Inside this Article
When Should You Use an Open Source Website Builder?The Best Free Alternatives to Open-Source Website Builders1. Wix: Drag-And-Drop Editor Provides Next-Level Design Freedom2. SITE123: The Fastest Way to Launch a Site3. WordPress.com: Plugins Galore for Advanced Customizations6 Best Open-Source Website Builders1. WordPress.org: Most Beginner-Friendly Open-Source Builder2. Drupal: Most Secure CMS With Advanced Features for Design And Function3. Joomla: Endless Resources for Complex Sites and E-commerce4. Symfony: Best For Complex, Unique Features And Easy Testin5. GrapesJS: Plenty of Customization Options6. Publii: Best For Static SitesChoose a Website Builder Software That’s Best for Your NeedsFAQ
When Should You Use an Open Source Website Builder?
If you can imagine it, you can build it! The best open-source website builders let you customize anything, from design and logic to systems and integrations of all types. But do you need all that? Building a basic site with open-source code can take weeks, while a more complicated project will set you back even longer. If you’re in a rush to get online, open-source may not be for you. Open-source technologies are continuously reinvented by thousands of users rather than one small group, giving you access to unmatched features. But not all community members use best practices – you need to have the knowledge to recognize and fix less-than-stellar code. Don’t have the skills or time to build a website from scratch? Prepare to spend more. Agencies charge $61-80 USD/hr on average. You can save some money by going to Fiverr, but even developers and designers there charge $32/hr on average (combined expertise will set you back quite a bit more). Creating a custom site can take hundreds of hours, ongoing maintenance excluded. It’s best to doo the math before you commit. If you need a complex website with full control over every aspect, then creating one from scratch with an open-source builder makes sense – provided you have the know-how or budget. For everything else, SaaS website builders are a better alternative.The Best Free Alternatives to Open-Source Website Builders
Open-source website builders sound too expensive, time-consuming, and overwhelming? I got you! Here are the best free SaaS alternatives:![Wix tech firm website template](https://dt2sdf0db8zob.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/best-open-source-website-builders-saas-alternatives-1.png)
Features
- Great blogging features. You can choose from 70+ blog templates and set up one in minutes. The Rich Text Editor allows you to style your blog with quotes, bullets, media, and more. You can add social buttons, put your content behind a paywall, and translate it into 180 languages with Wix Multilingua
- Impressive marketing features. Wix has plenty of marketing tools and apps for email marketing, social media, promotional materials, video creation, and more. Ascend by Wix is an excellent premium all-in-one package of tools if you don’t mind spending some money.
- 500+ apps. There’s a readily available app for every need through the Wix App market, and many of them are free! You can find categories with apps dedicated to Design Elements to customize your site further. The Wix Gallery App can improve your site’s visual presentation, while Impressive Site Menu lets you enhance your site’s navigation with different menu types and icons.
- Excellent e-commerce features. Selling on Wix is a premium feature, ideal for small to mid-size online shops. Wix has 500+ online store templates, hassle-free store management, multichannel sales support, and 70+ payment options. It also allows extensive customization with APIs.
Free hosting | Yes |
Drag-and-drop editor | Yes, gridless editor that provides greater design freedom |
Plugins/apps/extensions | 300+ on the Wix App Market, accessible from the free plan |
Price of the cheapest paid plan | $17.00 |
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2. SITE123: The Fastest Way to Launch a Site
![SITE123 pet blog template](https://dt2sdf0db8zob.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/best-open-source-website-builders-saas-alternatives-3.png)
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Features
- Free useful site elements. If you have basic needs, you can build a fully-functional free site with SITE123 using elements like a blog page, forms, and an appointment booking tool.
- User-friendly dashboard. You can manage your site from one easy-to-use dashboard, where all functions and features are clearly labeled.
- Custom Code. If you’re a paying customer, you can embed a custom code for both your website front (e.g. banners and popups) and backend (e.g. heatmaps and tracking pixels).
- Impressive customer support. While Wix makes it a bit harder to talk to a real human, SITE123 connects you with one in minutes. Its live chat is available in English and 16 other languages, and the button is accessible from every page on the site. When I first landed on SITE123, I was offered to schedule a 15-minute call with a SITE123 expert. The email support is also fast and attentive.
