The WordPress alternative that is still open source
Where WordPress ends and Aglyn begins
Two things are called WordPress. WordPress.org is the self-hosted project you install yourself — free, plus hosting and whatever plugins you buy. WordPress.com is Automattic's hosted product: Free, Personal $9/mo ($4 annual), Premium $18/mo ($8), Business $40/mo ($25) and Commerce $70/mo ($45), as published September 2026.
Worth correcting a stale talking point while we are here. Plugin installation is available on all WordPress.com paid plans now, Personal included — the familiar "you need the $40 Business plan to install a plugin" line is out of date. We would rather say so than win an argument with a fact that has expired.
The difference is not openness. Both are open source, and that is the point of this page: you are not being asked to give that up. The difference is how many moving parts you maintain. A typical WordPress site is a theme, a page builder, a forms plugin, an SEO plugin, a caching plugin, a CRM plugin and a backup plugin — seven release schedules, seven changelogs, and seven chances for an update to take the site down at 2am.
In Aglyn the canvas, the CMS, forms, contacts, workflows, email and the store are one versioned platform. A form writes a contact record in the same console, a workflow tags it and starts a sequence, and the audience it joins carries a recorded consent basis — because the email tool and the consent records are the same system.
Aglyn vs WordPress, side by side
| Aglyn | WordPress | |
|---|---|---|
| Licence | Apache-2.0 | GPLv2 — both genuinely open source |
| Self-host | Yes, build from source (Docker Compose) | Yes, the standard path |
| Hosted entry plan | Starter $25/mo ($16 annual) | WordPress.com Personal $9/mo ($4 annual) |
| CRM, forms, automations, email | Included, one system | Plugins, each separately maintained |
| Store | Included from Starter | WooCommerce, a plugin |
| Multi-language | Included from Business | WPML or Polylang, plugins |
| Plugin ecosystem | Small and new | 60,000+, the largest anywhere |
| Update surface | One platform version | Core plus theme plus every plugin |
Aglyn prices from aglyn.com/pricing. WordPress.com prices as published September 2026. Both change — check current pricing before deciding.
What WordPress does better
Written honestly, because a comparison page that claims a clean sweep is not worth reading. On this one the honest list is long.
- The ecosystem, and it is not close. Over 60,000 plugins and two decades of answers to almost any question. If your requirement is niche, WordPress probably already has it and Aglyn probably does not.
- Hiring. Far more developers know WordPress than will ever know Aglyn, and that matters when you hand the site on.
- Longevity. WordPress has outlived most of the things that were going to replace it. Aglyn entered public beta on 1 September 2026.
- Cost at the bottom. Self-hosted WordPress on cheap shared hosting is hard to beat on price alone.
- Content-modelling depth through mature custom-field plugins.
You can take it with you
Both are open source, so this section is shorter than it is on the other comparison pages — and that is the point.
Aglyn is licensed under Apache 2.0. The whole platform can be run on your own infrastructure using the Docker Compose setup in the repository and your own Firebase project, and a site's content can be exported from Pro up. WordPress is GPLv2 and self-hosting is its default path rather than an escape hatch.
So the question here is not whether you can leave. It is how much you want to maintain.
Self-hosting Aglyn means building from source with the repository's Docker Compose setup. We do not currently publish prebuilt images.
Comparison researched 3 September 2026 against WordPress.com's own published pricing and documentation. WordPress is a trademark of the WordPress Foundation, and WooCommerce is a trademark of Automattic Inc. Aglyn is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by either.