Skip to main content
Hashnode
VeloCMS

Why are people leaving Wix?

The limits that push developers off Wix, what Wix still does well, and where to go: WordPress, Webflow, Ghost, Astro, Shopify, VeloCMS and more.

Updated 18 min readMarkdown
V
VeloCMS

When people leave Wix, the reasons are mostly limits that Wix documents itself. Its help center says blog posts can't be exported to other platforms, that a site has to be hosted and operated on Wix's servers, and that you can't switch a site's template. For developers there's a second layer: Velo backend code runs under per-request quotas, the editor goes read-only once you connect Git, and the "full control" route, Wix Headless, still keeps your data on Wix. Price and store fees come up too. Performance, on the best independent data I found, mostly doesn't.

I can't tell you how many people are actually leaving, because nobody publishes churn. What follows is the checkable part: what each limit says on the vendor's own page, what it means in practice, and where people land. Plenty of people should stay, and I'll say when.

Disclosure: I work on VeloCMS, a hosted blog CMS. It's one of eight destinations below, it has no free plan, and I've listed its weak spots the same way as everyone else's.

Last verified: October 31, 2026.

A note on money. Several pricing pages localise by region. Webflow, Ghost, Framer and VeloCMS showed me dollars; Squarespace and Shopify showed pounds. I quote the currency each page showed. Wix says prices may differ by geographic location, so treat every number as a map, not a quote.

Is there evidence that people are leaving Wix?

Not in the form of a number I'd trust. The closest public data point is the 2025 Web Almanac CMS chapter (HTTP Archive, published January 2026), which puts Wix at about 5.2% of CMS-detected mobile sites and says its growth is "effectively flat" after a period of rapid expansion. Flat adoption is consistent with slower sign-ups, faster churn, or both. It proves nothing about why.

So I'm treating "why are people leaving" as "what are the documented reasons to leave", which is a question the docs can answer.

Can you take your content out of Wix?

Mostly not, and this is the reason I'd put first. Wix's help center states it plainly on a feature-request page: "Currently, it is not possible to export blog posts to other platforms." The page has no date and says Wix is collecting votes.

What you can get is narrow. The blog's RSS feed "can only display up to 20 of the most recent blog posts", and you can't get a feed for categories. Wix's CMS can export a collection as CSV, but that page doesn't say whether the built-in Blog Posts collection is covered, so test it on your own dashboard before you count on it. Store products export as CSV, up to 5,000 rows per file, and digital products aren't supported. Contacts export as CSV, up to 50,000 at a time.

The site itself doesn't move. Wix says it "needs to be hosted and operated on Wix's servers", and if you embed it elsewhere anyway, "Google Analytics and search engines may not work properly."

Compare that with the other direction. WordPress's export tool produces a single WXR (XML) file containing posts, pages, custom post types, comments, custom fields, categories, tags, taxonomies and users, and any WordPress install can import it. That asymmetry, not any single feature, is what "lock-in" means here.

Why can't you switch templates on a Wix site?

Because Wix doesn't offer it. A support page on the Wix Editor says it's "not currently possible to transfer all your site's content, media, and SEO settings" to a new template; it's labelled a feature request with no date. The advice is to start a new site, or to use the Site Design panel for colors, text and transitions.

If you're thinking "I'll just move to Wix Studio, then," the same pattern repeats. Wix's own comparison page says you can't transfer a Wix Editor site to a Wix Studio site. Wix does let you create a Studio version as a separate branch, but you rebuild the design, publishing the Studio branch unpublishes the Editor one, and you can't republish the original afterwards. Editor and Studio also require different plans, and a yearly plan can't be moved to a monthly Studio plan. For a content site, a redesign that means a rebuild is the cost that stings.

What is it like to code on Velo and Wix Studio?

Better than its reputation, with sharp edges. Wix gives you three ways to code: a Code panel, a browser IDE based on VS Code, and your own IDE through Git integration and the Wix CLI. Serverless backend code, HTTP functions, routers, fetch and npm packages are all there. For wiring a business-logic layer into a visual site, that's real capability.

