BoldGrid vs Wix (2024)

Laura Bernheim

By: Laura Bernheim

Laura Bernheim

Laura has spent more than 12 years crafting engaging and award-winning articles that share the passion behind organizations' products, people, and innovations. As a long-time HostingAdvice contributing expert, she combines a reputation for producing quality content with rich technical expertise to show experienced developers how to capitalize on emerging technologies and find better ways to work with established platforms. A professional journalist, Laura has contributed to The New York Times, Sports Illustrated, the Sun Sentinel, and the world's top hosting providers.

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Editor: Lillian Castro

Lillian Castro

Lillian brings more than 30 years of editing and journalism experience to our team. She has written and edited for major news organizations, including The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and the New York Times, and she previously served as an adjunct instructor at the University of Florida. Today, she edits HostingAdvice content for clarity, accuracy, and reader engagement.

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Sean Garrity Laura Bernheim Hosting Expert
“We tested BoldGrid & Wix — The winner is BoldGrid!”

We rarely see such a well-matched fight between web service providers. BoldGrid and Wix are two of the industry’s most popular website building services. These providers allow users can create beautiful, dynamic websites with zero coding know-how in a fraction of the time it takes with traditional website building. In this comparison we will take an in-depth look at the features that come with each provider, so you can make the best choice for your next project.

Overall Rating
4.9/5.0 ★★★★★
Visit BoldGrid »
Overall Rating
4.6/5.0 ★★★★★
Visit Wix »

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Overall Hosting Comparison

Best Overall Rating

★★★★★ 4.9/5.0

No matter how simple website builders are made, people still flock to content management systems — especially WordPress — by the millions. BoldGrid, an innovative platform created by InMotion Hosting, seeks to merge the two popular systems into one incredibly easy-to-use tool for producing vibrant, professional websites.

Now forging its own path, the BoldGrid team is fine-tuning and growing a platform that introduces drag-and-drop simplicity to the limitless power and functionality of WordPress.

Unlike other site builders, BoldGrid is free. Because it integrates with WordPress, you'll need a separate hosting account.

Currently, you must be hosting your website on one of BoldGrid's approved partners (we recommend InMotion) to use the full platform. Fairly experienced WordPress users hosting elsewhere, however, can download a somewhat limited version and installation instructions.

BoldGrid quickly shows newbies and experienced pros the path to website inspiration with a plugin that steers you to the right design, features, and content you may need.

That's right — instead of nonsensical dummy content, BoldGrid gives you the images and text relevant to your industry, goal, or idea. From there, you have free rein to make the site your own.

Customize colors, fonts, menus, and more with a WYSIWYG (or, What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get) builder interface that's as simple as any of the more established platforms. BoldGrid provides SEO tools and even a staging area to ensure your site is absolutely perfect before you publish.

  • One-of-a-kind WordPress builder
  • Good for beginners or professionals
  • Drag-and-drop, WYSIWYG editing
  • Built-in staging environment
  • 200+ FREE themes
  • Get started on BoldGrid now.
Money Back Guarantee
90 days
Disk Space
100 GB SSD - Unlimited SSD
Domain Name
FREE (1 year)

Best Overall Rating

★★★★★ 4.6/5.0

As a web builder, Wix is an industry leader when it comes to ease of use, setup time, and available features. The browser-based, WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) site-building service is hands down one of the foremost brands in this industry niche, and that's not without just cause.

Getting started and familiar with the platform is a straightforward process, and the resulting websites you can build are in keeping with industry standards, as far as design and customization go.

While you're not going to get the same level of support as you would from a leading web hosting service, the feature set available and included in this free service is a pretty exhaustive list. All it takes to sign up — and said signup is free — is an email or a Facebook account.

Once you're in, you can preview thousands of templates, which are all broken up into categories and then further classified by design or industry type.

For example, choose the Online Store category with the Clothing & Accessories subcategory to start selling your custom-printed t-shirts. Your garage band can showcase your latest performances and let family and friends know of upcoming shows by utilizing the Music and Band categories.

You can browse the most popular templates and check out the newest additions. Once you've made your pick, you may feel a tad overwhelmed at the interface — but that's only because the functionality exceeds that of your typical drag-and-drop builder.

You can manipulate and edit virtually any facet of your new website, until it perfectly matches the picture in your head.

Finally, get your finished creation noticed by search engines (and the millions of web surfers that they send to websites) using the Wix SEO Wizard. Just tell the Wizard the words or phrases you want people to search for and find your site, and Wix will spit back out a full SEO report — so you know where you stand in terms of relevant visitors being sent to your site.

Wix premium plan customers can also benefit from $300-worth of search engine advertising credits, upping the chances of increased site visitors.

