason to leave isn’t WordPress itself. It’s that nobody is keeping it updated, so it’s slow, broken or worrying to touch. That’s fixable without moving. A slow site usually needs work rather than a new platform; see how to speed up a WordPress site.
The alternatives, one by one
Prices are per month, billed yearly, with the monthly-billing price in brackets where the vendor shows one.
Wix
Price: Light $17 a month. Taking payments needs Core at $29.
Best fit: a small business site you want to build and edit yourself, with booking, forms and simple selling built in.
Deal-breaker: you can never take the site anywhere else. Wix’s help center says your site “must run on Wix’s servers”, so leaving means rebuilding from scratch. It also says it’s “not currently possible to change your site’s template”. A redesign means a new site.
Squarespace
Price: Basic $19 ($25). Core $29 ($39) adds custom code and drops the 2% fee on online store sales.
Best fit: portfolios, service businesses and small shops that want a polished template and no maintenance.
Deal-breaker: check what you’d lose if you ever left. Squarespace exports layout pages, text and image blocks and one blog. Store pages, drafts, extra blogs, product and video blocks and custom CSS don’t export.
Webflow
Price: a site with a blog needs Premium at $25 ($39). Basic at $15 has no CMS.
Best fit: marketing sites a designer builds and keeps tidy.
Deal-breaker: every extra person who edits content needs a Limited seat at $15 a month billed yearly, and the CMS stops at 20,000 items. WordPress vs Webflow prices a real site on both.
Shopify
Price: Basic $29 ($39).
Best fit: a site that is mainly an online store, where checkout, payments and inventory matter more than anything else.
Deal-breaker: product and category pages always sit under /products/ and /collections/. Moving an existing store changes most of its URLs, so every one needs a redirect. WooCommerce vs Shopify goes through the full cost.
Ghost
Price: Starter $15 ($18) for up to 1,000 members. Publisher at $29 ($35) adds custom themes and paid subscriptions.
Best fit: a blog or newsletter, especially one that charges subscribers.
Deal-breaker: the price rises with your member count, and Ghost is built for publishing. If your site is mostly service pages, forms and a contact page, the others fit better.
Framer
Price: Basic $10 ($15). Pro $30 ($45).
Best fit: small, design-led sites built by someone who already uses Framer.
Deal-breaker: Basic has no redirects, so moving an existing site there loses every old URL. Basic also caps you at 30 pages and 1,000 CMS items. Pro adds redirects and raises the limits.
When switching does make sense
Leaving WordPress is a good call when:
- The site is simple and nobody is maintaining it. A ten-page service site that hasn’t been updated in two years is safer on a platform that updates itself.
- It’s really a store or really a newsletter. Shopify and Ghost are built for exactly those jobs.
- A designer owns the site end to end, and the team only edits text.
- You’re starting from scratch, with no rankings or old URLs to protect, and the site fits one of the best fits above.
If you switch, plan the redirects first
The step that loses the most traffic in any move is missing redirects. Every old URL needs to point to its new page, or the rankings those pages built are lost. Before you pick a platform, list your current URLs, check the new platform’s redirect limits and URL rules, and map each old address to a new one. Good structure from the start matters on any platform; my guide to SEO-friendly web design covers what to get right.
Which one I’d pick
For most small businesses already on WordPress, I’d stay and get the site maintained properly. Moving costs more than fixing.
If you’re starting fresh or the site really is simple, I’d pick:
- Squarespace for a small service business that wants no maintenance
- Shopify if the site is mainly a store
- Ghost if it’s mainly a newsletter
- Webflow if a designer will look after it long term
If you’re weighing a switch or a new site, that decision is where my web design work starts. If you’d rather keep WordPress and have it looked after, see WordPress development.
