How to migrate from Wix by rebuilding, without losing your domain
There's no import from Wix into Anticode, so a move is a rebuild. For a small business site that's often quicker than it sounds, and it's a chance to drop pages nobody reads. The order matters most: inventory first, rebuild second, forms third, domain last, and cancel the old plan only once the new site is answering enquiries.
Step one: an honest inventory
Open the old site and list what's really there, in a spreadsheet. Most small Wix sites hold fewer pages than their owners think, and a few features that matter more than any page. Note each of these:
- Every page and its address, with a mark beside the ones that get visits or that other sites link to.
- Every form: what it asks and who receives it.
- Any booking, shop, member login, blog or events feature, and whether it's actually used.
- Images and documents you own, which you'll download and keep.
- Your domain: where it's registered, and who controls its DNS.
The features column decides whether Anticode is a fit. Contact, booking and newsletter forms, a booking calendar, CMS collections for things like a menu or team list, and buy buttons that open a payment link are all covered. A member area, an online store with stock and shipping, or bookings that need deposits or calendar sync aren't. If the old site depends on those, keep them on a service built for them and link to it, or choose a different platform.
Step two: rebuild from the old site
- Give the Architect the link. Start a build with a sentence about the business and the old site's address. Links in a request are read once and summarised into the brief, so the plan starts from what's already there.
- Answer its questions and check the plan. It asks up to three questions where the answer changes the build, then shows the name, kind, sections, look and features. Remove anything your inventory says nobody uses.
- Add your own photos. Host the images you downloaded and add them to CMS collection entries (work, products) as hosted addresses; uploads are used only by app builds, where the model sees photos and places videos by name.
- Move repeating content into CMS collections. A menu, a list of services or team members becomes a collection you edit in the dashboard instead of a page you rebuild.
- Fix the copy. Old sites gather outdated claims. Read every paragraph against what's true today.
Step three: forms and notifications
Design-engine forms have fixed fields: contact asks for name, email and a message; booking for the service, day, time, name, phone and email; newsletter for an email. If an old form asked for more, fold those questions into the message, use a custom form tied to a site function (up to 30 plain-text fields, no file uploads), or build that form as an app. Then decide where submissions go: by email to you, or through a connector to Slack, Google Sheets, HubSpot, Mailchimp, Kit or another listed tool. Send a test from each form before you touch the domain.
Step four: switch the domain at a quiet hour
- Publish the new site to its free anticode.dev address and check every page on a phone.
- On a paid plan, add your domain in Anticode. It asks for a CNAME or TXT record to verify, and issues the certificate itself.
- Change the records at whoever controls your DNS. If the domain was bought through Wix, check Wix's own help pages for how to point it elsewhere or transfer it; don't let it lapse in the middle.
- Wait for the new site to appear on your domain over HTTPS, then send a real enquiry through it.
- Update links you control: your Google Business Profile, social bios, email signature and printed QR codes if their addresses changed.
Do this early in a quiet week, not the day before a promotion. Keep the old site's plan until you've seen enquiries arrive on the new one for a few days.
What can go wrong
- Old addresses break
- Pages that changed address will show not found when someone follows an old link. List the important ones in your inventory and update the links you control.
- Forms go quiet
- The DNS changed, but nobody tested the new form. Test before and after the switch.
- Email stops
- If your email runs on the same domain, changing DNS carelessly can break it. Only change the records the site needs, and leave mail records alone.
Limits of moving to Anticode
No import from Wix (or from WordPress or Figma), so text, images and structure are rebuilt rather than copied. No member areas, inventory, shipping or tax handling, and bookings have no deposits or calendar sync. Pages are in English. For a wider comparison see Anticode vs Wix and Wix alternatives, and for the domain step, the guide to connecting a custom domain.
Questions people ask
Can Anticode import my Wix site?
No. There's no import from other builders. You give the Architect your old site's link, it reads and summarises it into the brief, and the new site is built from that plus your content.
Will I lose my domain if I migrate from Wix?
Not if you control it. Point it at the new site with the records Anticode asks for, on a paid plan. If Wix registered it for you, follow Wix's guidance to move or repoint it before cancelling anything.
How long does the move take?
The rebuild is usually the quick part. Collecting content, testing forms and waiting for DNS take longer, so allow a week of calendar time for a small site.