Outgrowing a hosted website builder
A business owner realizes their current all-in-one website platform is becoming too expensive, bloated, or restrictive, prompting them to seek a solution where they actually own their site and control its performance.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
Found another way around this?
Share your steps and trade-offs so fellow engineers don't have to reinvent the wheel. No account required.
Outgrowing a hosted website builder
- 1Building static pages for the front end and using a CMS only for the blog.Did this help you?
- 2Running invoicing directly through accounting software rather than relying on the website's integrations.Did this help you?
- 3Accepting the learning curve of moving to a 3rd party host to gain ownership of the site.Did this help you?
- 4Using Shopify Headless or custom Next.js frontends via Storefront GraphQL API while keeping catalog and subscriptions on ShopifyDid this help you?
- 5Leveraging Shopify Checkout Extensibility for checkout customizationsDid this help you?
- 6Adopting existing open-source or self-hosted multi-tenant commerce engines instead of building from scratchDid this help you?
In their words
Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.
“i jumped ship from wix to wordpress about 12 years ago and never looked back.”source ↗
“Recently with all of the ai additions and fee hikes I am reconsidering if it is the best bet for me. Now would be a good time to make a transition if there is a better suited alternative”source ↗
“What I don’t like: (not critical issues \- Slower load times on mobile \- I don’t own the site \- changing fees \- AI being pushed down your throat”source ↗
“We run a Shopify store with 250 active subscribers, mostly managed through Appstle. We’ve run into limitations with the checkout page, we’re fed up with Shopify Support and the apps, and yes, Shopify’s transaction fees are a factor too.”source ↗
“Our goal is to give end users a great UX while keeping everything under our control. We also want to own our data, so that Shopify never becomes a barrier to our growth in the future.”source ↗
“I may not fully understand the risks yet, and so far I’m not convinced by the “it’s too risky” argument. What are the key things you think we should consider?”source ↗
Where this came up
People with this problem also raised
- 16Should I use WordPress or Wix for a new business website?
- 2How to move a website from a subdomain to the main domain
- 4Why are website builders so bloated and fiddly?
- 2How to build a website from scratch without using AI or Shopify
- 3Why is it so hard to hire just a website designer?
- 4Why are Shopify themes either too expensive or missing features?