Wix Groups is the community app that Wix now offers site owners who want a place for their audience to talk. It grew out of Wix's decision to retire its older forum product: Wix Forum was discontinued on March 1, 2026, and forum categories were converted into groups with their posts, comments, and members carried over. Wix Groups gives you member groups with a feed, discussion posts, announcements, and events, all inside a Wix site. Website Toolbox is a hosted, turnkey, embeddable discussion forum that you run on your own website under your own brand. This article compares what Wix Groups offers against Website Toolbox, so you can decide which one fits the community you want to build.
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | Wix Groups | Website Toolbox |
|---|---|---|
| Focus | A website builder's community app: groups, a feed, posts, events, and announcements layered onto a Wix site | Forum first: focused on being an excellent discussion community for any audience, business or hobby |
| Product history | Replaced Wix Forum, which was discontinued on March 1, 2026; existing forum categories were converted into groups | A single discussion product refined over many years, with a clear, stable roadmap |
| Embedding | Only exists inside a Wix site; there is no way to place Wix Groups inside a site on any other platform | Fully embeddable into your existing website, including Wix, or run as a standalone community on your own domain |
| Community structure | Feed style: members create posts in a group feed, organized with feed topics; conversation happens in comments under each post | Forum structure: categories and member started threads with replies, so conversations stay organized, searchable, and easy to follow for years |
| Branding and white label | Runs on Wix infrastructure with Wix accounts and Wix branding around the experience | Real white label by default: Website Toolbox is invisible, 100% your brand, including a fully branded mobile app |
| Single sign on | Group members sign in with Wix site member accounts; there is no way for members to sign in with a login they already use on a system outside Wix | Seamless single sign on set up for you by our team; members log in on your site and never have to leave it |
| Themes and design | Group pages follow your Wix site's theme, with layout choices for the group pages themselves | Multiple genuinely different themes plus an easy theme builder, so the forum matches your site without touching code |
| Payments | Paid groups are managed with Wix pricing plans, handled inside Wix's billing system | Subscriptions and payments for accessing the community, categories, or features, with simple, transparent pricing and no cut of your revenue |
| Mobile app | Members can follow groups through the Wix consumer app, which is Wix's app carrying many sites | Mobile app under your own brand, with your name on the icon |
| Support | Wix help center and general Wix support; no team that sets up or customizes your community for you | Email, phone, and chat support; our team sets up and customizes your forum for you, including single sign on |
| Webhooks and API | Wix's developer tooling is aimed at building and extending Wix sites themselves, not at community specific automation | Webhooks and API access in the standard plan, so community events can trigger your own automation |
| Migration | Wix handles the one time conversion of Wix Forum categories into groups; moving your community off Wix is up to you | Migration included in every plan: an automated import you can run yourself in a few clicks, or we can do it for you |
| Company | Large publicly traded website platform, with the community product serving the website builder's roadmap | Profitable company with 24 years of experience focused on discussion communities |
The Wix Forum Story
It is worth understanding what happened to Wix's community product before choosing it as the home for your community. Wix Forum was Wix's forum app for years. In 2025 Wix stopped new posting in forums, and on March 1, 2026 the Wix Forum app was removed from sites entirely, with forum categories automatically converted into Wix Groups, carrying over posts, comments, and members. For site owners who had built years of discussion history inside Wix, that meant their forum format, URLs, and structure were changed for them by a platform decision they did not make and could not appeal. This is not a criticism of Wix Groups as a product, which works well for what it is. It is the honest illustration of what it means to build a community on someone else's platform: the product, its format, and its future are subject to that platform's roadmap. With Website Toolbox you choose the structure, keep it, and own the community on your own domain.
Customization and Embedding
The most practical difference between Wix Groups and Website Toolbox is where the community can live. Wix Groups only exists inside a Wix site. If your site is on Wix, that works, but if you ever move your site, or run a second site on another platform, your community cannot come with you as part of that page. Website Toolbox is fully embeddable into your existing website: you copy one embed code and paste it into a page, and the forum appears inside your own layout, navigation, and branding. It embeds into Wix, and equally into WordPress, Squarespace, Shopify, and anything else, so your community is never tied to one site builder. It can also run as a standalone community on your own domain if you prefer. We have step by step guides including embedding a forum into your Wix website and embedding the forum into your website for all the popular builders.
Ease of Setup
Wix Groups is easy to add if you already have a Wix site: you install the Groups app from the Wix App Market, create a group from a template or from scratch, design the group pages in the Wix editor, and invite members. For a Wix owner who wants a casual community in a few clicks, that path is simple and quick. Website Toolbox is hosted and turnkey with no server, install, or maintenance, and our team guides you through every step of setting up and customizing your forum, and can even do it for you. Setup takes a little longer than installing a feed app, and you end up with something built to last: categories, threads, permissions, and moderation that keep conversations organized as the community grows.