Anyone could find themselves wanting a website at some point in their career or personal life. Whether you're a stay-at-home mom with a creative writing habit to share or a serial entrepreneur ready to profit from your next great idea, you don't want building your own website from scratch to be a strain — on your wallet, your time, or your brain.

With Wix, you can be your own web designer, developer, and marketer. The interface is easy to use and the end designs are up to snuff with industry standards. When it comes to code-free website building, Wix is a leader and an innovator.

  • FREE signup with email or Facebook
  • Drag-and-drop designing is super easy
  • 1-year domain free with most plans
  • Up to $300-worth of ad credits
  • Access to 1,000s of templates and additional tools in the App Market
  • Get started on Wix now.
Money Back Guarantee
14-day FREE trial
Disk Space
2 GB - Unlimited
Domain Name
FREE (1 year)

Cheap Hosting Comparison

Cheap Rating

★★★★★ 4.8/5.0

The BoldGrid site builder and WordPress content management system are both available to everyone without charge. But there is a catch: to take advantage of such a stellar deal, you will need to create a hosting account starting at $2.99 a month.

With extremely affordable plans available from several top providers, however, BoldGrid is sure to appeal to even those with the strictest budgets.

BoldGrid is available to site owners whose hosting accounts give them access to either the Softaculous software installation portal or Plesk control panel, but we recommend turning to the hosting company responsible for birthing BoldGrid.

Not only did InMotion Hosting empower its engineers to build such an innovative platform, but the company provides superb services for a great value. For roughly $5 per month, InMotion gives customers SSD storage, unlimited bandwidth, and email accounts, plus free backups, malware protection, and an industry-leading 90-day money-back guarantee.

Site owners who want to move their files to InMotion will really enjoy the hassle-free, no-downtime transfers performed by InMotion's talented and friendly customer service teams.

When paired with InMotion (or other BoldGrid partners we can happily vouch for, such as A2 Hosting and Web Hosting Hub), BoldGrid offers a much-improved WordPress experience for both beginners learning to craft their first site and developers looking for workflow efficiencies.

  • Drag-and-drop editor with free themes
  • SSD storage & 20x faster page loads
  • FREE marketing content and stock photos for inspiration
  • SSL certificates and automated backups included
  • Unlimited bandwidth and storage
  • Get started on BoldGrid now.
Money Back Guarantee
90 days
Disk Space
100 GB SSD - Unlimited SSD
Domain Name
FREE (1 year)

Cheap Rating

★★★★★ 4.8/5.0

Wix is known as a web-leading site builder service that's one of the most affordable — because getting started is absolutely free and about as easy as processes get.

You can log in via Facebook or your Gmail account and be editing your new web property within minutes. All but the most basic of plans include a free domain name voucher for your first year of service, and with Wix comes the wealth of templates to be customized within the Wix Editor.

This interface is extremely intuitive, once you take a few minutes to familiarize yourself with it. Once you're comfortable, you'll find yourself dragging and dropping images, text, menus, sliders, and more — all without any code — and feeling like a full-fledged web designer extraordinaire.

All of the template designs are up to the latest industry standards, including parallax layouts, a mobile display editor, and responsive designs, and there are thousands of themes to browse.

If you've read our reviews and seen the multitude of features that can be had for a mere few dollars a month, you've probably realized that Wix is not the cheapest on the list. With Wix, you're paying for the user-friendliness of the no-tech-skills-needed platform, as well as the speed at which you can get your new site up and running.

You're paying for accessibility, so to speak. That doesn't mean you're not getting a lot for the price.

Premium plan holders, in particular, can benefit from $300-worth of ad vouchers, free apps for building forms and boosting your site's SEO status, and even priority support.

Bottom line: There is tremendous value in the offerings of Wix plans. Things like 24/7 expert phone support, stellar uptime rates, and mega-powerful servers are not features they tout, but that's intentional. Wix is an awesome website builder service, and if that's what you're looking for, you've come to the right place.

  • Start designing for FREE
  • FREE domain with most plans
  • Drag-and-drop templates, specific to industry
  • Exhaustive knowledgebase of articles
  • Huge app market available
  • Get started on Wix now.
Money Back Guarantee
14-day FREE trial
Disk Space
2 GB - Unlimited
Domain Name
FREE (1 year)

Dedicated Hosting Comparison

Dedicated Rating

★★★★★ 4.9/5.0

We realize that pairing the technical might and prowess of a dedicated server with a simple drag-and-drop website builder is somewhat odd, but BoldGrid certainly meets the challenge.

The free suite of WordPress plugins does more than hold beginners' hands and walk them through creating their first website. Enterprises and agencies will appreciate the speed at which BoldGrid enables in-house development teams to create, test, deploy, and stage vibrant websites.

The WYSIWYG editor is built on an advanced JavaScript framework that generates clean HTML without the use of shortcodes or block editors. What's more, developers can integrate their own custom themes into BoldGrid, which provides a source code editor for granular control and customizations.

