WordPress is the World’s most popular open source CMS (content management system) that is used by 28% of the all websites in the world. It was originally built as a blog publishing platform and over the years Wordpress has transitioned into a full-fledged CMS for creating dynamic and beautiful websites. However, WordPress is not the only CMS for creating websites. There are several WordPress alternatives that are equally popular as WordPress for creating robust websites. In this post you will find free WordPress alternatives in 2019 that you can use for creating beautiful websites.
List of Free WordPress alternatives 2019
Drupal – Similar to WordPress drupal is also an opensource CMS but unlike WordPress, Drupal is complex but far more secure than WordPress.
Drupal is free for download and use for any type of website. It uses PHP and MySQL technologies at the core.
If you are looking to build a large network of dynamic web applications that would support thousands of users then Drupal can prove to be a platform of choice.
It comes with several free add-ons for creating ecommerce applications, web portals, corporate websites and can also used for creating personal website or a blog.
Joomla – Joomla is an award winning open source CMS written in PHP and MySQL technologies. It is available for free and used for creating powerful and secure websites.
Joomla is equally popular as WordPress and Drupal and is highly extendable. Joomla has thousands of templates and free add-ons available for creating websites.
It is used by agencies, companies, corporate, governments and universities to create websites.
Joomla has been around for over 10 years now and used by millions of users every month to manage their websites on a regular basis because of its user-friendly and powerful features.
CMS made simple – It is also an open-source content management systems that is built for experienced web developers and designers to create websites quickly without much coding.
It has a modular and extendable architecture that allows developing simple to complex websites without much effort.
CMS made simple is free to download that can make your life simple as a developer if you are looking for new WordPress alternatives.
October – October is a free and open source CMS for self-hosted websites which is based on PHP Laravel framework.
October is used by over 30,000 developers world-wide for its simplicity, powerful features and extendable architecture that support scaling websites in the future.
It has an extensive documentation for developers and it is easy to learn and use. October fits in well on the list of WordPress alternatives 2019.
Lavalite – If you are looking for WordPress alternatives which you can learn quickly and start using for creating robust websites for your customers then Lavalite can be a good fit for you.
It is a PHP and Laravel based open source CMS that supports multiple database systems such as MySQL, SQLite, MariaDB, PostgreSQL etc.
Lavalite is based on Litepie framework which offers features such as file management, authentication, workflow management and user management.
Impress Pages CMS – Impress Pages is a PHP framework with an Admin Panel. It is based on the MVC architecture that supports creating your own plugins and themes similar to WordPress.
If you are familiar with WordPress or work with PHP then getting familiar with Impress Pages won’t take you much time and you will be creating gorgeous websites for yourself or your customers.
Textpattern – Textpattern is also an open source CMS based on same technologies as WordPress, Joomla and Drupal. It was first released in 2003 and has been around since then with several updates.
Server requirements are same as of WordPress for hosting the websites using Textpattern. It is pretty straight forward CMS for creating websites without much fuss if you are looking for new WordPress alternatives.
Tiki Wiki CMS Groupware – It is a full-featured CMS written in PHP, MYSQL, Smarty and Zend Framework which is completely open source.
The advantage of Tiki Wiki CMS is that it can be used for creating websites, portals and various kinds of knowledge base, intranets and extranets.
It has a robust modular design which makes it super flexible and features are optional for use and managed via a web-based interface.
If you are looking for web-based WordPress alternatives then Tiki Wiki CMS Groupware can be a good choice for you as it can handle everything from forums, blogs, news articles, banner management, maps, RSS, custom themes and much more.
List of Paid Open Source WordPress Alternatives 2019
Statamic – If you are looking to try paid WordPress alternatives then you can go for Statamic.
It is interesting to use Statamic as it doesn’t require a database to store the website files; rather it uses PHP, YAML and Markdown to generate pages.
Expression Engine – You must have heard about this paid CMS which also has a free version but it is very basic.
Expression engine can be used as one of the WordPress alternatives if you can spend few bucks to build a website.
Unlike other free PHP and MySQL content management systems, Expression Engine requires a license purchase for use and most of the add-ons are also not free.
Ghost – Ghost is a modern web publishing CMS and a paid platform which is open source but in order to migrate to a self-hosted platform you need to upgrade to a PRO plan.
Under the business plan which is for US $240 annually, Ghost assists its customers in migration to a self-hosted platform.
List of drag and drop Website Builders as WordPress Alternatives
Wix.com – Wix is the most popular drop and drag web site builder which offers a subscription based service.
It is a hosted platform for creating websites for personal or commercial purpose. Wix offers thousands of pre-designed website templates for beginners to create websites for any category.
It also offers a shopping cart feature for creating ecommerce websites and allows website owners to accept online payments using PayPal or authorize.net.
Under it’s free plan you can create a website which runs on a sub domain, for connecting your own domain you need to upgrade to a paid plan.
Weebly – Similar to Wix.com, Weebly is also a drag and drop website builder focusing on ecommerce websites.