Single Sign On
In Wix Groups, members are Wix site members: they sign in with Wix accounts through your site's members area. If your members already use a login on your own website or member system, there is no supported way for them to carry that login into a Wix group. With Website Toolbox, single sign on is seamless and our team sets it up for you: members who are already signed in on your website land in the community automatically and never have to leave your site. Website Toolbox offers single sign on with Wix as well, so members can start at your site and reach the forum without a separate login. To see how it works, read our single sign on methods article.
Pricing
The Wix Groups app is included with a Wix site, so there is no separate community bill, which is a genuine advantage if you are already paying Wix for your site. A few things are worth knowing. Free Wix sites carry Wix branding and a Wix address; connecting your own domain and removing Wix branding requires a paid Wix plan. Paid groups are sold through Wix pricing plans, and payments run through Wix's billing system with its processing fees. Website Toolbox uses simple, transparent pricing that you can sign up for yourself, with no cut of your revenue. Migration from whatever you are using now is included in every plan, and webhooks and API access are in the standard plan. What you pay for is what a real community platform costs to run: hosting, security, support, and continuous development.
Feed Post Versus Forum Thread
The design difference underneath everything else is the conversation format. Wix Groups is feed based: members create posts in a group feed, you can assign feed topics to keep the feed tidy, and conversation accumulates as comments under each post. Feels social and immediate, and it fits casual fan groups well. Over time, though, comment streams under feed posts are hard to search, hard to follow, and hard to refer back to. Website Toolbox is a forum: members start threads in categories, replies nest under the thread, and every conversation has a title, a permalink, and a place in your site's structure. When a member asks a question that was answered two years ago, a forum finds that answer in seconds. When the same question is asked again, you link the old thread instead of answering from scratch. That structure is what turns a community into a lasting body of knowledge.
Search and Discovery
Public Wix Group content appears as pages on your Wix site, while private group content is visible only to members. The feed format means individual posts and comment streams are not organized the way search engines and humans both expect from a discussion archive. Website Toolbox forums are standard web pages that search engines index on your site, organized into categories and threads, so your discussions can be found through search under your own domain, and built in search and subscriptions let members find specific topics and follow the ones they care about.
White Label and Branding
Wix Groups sits inside the Wix ecosystem: members hold Wix accounts, follow groups through Wix's consumer app, and the platform's brand surrounds the experience. Website Toolbox becomes completely invisible to your users: the branding is 100% yours, the forum sits on your site or your own domain, and your members experience the community as a natural part of the website they already trust. That includes a fully branded mobile app with your name on the icon.
Mobile App
Wix gives your members a way to follow groups on the phone through the Wix app, which gathers many sites and communities into one Wix branded experience. That is convenient for members who are already in the Wix ecosystem, but every interaction on the phone happens inside Wix's product rather than yours. Website Toolbox offers a branded mobile app under your own brand, which matters when a large share of your audience primarily interacts on a phone: they get notifications and a full community experience with your name on the icon, and the app belongs to you.
Customer Support
Wix supports its users through a help center and general Wix support, which covers the whole website platform rather than your community specifically; nobody from Wix sits down with you to configure your group for your use case. Website Toolbox offers email, phone, and chat support for every customer, and our team can set up, customize, and integrate your forum for you. That done for you approach includes single sign on, so our team handles the technical work rather than leaving it to you.
Where Wix Groups Wins
It is only fair to name Wix Groups' real strengths. If you already run a Wix site, it is included: there is no separate product to buy, evaluate, or connect, and adding a community is a few clicks inside tools you already know. The feed format feels social and immediate, and for a casual fan or customer group that thrives on short posts and quick reactions it is a natural fit. Events, announcements, and membership questions are built in, so organizing activities around the group needs no extra apps. Wix handles hosting and security as part of the platform, and you can run up to a thousand groups on one site. If your site is built on Wix, your community needs are lightweight, and a feed is enough, Wix Groups will serve you well.
Trust
Wix is a large, established, publicly traded company, and its platform is not going anywhere. The nuance is what happens to individual products inside it. Wix Forum existed for years, was used by thousands of site owners, and was discontinued on a fixed date anyway, with every forum converted into a different format. That is platform risk in a concrete form: not the company failing, but the product you built on changing shape without your consent. Website Toolbox is a profitable company with 24 years of experience, focused exclusively on discussion communities, so you can count on stability, straightforward pricing, and long term support for the product your community runs on. And because the forum lives on your website and your own domain, the community is a first party part of an asset you control, independent of any platform's roadmap.
Conclusion
Choose Website Toolbox if you want a discussion community that lives on your website, under your brand, with your own login, your own design, member started threads that stay searchable for years, mobile access under your own name, and a support team that does the setup and customization for you. Choose Wix Groups if your site is already on Wix, you want a free and included feed style group for casual conversation and events, and forum structure is more than you need. Many site owners use both ideas together: keep a lightweight Wix Group for quick announcements, and give the discussions that deserve structure, categories, and a permanent searchable home a real forum, embedded right into the same Wix site. Migration from Wix Groups or the old Wix Forum is included in every Website Toolbox plan.