While WordPress is a popular open-source platform for building a website, but it’s not for everyone. For starters, beginners often have trouble with WordPress because it is not as user-friendly as it could be. It is geared toward people who know the basics of building a website already. There are many reasons why a person might opt for a WordPress alternative, so its best to know your options before you dive in. These four options are particularly great if you’re looking to build a blog, and WordPress just isn’t what you’re looking for.
Weebly
Weebly is the easiest WordPress alternative for building a blog and is widely considered much easier to use than WordPress itself. Weebly’s drag-and-drop website builder is responsible for that. Overall, its interface is extremely intuitive, and its many blog layouts and features can be utilized without spending hours figuring out how to do it. Some of the features include comments, contact forms, galleries, tags, and categories. If you upgrade to the Pro plan, you will also get video and audio player integration.
Weebly’s free plan puts a little Weebly banner in your blog’s footer. Upgrading to the Personal plan or higher will remove that banner. This Personal plan is $9 a month, or $6 if you pay annually. Upgrading to the Pro plan will allow you to use your own domain name and get rid of brand ads. More than 50 million websites have been built using Weebly, in part because they make it so easy to use.
Wix
Wix is known for having flexible, easily customized website designs. While WordPress may rank at or near the top in terms of the sheer number of designs and templates available, they are not easy to customize. Wix may have slightly fewer options, but the fact that you can easily change them to your liking goes a long way. All Wix plans, including their free plan, provide identical design capability.
Wix is also pretty easy to use, allowing users to drag and drop elements of the design where they choose. It is also possible to include animations and video backgrounds. Aside from that, Wix is known for having good SEO. One of its downsides, however, is that once you choose a template, you can’t change it. You can use Wix for free or upgrade to more elaborate plans, starting at $13 per month to remove Wix ads and use video elements.
Joomla!
Joomla is not easy to use. More complicated than WordPress, Joomla! is not a website builder for beginners. However, if you’re not looking for easy, its range of built-in features can quickly draw you in. One of its best features is its ability to manage multilingual web pages. Another is that it’s a lot more secure than WordPress. Two-factor authentification is built in from the get-go, which means fewer hackers.
With open-course CMS, Joomla is free to use, though adding on extensions that further its power will cost extra. That being said, when using Joomla for your blog, expect powerful SEO as well as a fast-performing thanks to built-in cache management.
Squarespace
Creatives often choose Squarespace over WordPress because of their attractive and responsive award-winning template designs. It also includes automatic updates, hosting, and e-commerce built into its system. Most users say Squarespace is easier to use than WordPress, though it is less flexible.
If you already have a WordPress blog, Squarespace allows you to import it, making it easy to switch over. Squarespace also boasts highly-trained customer care that is available 24/7, another convenient and helpful attribute. Squarespace is not free, though. The least expensive option is $12 per month for a personal website.