The sharp edges are in the quotas and the workflow. Once you connect a site to GitHub, the editor goes read-only, and sites using Velo Packages can't connect at all. Backend requests are throttled at 7,000 per minute on premium sites and 5,000 on free ones, and a request that runs past 14 seconds times out. Wix Data caps single-item writes at 512 KB and bulk writes at 4 MB, and CMS queries time out after 5 seconds on most plans (10 seconds on Elite tiers). Most sites share multi-tenant databases; only Business Elite gets a dedicated one. Non-Elite plans allow three regular indexes and one unique index. Backend containers come as micro (1 vCPU, 400 MB) or standard (2 vCPU, 600 MB), with more containers on higher plans.

None of that is unreasonable for a small business site. It's a poor fit if you expected a general application runtime, and it's why developers who start on Velo tend to start asking about headless.

Does Wix Headless fix the lock-in?

It fixes the frontend and keeps the backend. Wix Headless lets you build a frontend on any stack and call Wix's business APIs (eCommerce, bookings, events, memberships, CMS, blog). Wix hosts it for you (Astro has the deepest integration), or you host it yourself with the self-managed option. The pricing is unusually friendly: it's "free to connect and build with, with no time limit and no credit card needed", you pay when you want payments, a custom domain or advanced analytics, and "calling Wix APIs doesn't cost extra regardless of how often you use them."

The catch is the one in the name of this article. Your products, bookings and content stay in Wix. Moving an existing site to a custom frontend is reversible, which is nice, but it needs a connected custom domain, Velo page code stops running, web modules must be rebuilt, and Editor forms are gone. It's an excellent way to get a better frontend. It isn't an exit. (Wix even documents migrating a WordPress site into Headless with an AI agent. No equivalent page points the other way.)

Are Wix sites actually slow?

On the best independent data I found, no, and this is where I'd push back on the folklore. The Web Almanac 2025 CMS chapter reports that 74% of Wix mobile sites pass Core Web Vitals, up from 55% a year earlier, against 45% for WordPress. For LCP, 81% of Wix mobile sites were "good" versus 53% for WordPress. Median Lighthouse performance came in at 64 on mobile and 87 on desktop for Wix, versus 41 and 63 for WordPress.

The same chapter has the counterpoint: Wix and Shopify had the heaviest median mobile JavaScript, 1,634 KB and 1,615 KB, while WordPress's median was 638 KB. Lab scores are a snapshot, and the chapter itself says outcomes depend heavily on implementation discipline. Wix's own claim of a tenfold improvement names general methods (CDN caching, image and font optimization, compression) without quantifying any one of them, and gives only a vague window ("in the last few years") rather than a date, so I'd lean on the Almanac instead.

What you can't control is the other half. Wix says third-party apps and iframes load from external servers, "Wix cannot optimize them," and they may add load time. Speed on Wix is good by default and bounded by what you add.

How much SEO control do you get?

Enough for most sites, less than a developer wants. The /post/ prefix in blog URLs can be renamed but not removed, and the blog and post prefixes can't be the same word, so /blog/my-post isn't available. Canonical tags are editable, and custom structured data is allowed but JSON-LD only, under 7,000 characters. The redirect manager takes CSV imports of 500 redirects per file.

On multilingual sites, Wix Multilingual covers over 180 languages, lets you edit SEO settings per language and offers three URL structures (subdirectories, subdomains, language parameters). I didn't find a limit on blog translation either way, so check that before you promise a client multilingual blogging.

What does Wix cost, and what about store fees?

Wix's plans page, in a USD reference view, listed Light at $17.77 a month, Core at $29.77, Business at $39.77 and Business Elite at $159.77, all on yearly plans "paid in full at the time of purchase." Storage runs 2 GB on Light, 50 GB on Core, 100 GB on Business and unlimited on Business Elite. There's a free plan, but per Wix's help page it has 500 MB of storage, 1 GB of bandwidth and no custom domain, and "removing the Wix ads" is listed as a Premium benefit. Premium plans have no free trial, only a 14-day money-back guarantee. Wix Studio, aimed at agencies, starts at $19 a month on Wix's own comparison.