Weebly is extremely popular among users that do not have coding knowledge and want to create simple, clean and beautiful websites using hundreds of pre-designed web templates and customizing it using a drag and drop UI.
With weebly you can start for free by creating a website on a subdomain but for connecting for your own domain, you need to upgrade to a paid plan.
Square Space – Although, Squarespace is also a hosted drag and drop website builder but it does not have any free plan.
It starts from $12/month for a personal website plan in which you get a custom domain name, a free SSL, unlimited bandwidth and storage.
Just like Wix and Weebly, Square Space also has hundreds of pre-designed website templates you can customize according to your needs for creating a website.
Jimdo – Jimdo is another drag and drop AI based website builder that claims to create a website within 3 minutes.
Under its website builder portfolio it offers two products Dolphin and Creator. You can start as a free user for a personal website that has 2GB bandwidth and 500MB storage included in it.
Other features such as shopping cart, SEO and premium support are present in paid plans.
Google Sites – If you have ever created a Google Business Listing for your local business then you might have come across Google sites service that allows you to create a small basic website with just few clicks.
It is an automated website creator that utilizes the same content and images as on your Google listing. It is an extremely easy to use website creator tool and you can even connect your own domain for free.
Impress.ly – Impressly is a paid drag and drop website builder that offers an intuitive UI which is clean, simple to use and fast.
A very unique feature of impressly website builder is that it automatically scans your social media pages, feeds and web content and generates a beautiful website for you.
A custom domain and basic analytics are included in its $9/month plan which is the starting plan.
Silex – If you are looking for WordPress alternatives that you can use as a drag and drop website builder both in a hosted or a self-hosted environment then go with Silex.
With Silex you can design your website in the browser with an easy drag and drop interface without any coding knowledge. It is free to download and completely open source.
Sitecake – If you are looking for a flat file CMS that can work without a database and generates HTML websites fast then Sitecake is what you need.
List of Blog Publishing Platforms as WordPress alternatives
Tumblr – Tumblr is extremely popular among blog publishers and writers as it is free and offers a great platform to share your content.
It is a one of the blog publishing websites that you can use as WordPress alternatives.
Tumblr is a hosted blogging platform and you don’t need to download anything to use it.
Simply, signup and start using it choosing from free themes to premium themes for your blog.
It also allows users to create pages and connect their customs domain name. Tumblr was acquired by Yahoo in the year 2013.
Blogger – We all know blogger a free blog publishing platform by Google.
Though it has lost so much popularity to WordPress and other blogging platform but it is still alive and we love it.
Google built Blogger platform keeping in mind the needs of the bloggers world-wide and therefore it has most of the blogging features that you need such as comments, social sharing options, connect your own domain and templates.
Blogger is one of the WordPress alternatives in real sense.
Medium – Medium is another very popular blog and story publishing platform where you can find tons of useful blogs and interesting stories.
Medium is focused on blogging rather than a CMS platform so you will find a clean editor to write and publish your posts. One thing that it doesn’t offer is the themes and plugins unlike other blogging platforms.
Another feature that you won’t find on Medium blog publishing platform is the comments rather it has in-line notes and responses.
Other WordPress alternatives that you can try
Jekyll – We are mentioning Jekyll because it uses complete different technology than PHP. Jekyll is developed using Ruby and needs NodeJS to run.
Also, it is nothing like WordPress as it generates static HTML pages out of your text files and does not require database.
Jekyll is not for amateurs and rather built for developers that are familiar with command line, Git, SVN and similar technologies.
ProcessWire – ProcessWire is another open source CMS which is built using jQuery and you can easily work through APIs to create web pages.
However, ProcessWire can be used for much more complex tasks rather than just generating web pages such as it can used to develop JSON/XML web services, develop mobiles sites and much more.
It is also SEO friendly as it uses logical and readable URLs for the web pages that always reflect the content’s home in a tree structure.
Plone – Plone is an open source CMS which is written in Python. It is based on the Zope application server and a gives true WYSIWYG editor like feeling which is secure and easy to use.
It is also at par compared to the other content management systems offering better internationalization capabilities, access control and overall value.
We have tried to mention as many WordPress alternatives as possible that are popular, robust and can be used in your next project.
Although, WordPress is getting better and better with each release and has been around for many year now with a huge community of developers that support WordPress but there are WordPress alternatives that are equally good for creating websites, blogs and web pages.
Check out other WordPress Resources that may be helpful to you:
Best WordPress Blogger Themes
How to Create a Sitemap in WordPress
How to install a WordPress Theme
Best WordPress Web Hosting
How to migrate WordPress from an old web host to a new one
List of Websites for downloading Elementor Templates for WordPress
21 Best Websites to Download free WordPress Themes
23 Best Web Hosting for WordPress
12 Keyword Research tools for SEO
References
https://alternativeto.net/software/wordpress/
https://www.forbes.com/sites/allbusiness/2018/07/22/best-wordpress-alternatives-business-owners/#5c5714131100
https://www.hostingadvice.com/how-to/wordpress-alternatives/
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