BoldGrid vs WordPress (2024)

By: Laura Bernheim

Editor: Lillian Castro

2/6/2024

Laura Bernheim Hosting Expert

“We tested BoldGrid & WordPress — The winner is BoldGrid!”

So which one do you think is best? Both platforms offer great site building tools and features that are hard to beat. WordPress’ free and fairly user-friendly CMS allows users to tailor their sites to their brand’s aesthetic. BoldGrid’s drag-and-drop functionality offers a whole new level of simplicity and customization for every type of user with a suite of plugins built specifically for WordPress.

Overall Rating

4.9/5.0 ★★★★★

WP-Core Plan: $2.99/month »
WP-Launch Plan: $8.99/month »
WP-Power Plan: $8.99/month »

Visit BoldGrid »

Overall Rating

4.7/5.0 ★★★★★

WP Core Plan: $2.99/month »
WP Launch Plan: $8.99/month »
WP Power Plan: $8.99/month »

Visit WordPress »

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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

★★★★★ 4.7/5.0

WordPress, the best blogging platform and content management system in the world, powers the online presence of brands such as Disney, Sony, and Spotify.

Rookie website owners can turn toward WordPress.com for a limited version of the browser-based publishing system that lets them stretch their website design wings. But many of the top hosting providers make the software even easier to access by offering single-click installations for WordPress (which can also be downloaded from WordPress.org).

As a WordPress hosting front-runner, InMotion Hosting will preinstall the platform for you at checkout. Once the platform is successfully set up, site owners can begin browsing the theme marketplace, and preview site content before publishing to the web.

Find the perfect theme, incorporate any plugins you'd like to extend your site's functionality, and begin drafting your first post! Whether you're building a blog or an online store — hosting on a shared server or your very own VPS — you can have a new WordPress site online in less than an hour.

It only has to take a few minutes, but we're no strangers to perfectionism. You'll have the support of the open-source community in your corner, as the WordPress core code is actively maintained by a team of all-star contributing developers. And just about any question you could imagine having has probably been asked and answered somewhere on the web.

Whether you're looking for shared, cloud-based, or dedicated server WordPress hosting, we recommend InMotion. Throughout our review of the WordPress platform, we'll use InMotion's pricing, storage allowances, uptime rates, and support standards to illustrate the ease and excellence of building a website with WordPress and a WP-friendly host.

FREE software with 1-click install
Trusted by millions of site owners
1,000s of drag-and-drop themes
#1 blogging platform
Huge online community
Get started on WordPress with InMotion Hosting.

Money Back Guarantee

90 days

Disk Space

100 GB SSD - Unlimited SSD

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

★★★★★ 4.6/5.0

WordPress hosting is incredibly cost-competitive. The software itself is free, and most shared hosts offer WordPress packages in the $2- to $5-per-month ballpark.

It's easy to get started, as hosts will often offer single-click installations for WordPress, and then you can begin browsing the thousands of themes available in the Appearance section of the WordPress dashboard. Customize to your heart's desire, click "Publish," and voila! You've got yourself a self-hosted WordPress website.

Whether you're looking to build an online presence for your brick-and-mortar or a blog for your interior design musings, WordPress is the ideal space in which to spread your website-building wings.

The additional free resources you'll have at your fingertips include plugins (add-on software that extends the functionality of the WordPress platform), ecommerce tools, and features to optimize your website for online search.

By partnering with a cheap shared hosting provider, you'll get more than shared space on a server. To remain cost-competitive, most hosts include additional freebies such as a complimentary domain name registration, unlimited storage and email, and a few hundred dollars' worth of paid search marketing credits.

InMotion Hosting does all of the above, which is one of the many reasons we recommend the host as a true value offering in WordPress hosting. Get started today and enjoy free SSD storage, one-click installations for other WordPress-compatible tools, and business-class hardware at an ultra-affordable monthly rate.

#1 site-building software is FREE
Install in 1 click with top hosts
FREE themes to customize your WordPress site
Works for eCommerce, blogging, galleries, and personal sites
Trusted by millions of website owners
Get started on WordPress with InMotion Hosting.

Money Back Guarantee

90 days

Disk Space

100 GB SSD - Unlimited SSD

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

★★★★★ 4.9/5.0

If you're a mid-sized to large-scale online business, or if security and compliance are of utmost concern, you may be considering a dedicated server for your hosting needs.

Dedicated resources come at a premium, but leading WordPress host InMotion makes it worth your while. Should you opt for one of InMotion's dedicated hosting plans for WordPress, the team will download and install the software for you.

Begin writing your site from scratch or get a jumpstart on design with a professional-looking theme. Either way, the end result will be blazing-fast page load speeds backed by an always-on uptime guarantee (99.999%). InMotion Hosting dedicated servers feature SSD storage, rebootless kernel updates, full root access, and around-the-clock server monitoring.

Plans include plenty of RAM, IP addresses, storage, and processing power, so your WordPress site is equipped to scale alongside your business.

WordPress is a robust, comprehensive platform for designing, deploying, and maintaining an exquisite and performant online presence, and it has a loyal community of contributing developers and avid users to show for it. Follow the forums, confide in the WordPress Codex, and spend some time getting to know the nuances of this incredible interface. You won't be disappointed.

Robust blogging platform meets resource-capable dedicated servers
Ideal for fast-growing sites and enterprise
InMotion guarantees 99.99% uptime for your WordPress site
1-click software installation for WordPress
FREE SSD storage
Get started on WordPress with InMotion Hosting.

Money Back Guarantee

30 days

Disk Space

1 TB SSD - 3.2 TB SSD

Domain Name

New or Transfer

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

★★★★★ 4.9/5.0

Virtual private servers yield the utmost flexibility at a cost-effective price point. Some of the most performant and popular websites in the world are powered by VPS hosting, and the same can be said of the WordPress platform.

