If you’re looking for a WordPress alternative, it usually means one of two things: WordPress is annoying you, or you’re starting something new and don’t want the hassle in the first place. Either way, here’s the honest rundown of what’s out there, who each one is for, and where I landed.
First, a fair word for WordPress. I still like it. It runs a big part of my business and it’s a solid choice for a lot of people. So this isn’t a “WordPress is dead” list. It’s just the real options if it’s not working for you.
The hosted website builders
These are the “sign up and drag things around” tools. No hosting to manage, no updates.
- Squarespace. Looks great out of the box, easy for a simple business site or portfolio. You trade away control for that simplicity.
- Wix. Similar idea, very beginner friendly, lots of templates. Can get heavy and slower as you add things.
- Webflow. More powerful and design focused. A bit of a learning curve, but you get real control without touching code.
Good if you want easy and you don’t have a lot of existing SEO traffic to protect. The downside is you’re renting their system, and moving off later can be a pain.
The content-first platforms
- Ghost. Built for blogs and newsletters. Fast, clean, and a nice writing experience. Great if content is the whole point of your site.
Good if you mostly publish articles and want something lighter than WordPress without going fully custom.
The route I took: a static site you run with AI
This is where I ended up. Instead of another CMS, I moved my sites to Astro, which builds a fast, simple site out of plain files, and I update it by telling AI what to change.
Why this won for me:
- It’s blazing fast, because there’s no database doing work on every page load.
- Almost no maintenance. No plugins to update, nothing breaking on its own.
- I can change it by asking. I tell Claude Code what I want and it does it. No dashboard, no page builder.
The catch is honesty: this route is more technical to set up than a drag and drop builder. But once it’s running, it’s the easiest to maintain of anything I’ve used. I wrote up how I set it up here.
Common questions
What’s the best WordPress alternative? There isn’t one best, it depends on you. A hosted builder like Squarespace or Webflow for an easy simple site, Ghost if you mostly blog, or a static site like Astro if you want it fast and easy to update with AI.
Is there a free WordPress alternative? Astro itself is free, and hosting on something like Vercel is cheap or free for a small site. The hosted builders (Squarespace, Wix, Webflow) all charge a monthly fee once you go past their trial.
What’s the easiest alternative to WordPress? A hosted builder. Squarespace and Wix are sign-up-and-drag, with nothing to host or update. You give up some control for that simplicity.
Should I leave WordPress at all? Only if it’s actually causing you pain, slow, hard to maintain, fighting plugins. If WordPress is working fine for you, keep it. Don’t switch for the sake of it.
So which one should you pick?
Here’s how I’d think about it:
- Simple site, you want easy, not much traffic to protect: a hosted builder like Squarespace or Webflow.
- Mostly a blog or newsletter: Ghost.
- You want it fast, cheap to run, and easy to update with AI, and you don’t mind a more technical setup: a static site like Astro.
- WordPress is actually fine for you: then honestly, keep it. Don’t switch for the sake of it.
The one thing I’d watch out for: if you’ve got real SEO traffic, moving platforms is where people lose rankings. Whatever you pick, do the move carefully. I put the whole checklist for that here.
And if you’d rather not do the move yourself, that’s the kind of thing I help people with.
What’s making you look for an alternative, the speed, the maintenance, or something else? Let me know and I’ll point you in the right direction.