Editor X Is Being Retired. Here Is the Open Source Alternative for Designers and Agencies.

The short version

In January 2025, Wix finished retiring Editor X. You can no longer create new Editor X sites, and existing ones have been moved onto Wix Studio, Wix's new platform for agencies and enterprises. If you liked Editor X, that migration is mostly handled for you. If the reason you are reading this is that you would rather not be locked into the Wix ecosystem at all, that is a different conversation, and it is the one this article is about.

There is no one-click export that takes an Editor X or Wix Studio project and hands you clean, portable files you can host anywhere. Leaving means rebuilding. So if you are going to rebuild anyway, it is worth knowing that free and open source visual builders exist, and that one of them was designed for exactly your kind of work. You can try the editor right now if you want to see what that looks like before reading on.

What actually happened to Editor X

Editor X was Wix's professional tier: a visual builder aimed at designers, agencies, and freelancers producing responsive, advanced-layout sites for clients. It was the Wix product for people who cared about grid control and breakpoints, not just templates.

Wix has folded that audience into Wix Studio. Per Wix's own migration FAQ, it is no longer possible to create new Editor X sites, and existing sites were updated to Wix Studio automatically if the owner did not do it manually. Premium plans stayed active, dashboards and SEO settings carried over, and there was no downtime. As a migration inside Wix, it was handled cleanly.

The catch is what the migration does not give you: a way out. Your project still lives on Wix infrastructure, under a Wix subscription, in a format only Wix can read. That is fine until the day it is not, and if you have been through a platform sunset before, you know that day tends to arrive on someone else's schedule.

The pattern, and why it keeps happening

Editor X is not the first pro design tool to be retired out from under its users. Adobe Muse was discontinued, and we wrote about the open source alternative to Adobe Muse when it happened. Macromedia and then Adobe reshuffled their web tools more than once. The same story is playing out beyond design tools too: Google is winding down its simple site product, which is why we covered the open source alternative to Google Business websites, and the link-in-bio space has its own graveyard of shuttered services, which we mapped in our open source link-in-bio alternative piece. Every time, the people who built real work on the platform had to rebuild somewhere else, on terms they did not choose.

The common thread is not that any one company behaved badly. It is that when your work lives inside a closed platform, the platform owner decides when your tool changes, when it costs more, and when it stops existing. You inherit those decisions whether they suit your business or not. Editor X becoming Wix Studio is a comparatively gentle version of this. The next one might not be.

If this sounds familiar, we wrote a similar piece when Weebly started shutting down. Different platform, same lesson.

Free software, not just open source: what it actually means for you

You will see the term "open source" everywhere, including in the title of this article, because that is the phrase people search for. But the word that really matters here is free software, or libre. It is not about the code being public as a technical detail. It is about who holds the power over the tool you build your business on, and the answer being: you and the community, not a vendor.

Here is what that gives you in practice.

• You own the output. A libre builder produces files you can read, edit, and take with you. No proprietary container, no format only one company can open.
• You choose the host. Your own server, a static host, a client's infrastructure, wherever you like. You are not tied to one company's platform or pricing.
• It cannot be shut down, bought, or retired. This is the heart of it. Free software is licensed so it stays available to everyone, forever. Even if the original maintainers moved on, the code belongs to the community and anyone can keep it running or fork it. A libre tool is a digital common, not a product on a roadmap someone else controls. That is a fundamentally different outcome from a vendor flipping a switch, which is exactly what happened to Editor X.

That last point is why free software is not just a nicer flavor of the same thing. When Editor X was retired, its users had no recourse, because the decision was never theirs to make. With a libre tool, that category of risk simply does not exist. You are not renting permission to keep working; you own the means to.

For a designer or agency, this maps onto a very practical need: you want to hand a client a site that keeps working, and you want to build it in a tool that will not be sunset the way Editor X was. If you want to talk it through with people who have made the switch, the Silex community is a good place to start.

What to look for in an Editor X alternative

If you are evaluating where to rebuild, these are the criteria that matter most for professional design work:

• Real visual layout control. You came from Editor X for responsive grids and breakpoints. A replacement should let you design visually, not force you back into hand-coding every layout.
• Clean, portable output. Look for standard HTML and CSS you can inspect and move. If the export is a proprietary blob, you have the same lock-in with a new logo.
• Host anywhere. The tool should not dictate where the site lives.
• CMS freedom. Client sites need content editing. The ability to connect any headless CMS, rather than one built-in database, keeps you and your client flexible.
• No mandatory subscription. For an agency running many client sites, per-site monthly fees add up fast. Owning the tool changes the math.
• A realistic honesty about skill level. The best fit depends on your comfort with HTML and CSS. A tool that pretends there is zero learning curve is selling something.

Free and open source alternatives worth knowing

Silex

Silex is a free and open source visual website builder built for pretty much the Editor X audience: designers and agencies who want visual control and clean output. You design in the browser, and Silex produces standard static HTML and CSS that you host wherever you like. It connects to headless CMSs so clients can edit content, and it is licensed under the AGPL, a strong libre license, so there is no subscription and no vendor who can retire it out from under you.