Free hosting? | Yes |
Drag-and-drop editor | No, point-and-click editor |
Plugins/apps/extensions | Yes, on paid plans only |
Price of the cheapest paid plan | $12.80 |
![Wordpress.com music website template](https://dt2sdf0db8zob.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/best-open-source-website-builders-saas-alternatives-5.png)
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Features
- Full Site Editor. The site editor allows you to customize block-based themes without code. It consists of three parts: editing a page template, editing specific parts of the template, and customizing Styles like Typography, Colors, and Layout.
- Block Content Editor. This treats every element like a separate block, allowing you to drag and drop them and apply specific changes like size, color, and media to every content block. It provides lots of flexibility to create diverse and wow-worthy posts and pages, making it perfect if you’re a blogger or creator.
- Advanced customization with CSS. WordPress.com allows you to further customize your site design with CSS code on its Premium, Business, and Commerce
- Excellent out-of-the-box SEO: You can easily optimize your site title, tagline, URL slugs, and descriptions. Each site comes with a powerful SEO toolkit that includes auto-Generated XML sitemaps that help search engines index your site, easy site verification methods, clean URLs for intuitive categorizing, and more. There are also plenty of SEO plugins like Yoast SEO and All in One Seo.
Free hosting? | Yes |
Drag-and-drop editor | Yes, with Elemenor |
Plugins/apps/extensions | 55,000+, available on Business plan and up |
Price of the cheapest paid plan | $4.00 |
6 Best Open-Source Website Builders
Up for a fancy, custom website? Here are the best open-source site builders:1. WordPress.org: Most Beginner-Friendly Open-Source Builder
![WordPress theme library](https://dt2sdf0db8zob.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/best-open-source-website-builders-saas-alternatives-7.png)
Features
- Easy monetization. You can put content behind a subscription, publish sponsored content, position ads and affiliate links on your site, create an online shop, and more without paying anything upfront, which isn’t the case with WordPress.com
- An abundance of DIY troubleshooting resources.org has bustling community-based forums where thousands of experts hang out. Should you experience issues with your site, you can get free guidance there.
- 55,000+ plugins. Better SEO? Yoast SEO is here to help. Fight spam? Akismet can save you hours of manual work. Faster loading time? Take off with WP Rocket. There’s just one problem: too many plugins (or even one poorly coded) can cause too many problems. Some of them will have a beef with others. Be careful who you’re inviting to reside on your site.
2. Drupal: Most Secure CMS With Advanced Features for Design And Function
![Drupal theme search filters](https://dt2sdf0db8zob.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/best-open-source-website-builders-saas-alternatives-8.png)
Features
- 40,000+ free modules. Need to supercharge your site with forms? Check out Webform. Protect your site from bots? Captcha is here to help. Create and edit page layouts with a click? Display Suite can save you valuable time. Evaluate how your content is performing? Google Analytics.
- 2000+ free themes. You can customize any theme sans coding by altering the color palette, background, and favicon. Make sure you choose one that’s flexible, mobile-responsive, and covered by the Drupal security advisory policy. You can also purchase themes.
- Easy-to-use frontend and content creation tools. Creating and maintaining a Drupal site might require technical knowledge, but your site contributors don’t need to know any code. Writers and editors can add media, hyperlinks, and other elements using the simple editor. It’s as easy as using Word.
3. Joomla: Endless Resources for Complex Sites and E-commerce
![Joomla forum](https://dt2sdf0db8zob.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/best-open-source-website-builders-saas-alternatives-9.png)
Features
- Ability to use more than one template. Your Joomla pages don’t have to look alike! Joomla allows you to choose different templates for different pages and create diverse designs across your website. The customization options may vary based on the templates.
- 8,000 free and paid extensions. That’s far less than WordPress.org, but nothing to sneeze at. Joomla Content Editor (JCE), Widgetkit, Akeeba Backup, Admin Tools, RSform, and SP Page Builder are the most used among web developers.
- Advanced e-commerce functionality. It has a vast range of features that allow you to do almost anything with your store. Some of them include multilingual support, easy multi-store management, shopping cart and payment gateway integrations, control lists for different customer groups, one-page checkout, etc.
