Leaving your website builder: what you can take with you

What you can take with you, platform by platform

Every website builder lets you in easily. Not every one lets you out. Some hand you every file. Others keep your design, your blog or your store pages, and you rebuild from scratch.

We score each platform out of 10 on how much of your site can leave with you. The scores come from each company’s own help articles and docs, not marketing pages. Here are all 17, highest first.

You can keep your domain on 16 of the 17. Square Online is the exception on paper: its docs don’t confirm how to transfer a domain out, so it scores 1 for domain instead of 2. On every platform, a domain you register at your own registrar and connect to the builder stays yours. The interactive version of this table is on our exit scores page.

How the exit score works

The score adds up five parts. Each part is worth 0, 1 or 2 points, for a maximum of 10.

A few things the score does not measure:

• Quality. A low exit score does not make a builder bad. Framer and Wix are good at what they do. The score only tells you what leaving would cost.
• Effort. That is the “skill to leave” column. A 10 can still need a developer.
• Your situation. For a five-page site you would redesign anyway, a low score matters less. For a blog with years of posts, it matters a lot.

“Skill to leave” is our plain rating of who can do the move. Low means a non-technical owner can export. Medium means comfortable with settings and file uploads. High means you will likely want a developer or a full rebuild.

Before you leave any platform: the checklist

Do these steps in order. The most common mistake is canceling the old plan before everything is copied.

1. List every URL. Write down the address of every page, post and product. You will need this list to set up redirects.
2. Export everything the platform offers. Content files, product CSVs, order and contact lists. Check each file opens.
3. Download your images and files. Several exports only include links to images, and those links can stop working once you cancel.
4. Take control of your domain. If the builder registered it, transfer it to an independent domain registrar or at least remove its transfer lock. Our domains and hosting guide covers how.
5. Rebuild on the new platform. Import what you can and recreate the rest.
6. Set up 301 redirects. A 301 redirect tells browsers and Google that a page has moved for good. Map every old URL to its new one so you keep your search rankings.
7. Switch the DNS. Point the domain at the new host. Leave your email (MX) records alone unless email is moving too.
8. Keep the old plan for a few weeks. Check for missing pages, forms and images before you cancel.

For a full walkthrough of the move itself, read our guide to moving your website and the glossary entry on website migration.

Platform-by-platform notes

How to export your website from Squarespace (5/10)

Squarespace’s export creates a WordPress-compatible .xml file. Here is what it includes and leaves out, according to its Exporting your site help article.

Included: layout pages, gallery pages, one blog page with all its posts and up to 1,000 comments per post, text blocks, image blocks, and text from embed and Instagram blocks.

Not included: album, cover, index, info, calendar, portfolio and store pages; page-specific headers, footers and sidebars; audio, product and video blocks; drafts; style settings; and custom CSS.

Practical steps:

1. Pick your primary blog. If your site has several blogs, only one exports. Copy the others by hand.
2. Plan for images. Imported into self-hosted WordPress, images may come across only as links to Squarespace. Squarespace suggests importing into WordPress.com, which copies the images. You can then move from WordPress.com to self-hosted WordPress.
3. Download files you need. There is no bulk image export; images download one at a time from the Asset library, and uploaded videos cannot be exported (Import and export article).
4. Export store and contact data. Products export to an editable .csv. Orders export separately (Export Commerce orders). The Contacts panel exports customers, subscribers, members and donors.
5. Transfer the domain. Turn off the transfer lock, get the auth code by email and give it to your new registrar. New or recently transferred domains have a 60-day lock, and transfers can take up to 15 days. If you use Google Workspace, update the MX records at the new provider (domain transfer article).

Score breakdown: content 1, design 0, code 0, data 2, domain 2. Exporting takes little skill. Rebuilding the design takes a lot.

Can you move your Wix site? (3/10)

Not as a whole site. Wix’s help center says “your site must run on Wix’s servers” and that its “SaaS architecture does not support external hosting since it uses Wix’s proprietary technology” (Exporting or embedding your Wix site). There is no HTML or code export.

Blog posts are the biggest gap. Wix says, “Currently, it is not possible to export blog posts to other platforms.” It is listed as an open feature request (Wix Blog feature request).