I could not find a statement of renewal pricing on the pages I read, so I won't claim renewals jump. Check your own billing page.

For stores, Wix Payments' US rates are 2.9% + $0.30 on standard cards, 3.7% + $0.30 on American Express and 3.49% + $0.49 on PayPal, plus 1.5% for cross-border payments and a $15 chargeback fee ($20 when the disputed payment went through PayPal). Those are processing fees. I found no separate Wix commission line, but I also found no page that says there isn't one, so confirm before you model margins.

Why do people stay on Wix?

Plenty do, for good reasons. Wix runs the hosting, the CDN and the security for you, and the Almanac numbers above say the result is fast by default. The editor suits people who want to design visually and never touch code. Bookings, events and a small shop live inside the same dashboard, so the whole business sits under one login and one bill. VeloCMS's own comparison page concedes that Wix's event booking and ticketing tools are polished and need no third-party integration.

If your site is five pages, a booking widget and a contact form, and you don't care about the template or about taking posts elsewhere, the lock-in is a theoretical cost and the convenience is a real benefit. Leaving only pays off when you'd actually use what you'd gain.

Where do people go instead?

Here are the destinations I checked. Each came from the vendor's own page.

WordPress.org

WordPress is GPLv2-or-later software, so you can take your content and your code anywhere, and the export file above is the portable format everyone else imports. The trade-off is that you run it: you need a host (the page lists Pressable, Bluehost and Hostinger and no prices), and updates and backups become your job. Its Almanac performance numbers are lower on average, though the chapter says implementation matters more than platform. Best for developers who want the biggest ecosystem and full ownership.

Webflow

Webflow is the closest thing to a designer-first Wix for developers. Per its pricing page, in USD per site, Basic is $15 a month billed yearly ("for simple sites that don't need a CMS") and Premium, the plan with a CMS, is $25 a month billed yearly, with up to 20,000 CMS items and 40 collections. Code export lives on Workspace plans (Core is $19 a month billed yearly), and the page notes "Dynamic content (CMS items/pages) can't be exported", so a blog does not come out as code. Lock-in is real, just friendlier.

Squarespace

Squarespace has no free plan, and every site starts with a 14-day free trial. On the pound view I got, the cheapest plan carries a 2% fee on online store sales and 7% on digital content, while Core and above show 0% on store sales. Basic also excludes code injection and the advanced code block. Its export is a WordPress-format XML with only one blog page and no product blocks. Best for design-led sites that don't need code.

Framer

Framer offers a free plan, then Basic at $10 a month (2 CMS collections, 1,000 CMS items) and Pro at $30 (10 collections, 2,500 items), with localization as a $20-per-locale add-on. Its export story is contradictory: one help page says Framer "does not offer HTML export for self-hosting", while another says sites are published as standard HTML, CSS and JavaScript you can download. Test an export before committing.

Ghost

Ghost is an MIT-licensed, self-hostable publishing platform. Ghost(Pro) starts at $18 a month billed yearly (1,000 members), with Publisher at $29 and Business at $199. Its Content API is read-only JSON, which makes it a clean headless backend. It's built for publishing and memberships, not for pages-and-bookings sites, and the plugin ecosystem is small next to WordPress.

Astro on a static host

Astro describes itself as a framework for content-driven sites, with "Zero JS, by default" and content collections for typed Markdown. Pair it with a static host: Cloudflare Pages' Free plan allows 500 builds a month and 20,000 files per site. You own everything and pay almost nothing. You also get no editor for non-technical teammates unless you add a CMS, and every convenience Wix gave you is now yours to build.

Shopify

If the real reason you're on Wix is the store, Shopify is the specialist. The pound view showed Basic at £19 a month on yearly billing (£25 monthly), with a 2% fee when you use a third-party payment provider instead of Shopify Payments (1% on Grow, 0.6% on Advanced). The trial was "3 days free, then £1/month for 3 months." Blogging is a side feature, and I found no native blog export, so this is a store move, not a blog move.