4. Symfony: Best For Complex, Unique Features And Easy Testin
![Symfony open-source website builder documentation page](https://dt2sdf0db8zob.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/best-open-source-website-builders-saas-alternatives-10.png)
Features
- Easy testing. Symfony makes unit testing a breeze with its PHPUnit-Independent Library, which comes with reliable tools for behavioral and functional unit testing. It simulates HTTP requests and validates the output without coding and scripts. You can also automate functional testing.
- Customization features. You can use the full stack version option if you need a complex website with multiple functionalities. The brick-by-brick process allows you to use specific features of the framework to develop a site with selective functions based on your unique needs, while the micro framework is ideal for developing very specific functionalities.
- 30 independent components. These are standalone reusable PHP libraries that you can use as a foundation for various projects on your website to speed up the development process.
5. GrapesJS: Plenty of Customization Options
![GrapesJS website editor](https://dt2sdf0db8zob.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/best-open-source-website-builders-saas-alternatives-11.png)
Features
- Responsive design. GrapesJS provides all the tools you need to optimize your site for different devices.
- Limitless styling options. Its Style Manager module allows you to customize website components separately for a unique look. You can use the default version or expand its capabilities using the Style Manager API.
- Layer and Asset Manager. The Layer Manager allows you to manage and move components faster, especially when your site has too many. The Asset Manager keeps your media files organized and helps you arrange them in ways that complement your site structure and aesthetic.
6. Publii: Best For Static Sites
![Publii website editor interface](https://dt2sdf0db8zob.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/best-open-source-website-builders-saas-alternatives-12.png)
Features
- Content creation tools for bloggers. Publii offers 3 different, intuitive writing editors (block, WYSIWYG, and markdown editor), rich media options, Tags and Authors system to organize content with keywords, and more.
- Plenty of site speed tools. Static sites load faster, but Publii also provides tools like automatic file compression, lazy loading, responsive images, and code minifying to help you run even faster across the web space. You can also install the Image Decoding plugin for your image-rich posts to load faster.
- Strong SEO tools. Publii has all the basic SEO options plus automatic data markup, XML sitemap, and open-graph tag support. It also allows you to create your own SEO logic. The Pretty URL option is pretty cool – it allows you to switch to SEO-friendly URLs in an instant.
Choose a Website Builder Software That’s Best for Your Needs
I’ve been casually playing with code, but it’s far from a serious romance. I’m not a developer, and every time I read that coding is easy, I roll my eyes. First, you need to spend a fair amount of time learning the terminology before touching any code, and that’s a job in itself. I’m not saying it’s not worth it or that the best open-source website builders don’t have an advantage over SaaS builders in terms of customization, flexibility, and control. BUT. Factor in the time you need to master an open-source platform or the cost of hiring professionals to develop and maintain your site. If you’re a busy small business owner or work full-time anything, opting for an open-source website builder can turn into a burden for your schedule, budget, and maybe sanity. If you have the resources, go for it. If you don’t, but open source still excites you, I’d say go with WordPress.org. It’s not as easy as Wix, but it’s the most beginner-friendly among open-source builders. If you want the best of both worlds – ease of use and features – choose Wix. Here’s how Wix and other SaaS website builders compare against free open-source website builder software.Best Feature | Free Hosting | Best For | ||
Wix | Gridless drag-and-drop editor that expands design freedom | ✔ | Small to medium business owners, bloggers, creators, and entrepreneurs alike who want a unique website | |
SITE123 | Easy-to-nnavigate interface | ✔ | Launching a simple website fast | |
WordPress.com | Robust blogging features | ✔ | Bloggers, and small business owners who want a feature-rich website | |
WordPress.org | 55,000+ plugins | ✘ | Bloggers and businesses that need full control over every aspect of their website | Try for Free |
Drupal | Next-level customizations | ✘ | Large, high-traffic, multiple pages, content-heavy websites with multilingual capabilities | Try for Free |
Joomla | Advanced e-commerce features | ✘ | Big sites with advanced features, and custom e-commerce sites | Try for Free |
Symfony | Speeds up development | ✘ | Sites that need complex off-the-shelf features | Try for Free |
GrapesJS | Lots of styling options | ✘ | Greater control over content management and display | Try for Free |
Publii | Excellent content creator tools | ✘ | Blogs, portfolio, and documentation sites | Try for Free |