The Wix platform is built to be extended. Extensions are the framework for adding custom UI and behavior. Each extension plugs into a specific surface like a site page, a dashboard area, or a backend flow. Apps and headless projects contribute extensions. Sites can also reach many of the same capabilities through path-specific mechanisms that aren't called extensions but produce the same outcome.
Extensions fall into 3 categories by where they plug in:
- Site extensions: UI and behavior on a Wix site's live, visitor-facing pages. Types include site pages, site widgets, site plugins, embedded scripts, and Editor React Components.
- Dashboard extensions: UI and behavior in the Wix dashboard, where Wix users manage their site. Types include dashboard pages, dashboard modals, dashboard plugins, and dashboard menu plugins.
- Backend extensions: Code that hooks into platform systems on the backend. Types include service plugins, event extensions, data collections, schema plugins, notification extensions, and automations.
The development path determines how you add extensions:
- Sites: Receive extensions when a Wix user installs an app. Sites can also reach many extension-like capabilities directly without an app, like adding pages through the Wix Editor or Wix Studio, adding data collections through the CMS, or building custom UI components and backend behavior with the JavaScript SDK. To use an extension type that sites don't natively support, create a private app, register the extension in it, and install the private app in your own site.
- Wix-managed headless projects:
- Full Wix integration (Astro): Scaffold extensions through the Wix CLI. See each category article for the per-type framework support.
- Other frameworks: Don't support extensions directly. Follow the same approach as self-managed headless projects.
- Self-managed headless projects: Can't add extensions directly. Dashboard extensions are available through a private-app workaround: create a private app, register the extension in it, and install the app in your headless project. See each category article for the per-type support.
- Wix-managed apps: Scaffold extensions primarily through the Wix CLI. Some types are configured through the App Dashboard instead. See each category article for the per-type framework support.
- Self-managed apps: Build extensions on infrastructure you manage using the self-hosting framework. Some types are configured through the App Dashboard instead. See each category article for the per-type framework support.
- Blocks apps: Build extensions in the Wix Blocks visual editor. Blocks apps support a subset of extension types. See each category article for the per-type support.