When looking for a dedicated hosting plan to match up with BoldGrid, look no further than InMotion Hosting, the company responsible for creating the builder.

In addition to a 100% uptime guarantee, InMotion's single or dual processors come with included SSDs, managed updates, and hardware replacement in two hours or less. Customers will appreciate InMotion's Launch Assist™ onboarding process, which entails between two and four hours of time with a Tier-3 or higher system administrator who will help with server configuration, website migration, enhanced security setup, and performance optimizations.

  • Sandboxed staging area via BoldGrid
  • 99.999% uptime with Smart Routing™
  • Proactive monitoring and hardware replacement within 2 hours
  • Choice between East and West Coast datacenters on most plans
  • Built-in monitoring and analytics
  • Get started on BoldGrid now.
Money Back Guarantee
30 days
Disk Space
1 TB SSD - 4 TB SSD
Domain Name
New or Transfer

Dedicated Rating

N/A

Wix does not currently offer this type of hosting. We would not recommend choosing this host for this hosting category.

VPS Hosting Comparison

VPS Rating

★★★★★ 4.9/5.0

With optimized servers and dedicated resources, VPS hosting environments are primed for high-speed WordPress performance. Whether you're managing multiple websites or looking to build and scale your first online presence, BoldGrid is engineered to make your VPS hosting foray both powerful and painless.

Perfect for resellers and development agencies, BoldGrid promotes an efficient design and deployment process with hundreds of themes, integrations with stock photo libraries, and ready-to-go content.

Site owners can test and tweak their work in BoldGrid's staging area before moving a site live. Like WordPress, BoldGrid requires you to purchase a separate web hosting plan. We love InMotion Hosting regardless, but their leadership, skills, and engineering ability in creating the BoldGrid platform certainly doesn't hurt.

InMotion's VPS containers are housed in high-availability cloud server clusters, ensuring real-time redundancy and enabling live-state snapshots to further protect your data.

The servers utilize performant solid-state drives that perform up to 20 times faster than standard hard drives, and the company supports PHP 7 and nearly every caching plugin.

A2 Hosting is another solid, SSD-driven host that excels with WordPress and has partnered with BoldGrid. The site builder platform is available to still other hosting customers through the one-click Softaculous installer or those using the Plesk control panel.

  • Optimized SEO plugin scales traffic
  • Cloud infrastructure and redundancy
  • Live-state snapshots and backups
  • Root access and code editing tools
  • FREE cPanel and WHM licenses
  • Get started on BoldGrid now.
Money Back Guarantee
90 days
Disk Space
90 GB SSD - 360 GB SSD
Domain Name
New or Transfer

VPS Rating

N/A

Wix does not currently offer this type of hosting. We would not recommend choosing this host for this hosting category.

WordPress Hosting Comparison

WordPress Rating

★★★★★ 4.8/5.0

Automating tedious tasks and reimagining the WordPress workflow, BoldGrid reinvents the wildly popular content management system as a user-friendly, visually appealing, and efficient publishing platform.

The website builder takes care of the usability challenges WordPress often presents to first-time site owners, instead giving them all the tools needed to craft a stunning online presence. Experienced WordPress users will appreciate BoldGrid's familiar interface while appreciating and exploring the platform's added features.

BoldGrid operates as a suite of plugins that guide users through the site-building process, starting with design and theme inspirations before moving through the page builder phase, customizations, and staging.

The BoldGrid team also provides plugins for creating forms, building photo galleries, streamlining backups, and boosting your search engine optimization. Like WordPress, however, BoldGrid won't work without a hosting plan.

We recommend InMotion Hosting, the company behind the creation of BoldGrid and a strong WordPress host in its own right. The company fine tunes its SSD-powered infrastructure for premium performance and security, tailoring services for WordPress users by managing security patches, supporting PHP 7, and providing caching plugins.

InMotion's WordPress hosting plans come with the CMS pre-installed automatically, with the option to load BoldGrid from the very start. Site owners will appreciate the unlimited storage, bandwidth, and email accounts, along with a stellar 90-day money-back guarantee and free SSL certificates.

  • More intuitive WordPress experience
  • Drag-and-drop visual editor
  • Built-in staging environment
  • Responsive themes and color palettes
  • Automatic updates and backups
  • Get started on BoldGrid now.
Money Back Guarantee
90 days
Disk Space
100 GB SSD - Unlimited SSD
Domain Name
FREE (1 year)

WordPress Rating

N/A

Wix does not currently offer this type of hosting. We would not recommend choosing this host for this hosting category.

