website builders to boycott
preface
the purpose of this document is to audit popular website builders to see if they have any ties with Israel (in line with the philosophies of the bds movement). i have chosen website builders that i have used in the past that are popular, there are some missing. let me know if you'd like me to audit one that's not on here.
in this page i will keep things straight to the point, and try my best to provide all the facts that i'm aware of.
website builders
wix
Wix is an Israeli software company founded by Avishai Abrahami, Nadav Abrahami and Giora Kaplan in 2006, based in Tel Aviv. it has it's main office in Tel Aviv, with other offices in Israel as well Beer Sheba, Haifa. they've fired an employee for standing with Palestine in this most recent october 2023 conflict. it's also been leaked in internal chats that they've encouraged their “employees to create content supporting 'Israel's narrative' in the country's conflict with Hamas militants in Gaza”.
squarespace
Squarespace is an American software company founded by Anthony Casalena in 2004, based in New York City. Squarespace offers many unique features integrated right into their platform that other website builders don't have, like Squarespace Commerce. Squarespace Commerce “is a set of features for selling products and managing orders online. By connecting a payment processor, you can process credit card transactions, accept PayPal, issue refunds, and receive donations.”
looking further into Squarespace Commerce, specifically the payment processor, it can only work for the user if their local currency is supported. in their article Supported countries and currencies for Squarespace Commerce (which was most recently updated on october 5, 2023), it shows that that the “Israeli shekel (ILS)” is listed as a supported currency on Squarespace.
this indicates that Squarespace is in support of merchants and businesses that use their platform in Israel.
wordpress
Wordpress is a web CMS (content management system) founded by Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little. It was released in 2003 and is notably free and open-source software, meaning that you can use it without having to pay anything anywhere in the world. Furthermore, this means Wordpress is not owned by any company. But it is heavily supported by some organizations.
The Wordpress Foundation “is a charitable organization founded by Matt Mullenweg to further the mission of the WordPress open source project: to democratize publishing through Open Source, GPL software.” There is also Automattic, a private company founded by Matt Mullenweg which is “a distributed company with 1,935 Automatticians in 95 countries speaking 119 different languages. We're committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion, and our common goal is to democratize publishing and commerce so that anyone with a story can tell it, and anyone with a product can sell it, regardless of income, gender, politics, language, or where they live in the world.” There is nothing I could find to indicate ties with Israel.
Something worth noting though is that Wordpress allows people to create plugins to integrate into their Wordpress website. Those plugins do not mean that they are a core part of Wordpress, nor that they come from the original developers. Anyone can develop a plugin, and it is not required for anyone else to download it. So if you want to use a plugin, make sure to audit that plugin to make sure it doesn't have ties with Israel.
webflow
Webflow is a website building American company founded by Vlad Magdalin, Sergie Magdalin, and Bryant Chou in 2013. There are seemingly no direct ties with Israel through Webflow.
shopify
Shopify is a Canadian multinational e-commerce company that runs the same name (Shopify) proprietary e-commerce platform, founded by Tobias Lütke and Scott Lake in 2006. The Shopify platform allows people to run online stores and POS systems. It has a whole suite of features, including payments, marketing, shipping, and much more.
Again, a major feature on the Shopify platform is Shopify Payments. In Shopify's words, it “is the simplest way to accept payments online. It eliminates the hassle of setting up a third-party payment provider or merchant account and having to enter the credentials into Shopify.” Unlike Squarespace, Shopify Payments does not have Israel as a supported country.
Besides Shopify Payments, Shopify also has an official app store that allows their online stores to add third-party plugins, that extends the functionality of the core Shopify platform. Similar to Wordpress' plugins, these apps are not directly created by Shopify, nor are they a core part of Shopify (they are not required). But unlike Wordpress, they need to go through a thorough app review process in order to be officially supported on their app store. This means that Shopify has direct control of what is allowed to be shown on their app store. Looking through the app store, one can easily find apps that are in support of Israel / Israeli merchants that use Shopify (examples: We Stand with Israel, HFD DeliverIt, Ship OS).
weebly
Weebly is an American web hosting and web development company founded by David Rusenko, Dan Veltri, and Chris Fanini in 2006. It was acquired by Square, Inc. (now known as Block, Inc.) in 2018. There are seemingly no direct ties with Israel through Weebly, or any of the subsidiaries of Block, Inc. (Weebly's parent company).
conclusion
this page is ever-evolving. as time goes on, things may change. there is also information i may have missed. please let me know if there are other website builders you'd like for me to audit.
so please contact me if i've misinterpreted something, said something incorrect, missed some information, etc.
ps
if you or anyone needs help migrating their website from using any of the tools listed or not listed here (example: migrating from Wix to Wordpress), please let me know. i would be more than happy to help :)
last updated on