miow, a WordPress.com alternative for small businesses
miow builds and hosts small-business websites, and moves a WordPress.com site's pages across.
What is a good alternative to WordPress.com?
miow is one, for a business that wants its website written for it rather than assembled from a theme and plugins. You describe the business, or give the address of the site you have now, and the pages appear at the site's own address on miow.me.
From there you say what should change and a model changes it, or you edit the page yourself. Every change is recorded and can be undone.
How is miow different from WordPress.com?
WordPress.com's figures are from its pricing page and support pages in October 2026, in US dollars.
| miow | WordPress.com | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Building costs nothing, and so does hosting unless miow sets a monthly price for the site, shown under Money in its Settings before anything is taken | A free plan on a wordpress.com address with ads; Personal US$9 to Commerce US$70 a month paid monthly, or US$4 to US$45 a month paid yearly |
| Fee on a sale | None from miow; cards are paid into the site's own Stripe account, which charges its own card fees | 10% on the free plan, then 8% on Personal, 4% on Premium, 2% on Business and none on Commerce |
| Your own domain | On any site, with a domain you already own | On a paid plan |
| Signing in | A passkey your phone keeps; no password and no email sign-in | A WordPress.com account |
| Leaving | One zip of the site as data, every page as markdown, and every picture | An XML file of the content, without the theme design, customisations or plugins; a full backup on Business and Commerce |
Can I move my WordPress.com site to miow?
Yes, if the site publishes a list of its pages at its address followed by /sitemap.xml; WordPress.com makes one for every public site, and most other WordPress sites publish one too. Give miow the address, and up to 40 of its pages come across at the same addresses, each laid out by a model under a rule to keep every word, with its pictures copied into miow's own storage.
Forms, newsletter sign-ups and anything that runs as a script stay behind; where a form was the way to get in touch, the page keeps the email address or phone number it gives. Links to the old site keep working once its domain points at miow.
What does miow leave out?
miow takes no bookings, sends no newsletters and sells no domains. Each product is one item at one price, marked sold once it is paid for, which suits one-off pieces more than stock in sizes and colours.
A business that relies on bookings or a newsletter keeps that service where it is and links to it from its miow site.
How does miow compare with other website builders?
miow compared with other website builders lists every comparison.