Site Builder Hosting Comparison

Website Builder Rating

★★★★ 4.2/5.0

#8 out of 9 in Website Builder Hosting reviews

After taking the BoldGrid suite of plugins for a test drive, we experienced how the company makes WordPress more accessible for beginners and much more efficient for professional developers.

Because BoldGrid requires a separate hosting account and WordPress installation, it is a little more challenging for wide-eyed beginners to get started than it is for other website builders. However, by signing up with a reputable host — we recommend BoldGrid partner InMotion Hosting — you'll be equipped with a helpful support staff to lead you through the setup process.

BoldGrid themes are beautiful, modern, responsive, and come with usable content out of the box. Choose from pre-made page layouts or create your own using GridBlocks, which create clean, modular designs without any coding.

Simply drag and drop each element to adjust its position and size. Unlike most other site builders, BoldGrid generates pristine code that is friendly to SEO and developers who want more control.

The two features most appealing to us, however, are the staging environment and editing capabilities for mobile and tablet views. The lack of a staging area has long been one of the few complaints about WordPress, and BoldGrid has solved that issue with aplomb. Use it to test new looks, plugins, or updates before you deploy them to the active site.

Although many other site builder themes boast mobile-optimized responsiveness, BoldGrid is one of the few platforms that give you control over exactly how your site will look in tablet or mobile modes.

  • Fotolia and Flickr image databases
  • Pre-built and customizable content with GridBlocks
  • Responsive themes with tablet and mobile editing
  • Generates clean, efficient, and compliant HTML
  • SEO, gallery, and forms plugins
  • Get started on BoldGrid now.
Money Back Guarantee
90 days
Disk Space
90 GB SSD - Unlimited SD
Domain Name
FREE (1 year)

Website Builder Rating

★★★★★ 4.9/5.0

#1 out of 9 in Website Builder Hosting reviews

Website building is where Wix shines. The thousands of templates, the intuitive editor, the industry-leading designs that cater to a variety of specific fields and use cases — all these facets represent a platform that excels at facilitating easy web design for the non-tech-savvy user.

Sign up with your Facebook account or email address and get started for free. I'll admit, the Wix Editor may appear daunting when you first meet it, but get to know the interface.

Once you familiarize yourself with the environment, you'll realize that what first comes across as overwhelming is actually empowering — the customization functionalities to be had are many, and they're awesome.

There's no need for coding of any kind. Just drag and drop elements of your new site and BAM: What You See Is What You Get (i.e., Wix is a WYSIWYG website builder!). You don't have to design your website from scratch with Wix, though blank templates are available.

There are thousands of templates, each one categorized by design need and further classified into industry niches, and the site's look can be molded to match your brand or personality very easily.

Layout and design options include parallax themes (where the viewer scrolls down the screen and one page rolls seamlessly into the next), custom sliders, multiple columns, mobile-specific and mobile-responsive displays, and tons of button and menu navigation tricks.

While Wix isn't our favorite host in terms of expert support or top-of-the-line hardware, it's an industry-leading platform for website building.

It's popular for many reasons: the simple startup process, the ease of use, the array of customization options, and the WYSIWYG results, as examples. Its reputation precedes it, and we can totally see where the rave reviews are coming from.

  • No coding skills needed with drag-and-drop builder
  • 100s of templates with niche-specific designs
  • Add features via the App Market and Wix Events
  • Easily create ecommerce functionality easily
  • Great way to build small sites on a budget
  • Get started on Wix now.
Money Back Guarantee
14-day FREE trial
Disk Space
2 GB - Unlimited
Domain Name
FREE (1 year)
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BoldGrid vs. Wix - Our Conclusion

Sean Garrity Laura Bernheim Hosting Expert
“We tested BoldGrid & Wix — The winner is BoldGrid!”

These web hosts offer some awe-inspiring features. Wix’s custom WYSIWYG site builder allows users to build sites on a budget with 100s of templates. Plus, you have nothing to lose by signing up with Wix’s free trial. BoldGrid is equally impressive for its well-rounded suite of hosting services, including its drag-and-drop site builder and shared, VPS, and dedicated server hosting plans. BoldGrid is so confident you’ll be happy; they provide one of the most extended money-back guarantees we’ve seen. It’s up to you to decide which provider to choose, but you’re in great hands with either host.

Overall Rating
4.9/5.0 ★★★★★
Visit BoldGrid »
Overall Rating
4.6/5.0 ★★★★★
Visit Wix »

About The Author

Laura has spent more than 12 years crafting engaging and award-winning articles that share the passion behind organizations' products, people, and innovations. As a long-time HostingAdvice contributing expert, she combines a reputation for producing quality content with rich technical expertise to show experienced developers how to capitalize on emerging technologies and find better ways to work with established platforms. A professional journalist, Laura has contributed to The New York Times, Sports Illustrated, the Sun Sentinel, and the world's top hosting providers.
Sean Garrity