VeloCMS

VeloCMS is a hosted blog CMS with a newsletter, membership and a store built in. Pro is $9 a month ($86.40 yearly) and includes a custom domain, API access at 10,000 calls a day and 5,000 subscribers; Business is $29 and Agency $69. There is no free plan, only a 14-day trial that needs a card unless you have a cardless trial code. Every plan lists a 0% VeloCMS fee on Stripe sales (Stripe's own fees still apply). Its Wix importer reads a public site URL and brings posts, pages and products in as drafts, but categories, tags, authors, comments, members, SEO metadata and a 301 redirect map aren't supported, and your design doesn't carry over (you pick one of 41 themes).

The honest weaknesses: it's a young product (its pricing page counts shipped updates since April 2026), it's hosted only as far as I can tell, and in my judgment its ecosystem and third-party integrations are a fraction of WordPress's or Shopify's.

What should you do before you leave Wix?

Do this while the Wix site is still live, in roughly this order:

  1. Write down every live URL (sitemap plus a crawl) and save your Search Console data. Redirects are a manual job in every migration, and the old URL list is the input.
  2. Export everything that exports: contacts, physical products, CMS collections as CSV. Try the CMS export on the Blog Posts collection, because the docs don't say it works.
  3. Capture the posts. Under about 20 posts, the RSS feed may do; beyond that you need a tool that reads the public site, or copy and paste. Pull your images yourself and check them one by one afterwards. I found no bulk media export on the pages I read.
  4. Move a copy to the new host and run it on a staging domain before touching DNS.
  5. Build the redirect map on the new side (Wix's CSV tool only redirects inside Wix) and test fifty old URLs by hand.
  6. Know when your yearly Wix term ends. Plans are paid in full up front, so keep the site up through launch and a few weeks after, so you can compare rankings.

Leave the domain where it is until the new site is live.

Who is each option best for?

  • Wix: sites that are mostly pages, bookings, events or a small shop, where nobody needs the content as a file.
  • WordPress.org: developers who want ownership and the largest plugin ecosystem, and will own the upkeep.
  • Webflow: designers who want visual control and can accept a closed platform with a code-export option.
  • Squarespace: design-led small businesses that won't need custom code.
  • Framer: marketing sites and portfolios, once you've tested the export.
  • Ghost: writers and publishers whose business is newsletters and memberships.
  • Astro on a static host: developers who want full ownership and almost no hosting bill.
  • Shopify: anyone whose real need is the store.
  • VeloCMS: a writer or small team that wants blog, newsletter, membership and store under one login and can live without self-hosting.

When is VeloCMS the wrong choice?

Often, for this question. If you want a restaurant menu or a five-page brochure, its own page says it isn't a Wix replacement. If you need to self-host or fork the CMS, use WordPress or Ghost. If you want a free plan, it doesn't have one. If you run events with ticketing, Wix does that better. And if you need a deep plugin marketplace today, WordPress wins.

FAQ

Can I export my Wix blog?

Not as a supported export. Wix says it is not possible to export blog posts to other platforms; the RSS feed shows only the 20 most recent posts.

Can I change my Wix template?

No. Wix says you can't transfer your content, media and SEO settings to a new template; the workaround is a new site.

Is Wix slow?

Not by the 2025 Web Almanac: 74% of Wix mobile sites passed Core Web Vitals, against 45% for WordPress. It also ships the heaviest median mobile JavaScript.

Is there a free Wix plan?

Yes, with 500 MB of storage, 1 GB of bandwidth and no custom domain. Premium plans have a 14-day money-back guarantee instead of a trial.

Can I use Wix as a headless CMS?

Yes. Wix Headless is free to start and pays only for payments, custom domains and advanced analytics. Your data stays in Wix.

Last verified: October 31, 2026. Pricing pages and limits change often, so check the linked vendor pages before you commit.

Sources

Official vendor and project pages, all accessed October 31, 2026:

Independent data: HTTP Archive, Web Almanac 2025, CMS chapter: https://almanac.httparchive.org/en/2025/cms

Comments

Join the discussion

No comments yet. Be the first to comment.

More from this blog