alternatives
A custom alternative to Wix
For small businesses and independent operators deciding between staying on Wix and having something made instead. The honest version, including the part where Wix wins.
When Wix is the right answer
Wix does something difficult very well: it lets somebody with no technical background put a working, decent looking site on the internet in an afternoon. That is real value. If the site is informational and the alternative is not having one, use Wix and spend the money on the actual business instead.
That is worth saying plainly, because most pages like this one are written by somebody who wants to sell you the alternative. If the description above matches your situation, stay where you are.
What tends to push a project past it
The thing that makes the business distinctive is the thing the editor cannot express, so the site describes the work rather than demonstrating it.
The page has grown heavy in ways you cannot get at, because what loads is decided by the builder rather than by you.
You need the site to talk to something else, a system you already run or a piece of hardware or a database, and the integration options stop where your requirement starts.
The site is now the front door to the business and it exists entirely inside an account.
What a commission gives you instead
Software written for your problem rather than configured around it, including the parts that made you give up on the builder.
Ownership of the whole thing, so nothing is rented back and there is no arrangement where it stops working if you stop paying us.
Hosting on your own server if you want it there, with no middle man in the stack at all.
The part that is not about features
Wix, like every hosted builder, runs your site on its own infrastructure under its own terms. That is the arrangement, and it is a reasonable one at the price. What it means is that the site is something you have access to rather than something you hold.
A commission inverts that. You get the repository, the design files and the accounts, and it can be stood up on your own server so there is no middle man in the stack at all. If you would rather not run infrastructure we will host it, and that stays a convenience you can walk away from rather than a dependency.
Whether it is worth it
Commissioned work costs more than a subscription and takes longer than an afternoon. It earns that when the site has to do something specific, when it is the first serious thing a client or an audience meets, or when the business has grown past the point where its front door should live in an account. If none of those are true yet, the honest advice is to wait until one of them is.
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Questions people ask first, and guides on commissioning custom work.
use it. commission it. back it.