What you can take:

• Products: a CSV “along with all their data,” up to 5,000 rows per file. Digital products cannot be exported (Wix Stores export).
• CMS collections: collection content exports one collection at a time.
• Your domain: Wix’s official transfer-out process was not confirmed in our research. If your domain is at an outside registrar and connected to Wix, you just repoint it.

So moving a Wix site means a rebuild. Copy blog posts by hand, download your images, and recreate the design on the new platform. Score breakdown: content 0, design 0, code 0, data 1, domain 2.

WordPress, self-hosted (10/10)

You own every file and the database, so any WordPress host can run the site as is. Tools > Export produces a standard XML file of posts, pages, comments, categories and tags; it links to media rather than including the files. For a full move, copy the files and database through your host or a backup plugin. See our glossary entry on website backups.

We build on WordPress every week, and moving a site between hosts is routine work for us. It still takes care: plan the database move, check the media, and test before you switch DNS. More in our WordPress review.

WordPress.com (8/10)

Tools > Export creates the same XML format as self-hosted WordPress, with posts, pages, comments, categories, tags and links to media. The media library exports separately. The theme, design changes and plugins are not in that file.

On the Business and Commerce plans you “can download a full backup or restore from a backup at any time,” which includes theme files and the database. WordPress.com’s export guide covers moving to self-hosted WordPress. Domain transfer-out terms were not confirmed in our research.

Webflow (6/10)

Paid workspace plans (Core, Growth, Freelancer, Agency) can export a ZIP of HTML pages, CSS, JavaScript and images. Site plans alone do not include code export. Every export is the whole site.

The catch: the export is a static copy. According to Webflow’s help article, the CMS and collection pages, user accounts, ecommerce, forms, site search, password protection, localized pages and code components stop working outside Webflow. CMS collections, ecommerce collections and user accounts export separately as CSV, which is data only. Domains connect from your own registrar, so you keep yours.

Shopify (5/10)

Products export to CSV from the admin. Product images are not included, only their URLs, and those stop working if the store closes (Shopify export help). Download the images before you cancel. Inventory per location needs a separate CSV. Customers and orders also export to CSV from the admin.

Themes download as a ZIP of Liquid files, but Liquid runs only on Shopify. Blog posts and pages have no confirmed one-click export.

GoDaddy Airo (5/10, provisional)

Paid plans list “Download your code,” and GoDaddy says “Everything you build with Airo AI Builder belongs to you” (Airo plans page). The help article describes a zip you can edit locally and re-import to Airo or other hosting. It does not say whether the zip includes databases, images or store data. The score is provisional until that is documented.

Hostinger Website Builder (3/10)

Hostinger offers a semi-automatic export to a WordPress site that moves regular pages, text, images and other files. It cannot export “website styles and layout, online store, integrations, forms, collected submissions, or SEO settings” (Hostinger export article).

Store data, including products, is not included, and no CSV export is documented (manual move article). Builder sites can move between hosting plans only in the same Hostinger account, with a duplication fee (plan move article).

Framer (2/10)

Framer’s help center says: “Framer does not offer HTML export for self-hosting,” because sites rely on Framer-managed services like pre-rendering and a CDN (Framer help). A second article says published files are standard HTML, CSS and JS you can download, without saying how. Because the two conflict, we treat official export as no.

CMS content can be exported as CSV or JSON with plugins (Porting your data). Third-party marketplace plugins claim full-site export, but they are not official. Redirects can be bulk imported and exported, which helps when you move.

Lovable (9/10)

Your site is real code. GitHub sync is two-way on all plans, and paid plans can download the whole project as a .zip (GitHub docs). Lovable’s FAQ says your apps and code “are yours, subject to third-party rights such as open-source licenses.”

Lovable publishes a guide to hosting elsewhere: deploy the front end to a host like Vercel, Netlify or Cloudflare Pages, and move the backend to Supabase. Database export is limited to once every 24 hours, and signed-in users must sign in again after the move. If you disconnect GitHub, you cannot reconnect the same repo, and Lovable cannot import an existing repo, so treat leaving as one way.

