Free Tools for Choosing a Platform

The tools

• CMS comparison tool

  Filter ten platforms by hosting, selling, export, skill and budget.

• Platform selection wizard

  Six questions, three suggestions, and the scoring rules shown.

• CMS cost calculator

  Plan fees, apps, design, upkeep and sales fees in one first-year total.

• Migration checklist

  A dated checklist for moving platforms without losing traffic.

What each tool is for

The comparison filter narrows ten platform options to those that meet your must-haves: hosted or self-hosted, selling online, how much you can take with you if you leave, the skill level you have and your monthly budget. It shows a table of what is left with the reason each remaining option qualified.

The platform wizard asks six questions about your site and team, then suggests three starting points with the reasons behind each. Its scoring rules are published on the page, so you can see exactly why a platform came up and disagree with the weighting if your situation is different.

The first-year cost calculator adds plan fees, a domain, paid apps, a theme, design work, maintenance time and fees on sales into one first-year figure, showing the formula line by line. Presets fill in plan prices from our platform data, and you can overwrite any number.

The migration planner turns a launch date and a few facts about your site into a dated checklist covering inventory, export, redirects, testing and monitoring. You can copy it or download it as a plain text file.

How the tools handle your data

The tools are written in JavaScript that runs on your device. They do not send what you type to any server, and they do not store it after you leave the page. Plan prices come from a small data file published with the site, built from the same figures shown in the platform guides and checked on November 4, 2026. If you turn JavaScript off, the tools do not appear, and each page explains how to work through the same steps by hand.

Limits worth knowing

The tools simplify. The filter and wizard rely on our reading of each platform, explained on the methodology page; your situation may weigh things differently. The cost calculator only knows the numbers you give it and the published plan prices; it cannot know about discounts, taxes or price changes after the check date. Use the results as a starting point for your own research, and confirm prices on each platform's official page before you buy.