Platform migrations
WordPress, Squarespace, Wix, GoDaddy Website Builder, and Shopify all do a real job for a lot of businesses. These guides are for the point where the platform starts deciding what your site can do. We explain the limits you may be hitting, the cases where staying is the smarter call, and exactly how a move to a custom site you own would work.
Choose your platform
Each guide covers the practical limits, the honest reasons to stay, what carries over one to one, and the five steps we follow to move a site without losing its search history.
Leaving WordPress
WordPress is the most widely used content system in the world, and for good reason: it is open source, well documented, and can be extended to do almost anything.
Stay ifYou publish often, your editors are comfortable in the WordPress admin, the site sits on quality managed hosting, and the plugin count is under control. In that case a careful theme rebuild inside WordPress may be the better investment.
Read the WordPress guideLeaving Squarespace
Squarespace earns its reputation: the templates are attractive, hosting is included, and a small business can launch a credible site in a weekend.
Stay ifYou run a small brochure-style site or portfolio, update it occasionally, and value the all-in-one hosting, templates, and support more than design control. Squarespace remains a solid, low-maintenance home for that.
Read the Squarespace guideLeaving Wix
Wix makes it easy to get a first website live: pick a template, drag things around, publish.
Stay ifYou have a simple site that you or a staff member updates in the Wix Editor and it is doing its job. Drag-and-drop editing is the main reason you chose Wix, and it still fits.
Read the Wix guideLeaving GoDaddy Website Builder
GoDaddy Website Builder, sold as Websites + Marketing, is often the first site a business ever has, set up in an afternoon alongside the domain.
Stay ifYou need a simple, current one-to-five-page presence, you already have the domain and email at GoDaddy, and the bundled builder is doing that job without complaint. That is exactly what it is for.
Read the GoDaddy Website Builder guideLeaving Shopify
Shopify is the platform we are most likely to tell a store owner to keep.
Stay ifYou have a large catalog with standard needs (physical products, standard shipping and tax, mainstream payment methods) and Shopify Payments works for you. Shopify is a strong home for that, and a custom theme can solve most design complaints without leaving.
Read the Shopify guideHow we decide
Pages you cannot restructure, speed you cannot fix, plugins you cannot drop, or fees that climb with every feature. When the tool is deciding what your business can do online, it is time to own the site instead.
A small site that loads fine, gets updated in minutes, and costs less than a lunch a month is not a problem to solve. Each guide below lists the cases where staying put is the better decision.
Your domain, your content, your email, and the URLs search engines already know are worth more than any design. A careful migration keeps them; a careless one loses them.
Not sure whether the current site is worth keeping? Start with ourfree website graderor read about aredesign first.
FAQ
Tell us which platform you are on and what is holding the site back. We come back with an honest recommendation, a migration plan, and a fixed quote. If staying is the better call, we say so.