From the New York Post and Fortune.com to Spotify and Beyonce.com, millions of websites run on WordPress. HostingAdvice is backed by a virtual server and managed via the WordPress platform. It's a match made in hosting heaven.

For your VPS and cloud hosting needs, we recommend InMotion Hosting for WordPress. The company touts enterprise-grade hardware, and solid-state drives come standard, accelerating performance with up to 20x faster page loads.

With your choice of datacenter locations, East or West Coast, InMotion delivers all the flexibility, performance, and security the VPS niche can offer. Once your virtual server is provisioned and WordPress is installed, you can choose to write your HTML from scratch or take a head start with one of thousands of themes.

Extend your site's functionality with plugins for ecommerce, page caching, comment moderation, and other essentials for a modern web presence. Backed by an active, open-source developer community, the WordPress interface is easy to befriend, and just about any question you have about bugs or updates has probably been answered in the Codex or community forums.

Instantly provision your VPS and install WordPress with 1 click
SSD speed gives your WordPress site a performance boost
WordPress is trusted as the #1 site builder platform
InMotion is trusted as the #1 WordPress VPS host
Tons of support available via your host and online forums
Get started on WordPress with InMotion Hosting.

Money Back Guarantee

90 days

Disk Space

90 GB SSD - 360 GB SSD

Domain Name

New or Transfer

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

★★★★★ 5.0/5.0

Good news, website owners: The software that powers upward of 40% of websites is free and open for public enjoyment and customization. WordPress is ready for download at WordPress.org, and the team is actively maintaining its core code.

As long as you stay current with your WP software versions and install plugins with caution, the site-building possibilities and benefits of WordPress are seemingly endless.

It should come as no surprise that many of the web's most trusted hosts have zeroed in on the popularity of WordPress, offering single-click installations for the software and WordPress-specific optimizations for performance, security, and support.

Once you get up and running with a WordPress host, you can choose from thousands of free and paid themes — premade website templates that expedite your site design process, allowing you to skip to the content and customization.

For a what-you-see-is-what-you-get (WYSIWYG) experience, we recommend installing BoldGrid, a site builder tool that layers on top of the WordPress platform to create a drag-and-drop site builder environment. InMotion will install BoldGrid for you at checkout as well, making WordPress setup a non-issue.

Incorporating additional plugins, apps, and scripts extends the robust functionality of the WordPress interface. From calendar widgets to page caching for performance, there's essentially a plugin for every WordPress need.

Integrating payment processing tools, such as Shopify and PayPal, converts your traditional site into a transaction-ready virtual marketplace. Cultivate a following with commenting apps, like Disqus, and link your social media accounts.

What's more, WordPress hosts often throw in free paid search advertising credits to help you kickstart your marketing efforts. WordPress remains the most popular platform for building a beautiful online presence from scratch. It's relied on by hosting novices and seasoned developers alike, and we're confident the software, matched with InMotion Hosting hardware, will deliver everything you need to establish and grow your next website.

WordPress powers more than 40% of websites
The #1 platform for blogging
FREE to download; install in 1 click
The top hosts offer WP-specific perks
Custom, elegant themes ease design
Get started on WordPress with InMotion Hosting.

Money Back Guarantee

90 days

Disk Space

100 GB SSD - Unlimited SSD

Domain Name

FREE (1 year)

Site Builder Hosting Comparison

Website Builder Rating

★★★★★ 4.2/5.0

#9 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

★★★★★ 4.8/5.0

While WordPress is technically blogging software, it's been called a website builder, a content management system, and even an ecommerce platform — basically, a website-building multitool.

Because it's open-sourced, the core code can be adapted to meet virtually any website need, and the wealth of plugins and WP-friendly apps built by third-party developers makes this platform a go-to for website owners around the world.

For added site-building functionality, we recommend downloading and installing BoldGrid, which functions on top of the WP interface to act as a drag-and-drop content management system. This is especially useful for first-time site owners or nervous hosting newbies.

Basically, BoldGrid takes away the one dig against WordPress, its semi-steep learning curve, by transforming the backend environment into a what-you-see-is-what-you-get (WYSIWYG) website editor.

Best of all, both WordPress and BoldGrid are 100% free, and the InMotion Hosting team will set up the platforms for you at checkout. Once WordPress is installed and configured, you can begin designing one of two ways: Upload your own HTML files and style sheets and continue customizing in the backend, or choose from a library of thousands of premade website themes.

Paired with the abundance of plugins for extensibility, the WordPress interface brings utmost flexibility from a site construction and customization point of view.

Intuitive, drag-and-drop site builder BoldGrid sits atop WordPress
Developed and supported by the InMotion Hosting team
Responsive themes so your WP site looks good on any device
FREE to download WordPress software
SEO-friendly end result
Get started on BoldGrid for WordPress now.

Money Back Guarantee

90 days

Disk Space

100 GB SSD - Unlimited SSD

Domain Name

FREE (1 year)

BoldGrid vs. WordPress - Our Conclusion

Laura Bernheim Hosting Expert

“We tested BoldGrid & WordPress — The winner is BoldGrid!”

So which one do you think is best? Both platforms offer excellent site building tools and features that are hard to beat. WordPress ‘s free and relatively user-friendly CMS allows users to tailor their sites to their brand’s aesthetic. BoldGrid’s drag-and-drop functionality offers a new level of simplicity and customization for every type of user, with a suite of plugins built specifically for WordPress.

Overall Rating

4.9/5.0 ★★★★★

Visit BoldGrid »

Overall Rating

4.7/5.0 ★★★★★

Visit WordPress »

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.