Choose Your Development Path

Wix Headless lets you build a custom frontend on any stack, backed by Wix's business management platform. Before you start, choose a development path. The right path comes down to how much you want Wix to manage, above all who hosts your frontend and who handles authentication.

• Wix-managed headless (recommended): Wix hosts, deploys, and runs your frontend. Build with Astro and Wix handles authentication and SEO for you too, or bring another web framework and set up authentication yourself. Best for getting to a deployed project fast.
• Self-managed headless: You bring any framework and host it yourself. Best when you need control over your framework and hosting, or are adding a frontend you host to an existing Wix site.

Wix-managed headless

With Wix-managed headless, Wix hosts and runs your frontend on managed infrastructure, including global CDN hosting and analytics. This is the recommended path for new headless projects. You can start with the Wix CLI or without it.

With the Wix CLI

You can build your frontend in 2 ways:

• Astro (recommended): Create a project with a coding agent or the Wix CLI, or link an existing Astro project. Wix's Astro integration configures authentication and built-in SEO support for you, and lets you add extensions for custom backend logic and dashboard UIs. You continue from the project folder. Edit Frontend doesn't open these Astro sites in another tool.
• Other web frameworks: Deploy a frontend you already have, and keep the framework you built it with. You build it on your machine with the framework's own tooling, then release it with the Wix CLI. Wix hosts and runs your site on the same managed infrastructure, but the integration is limited. You create a Wix client and set up authentication yourself. Extensions and built-in SEO support aren't available. SEO tags and analytics page views are available when site scripts are loaded.

Without the Wix CLI

You can start in any of these ways:

• Describe the site to an AI tool and include the Wix Headless skill. The tool creates the business and publishes the site. You don't need the Wix CLI to publish. Follow Quick Start with AI. Not a developer? Start from the dashboard. See Creating a Site with AI Tools.
• Plain HTML, CSS, and JavaScript: No framework or build step is needed. A build step is when a tool such as React or Astro turns its source code into files a browser can open. Wix hosts the files as they are. You can:
  • Upload the HTML, CSS, and JavaScript files.
  • Publish Figma frames. Each selected frame becomes a page. The published site expires after 1 hour unless you save it to a Wix account.
  • Send a page from Claude Design.

Wix keeps the source for sites you upload, publish from Figma, or send from Claude Design, and for sites that a chat tool creates. To keep editing, click Edit Frontend in the dashboard. You can open the site in an AI tool you choose, or upload updated files. A collaborator on the site can do the same.

To learn more, including a capability comparison of the 2 framework options, see About Wix-Managed Headless.

Self-managed headless

Build your own frontend from scratch with any framework or platform, and connect it directly to Wix's backend using the Wix JavaScript SDK or the REST API. You're responsible for all configuration, authentication, and hosting. This includes building in a vibe coding platform such as Base44 or Lovable. See Build with a Vibe Coding Platform.

To learn more, see About Self-Managed Headless.

Start from an existing Wix site

You can start from a Wix site you already have in 3 ways:

• Replace the editor-built frontend, with Wix hosting the new frontend. The site needs a connected domain. A site owner or a co-owner can start the move from Headless settings in the dashboard, or from an AI tool. You build the frontend with an AI tool, preview it without changing the live site, and switch when you're ready. Your business tools and data keep running, and your domain moves to the new frontend. See Moving Your Site to a Custom Frontend. After you migrate, use the Post-Migration Checklist: Wix Studio and Editor Sites to Headless to verify or rebuild features that don't carry over.
• Replace the editor-built frontend with a frontend you host yourself. See About Wix Site Migration to a Self-Managed Headless Project.
• Keep the editor-built site as the public website and add another frontend that you host yourself, such as a mobile app. See Add a Frontend to an Existing Wix Site.

Comparison of development paths

Wix-managed headless is the recommended path. Build with Astro for the fully managed experience with automatic authentication, SEO support, and extensions, or bring another web framework to deploy an existing frontend to Wix hosting. You can also publish static files, with no build step and no Wix CLI. Static files are HTML, CSS, and JavaScript that Wix hosts as they are. This includes a site you upload, frames you publish from Figma, and a page you send from Claude Design. Self-managed is for when you need a framework that the Wix-managed flow doesn't support yet, or want to use a different hosting provider.

Path	Framework	Hosting	Authentication	Best for
Wix-managed: Astro	Astro	Wix	Automatic	Fully managed, least setup
Wix-managed: Other web frameworks	Any supported framework	Wix	You set up	Deploying an existing frontend to Wix hosting
Wix-managed: Static files	HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Includes an upload, Figma, and Claude Design	Wix	You set up	Publishing a site with no build step
Self-managed	Any	You host	You set up	An unsupported framework, a different hosting provider, or a frontend you host for an existing Wix site

What each path includes

Feature	Wix-managed: Astro	Wix-managed: Other web frameworks	Wix-managed: Static files	Self-managed
Project scaffolding & automatic authentication	✓	✗	✗	✗
SEO tags	✓	When site scripts are loaded	Included on an uploaded site	When you load site scripts
Built-in SEO support	✓	✗	✗	✗
Managed hosting	✓	✓	✓	✗
Secrets management	✓	✗	✗	✗
Analytics page views	✓	When site scripts are loaded	Included on an uploaded site	When you load site scripts
Analytics event tracking	✓	✗	✗	✗
Error and log monitoring	✓	✗	✗	✗
Wix CLI	✓	✓ (preview and release only)	Optional, for a local project	✗
App extensions	✓	✗	✗	✗
Wix business APIs	✓	✓	✓	✓
Any hosting solution	✗	✗	✗	✓

Next steps

Choose a path and start building:

• Wix-Managed Headless
• Self-Managed Headless

See also

• Quick Start with the Wix CLI: Scaffold an Astro project from your terminal.
• Deploy Your Own Frontend with the CLI: Release a frontend you already built with another framework.
• Headless AI Toolkit: Choose the Wix skill, plugin, or MCP for your AI tool.