Honest framing: Silex assumes you are comfortable with basic HTML and CSS concepts. It is a designer's tool, not a template-picker. That is a feature if you came from Editor X, and something to weigh if you did not. You can try the editor directly at v3.silex.me, browse the templates to get a sense of the output, and if you would rather not build it yourself you can get help from a freelancer or agency.

Webstudio

Webstudio is another visual builder often described as open source, with a strong focus on modern responsive design and clean output. It is worth a look if you want a slightly different workflow. One thing to understand before you commit: Webstudio follows an open-core model, and open-core does not share the same values as fully libre software. The core may be libre, but hosting and some features are paid and proprietary, which carries roughly the same risks as any freemium product: you can end up dependent on the paid side, and the part you rely on most may not be the part you actually own. It is worth judging case by case, and it is a different proposition from a fully libre tool like Silex, which is AGPL end to end with nothing held back behind a paid tier.

WordPress with a visual builder

Not a like-for-like Editor X replacement, but WordPress remains the pragmatic choice when a client specifically needs a large, self-managed content site. Paired with a visual editor, it gives non-technical clients a familiar dashboard. The tradeoff is more infrastructure to maintain than a static site.

Who should choose what

Stay on Wix Studio if the automatic migration already gave you what you need, you are happy on the platform, and lock-in is not a concern for you or your clients. There is no reason to move for the sake of moving.

Choose Silex if you want the Editor X style of visual, layout-first design but with files you own, any host you like, any headless CMS, and no subscription, and you are comfortable with basic HTML and CSS.

Choose Webstudio if you want a modern visual builder and prefer its particular workflow, keeping the open-core caveat above in mind.

Choose WordPress if the project is content-heavy and the client needs to manage a lot of pages themselves.

How to migrate away from Editor X or Wix Studio

Be realistic: there is no clean export from the Wix ecosystem into a portable format, so leaving means a rebuild. That is the honest starting point. Here is how to make it manageable.

What carries over

Your content and your design decisions carry over in the sense that you already have them. Text, images, and the visual direction of the site are yours to reuse. Save your copy, download your images at full resolution, and keep a reference of the current layout.

What does not

The build itself does not transfer. Editor X and Wix Studio layouts, interactions, and settings do not convert into standard HTML and CSS you can import elsewhere. You rebuild the structure in your new tool. For a designer, this is often faster than it sounds, because you are recreating a design you already understand rather than starting from a blank brief. A template can give you a head start on the structure.

Domains and SEO

Your domain is portable. Point it at your new host once the rebuilt site is live. To protect search rankings, keep your URL structure as close as possible to the old one, or set up redirects from old paths to new ones, and preserve page titles and meta descriptions. Rankings generally survive a well-handled move.

A sensible process

1. Rebuild the site in your chosen tool while the current one stays live.
2. Export or publish the new site as static files, or deploy it to your host.
3. Verify everything, including forms and any CMS-driven content.
4. Point the domain, add redirects, and monitor for a few weeks.

Nothing about this has to be rushed, because your Editor X site is not disappearing tomorrow. But the direction of travel is set, so it is a good moment to decide whether your next client project should start somewhere you control. If you get stuck, the Silex community can help.

FAQ

Is Wix shutting down?

No. Wix the company is doing fine. Editor X specifically has been retired and its users moved to Wix Studio. This article is for people who want to leave the Wix ecosystem, not people who think Wix is closing.

Can I just export my Editor X site and import it into Silex?

No. There is no automatic transfer that produces portable files from Editor X or Wix Studio, so moving to any independent tool means rebuilding. The upside is that once you rebuild in a free software tool, you own the result and will not face this migration again.

Is a free software builder harder to use than Editor X?

It depends on the tool and on you. Silex is aimed at designers who are comfortable with basic HTML and CSS, so if you used Editor X for its layout control, the transition is natural. If you want a zero-code experience, be honest with yourself about that before you switch.

Will my SEO survive the move?

Generally yes, if you preserve your URL structure or set up redirects and keep your titles and meta descriptions. Search engines handle well-managed migrations. It is the sloppy ones that lose rankings.

What does Silex cost?

Nothing. It is free and open source under the AGPL. You can self-host it, and you host the sites you build wherever you want.

Closing thought

The lesson of Editor X is not that Wix is a bad tool. Plenty of good work was made on it. The lesson is that when your tool and your clients' sites live entirely inside one vendor's platform, that vendor decides when things change. Editor X users did not ask for Wix Studio. They got it anyway, and the ones who wanted a way out found there was not a clean one.

If you are rebuilding regardless, it is worth building somewhere you own the outcome. Free software gives you that: not a favor from a vendor, but a tool that belongs to you and to a community that keeps it alive. Silex is free to use for as long as you like. You can try the editor at v3.silex.me, look at what it produces on silex.me, and decide for yourself whether owning your files beats renting them.