Bolt (9/10)

Bolt auto-commits every working change to GitHub and pulls in outside edits. Bolt says you can “switch to your repository directly, and return to Bolt whenever you are ready” (Bolt GitHub docs). Only the project owner can connect GitHub. How to move data out of Bolt Database is not documented, which is why data scores 1.

v0 (10/10)

v0’s docs say that once you connect a GitHub repository, “it becomes the source of truth for your project’s code” (v0 GitHub docs). GitHub sync works on the free plan. The output is standard Next.js code, and hosting is on your own Vercel account. You still need a developer to run a Next.js app anywhere else.

WooCommerce (10/10)

WooCommerce is a free plugin that runs on WordPress, so leaving works like moving any WordPress site. The store lives in your own WordPress database, and the theme and plugin files sit on your server, so any WordPress host can run it.

Woo’s built-in product exporter writes a CSV with all product data, including variations, image URLs and, if you choose, custom fields (product CSV exporter doc). Image URLs are only links, so copy the media files too. The same doc warns that variation names can lose attribute values, so check variations after an import. A separate order and customer CSV export was not confirmed in Woo’s docs; moving the full database brings orders and customers with it. Your domain sits at a registrar you choose. More in our WooCommerce review.

Ghost (9/10)

Ghost is open source, so you can run the same software on your own server. Its official export is a JSON file with settings, staff users, posts, pages and tags. Images and media files are not in it, so download them separately (Ghost exports help). That gap is why content scores 1.

Members export as a CSV with emails, names, labels and Stripe customer IDs. Paid subscriptions stay in your own Stripe account. Themes download as .zip files from the design settings. Ghost(Pro) does not sell domains, so yours is registered elsewhere and only connected. More in our Ghost review.

Duda (6/10)

Duda’s site export is a static copy, and only the Agency plan and higher include it ($52 a month billed yearly, $69 billed monthly). Basic and Team can’t export. Only the account owner or staff can run it, the site must be published, and it must be under 1 GB (Duda Site Export article).

The .zip holds HTML, CSS, JavaScript, images and media, in three folders for desktop, tablet and mobile. The JavaScript and CSS stay minified (compressed into a hard-to-edit form), and Duda will not support the site after export. Left out: the store, the blog (an RSS file only), dynamic pages, password protection, memberships and app data.

Native Store products export to CSV; order and customer export was not confirmed. URL redirects are built into Site Settings. Domain transfer terms were not confirmed in our research. More in our Duda review.

Carrd (6/10)

On Pro Plus ($49 a year, billed yearly), Carrd can download a site as a .zip of unminified HTML, CSS and JavaScript, meaning readable code a developer can edit (Carrd download docs). Free, Pro Lite and Pro Standard can’t download.

Anything that needs Carrd’s platform, most notably forms, still shows but stops working, so plan a new form tool. A downloaded site can’t be uploaded back into Carrd. Carrd does not appear to sell domains, so your domain stays at your own registrar. Carrd sites are usually one page, which is why the skill to leave is low. More in our Carrd review.

Square Online (2/10)

Square Online has no whole-site export. The site, its design and its code stay on Square, so leaving means a rebuild.

Products leave easily. In the Square Dashboard, go to Items, then Item library, then Actions, then Export Library, and pick Excel (.xlsx) or CSV (Square item export help). Square’s help center also lists articles on exporting Square Online orders and on moving saved cards to another payment processor, but we could not confirm their details, so read them before you cancel.

How to transfer a domain out was not confirmed in Square’s docs, which is why the domain part scores 1, not 2. If you register the domain at an independent registrar and connect it to Square, you keep full control. More in our Square Online review.

How to protect yourself before you ever need to leave

• Own the domain. Register it at an independent registrar and connect it to the builder.
• Keep your own copy of content. Save original images and text outside the builder.
• Export on a schedule. Download product, order and contact CSVs every few months.
• Know your score before you build. If you are still choosing, read how to choose a website builder.

What to do next

• Compare all 17 platforms side by side on the exit scores page.
• Ready to move? Follow our step-by-step website moving guide.
• Thinking of WordPress as your next home? Start with our WordPress review.