Three platforms.
One that's actually yours.
Most genealogical societies pick between EasyNetSites, Wild Apricot, and SocietyPress. Here's the side-by-side — pricing, ownership, migration cost, and where each one wins.
At a glance
The differences that change which platform actually fits your society.
- Free forever. GPL-2.0, no per-member pricing.
- You own everything. Files, database, code — on your hosting.
- Built for societies. 14 modules, 21 page-builder widgets, 5 child themes.
- One-click installer. No professional services bill.
- ENS migration built in. 86-column CSV importer.
- Open source. Code on GitHub. No vendor lock-in.
- $249–$700+/year tiered by membership size.
- Hosted only. Data lives on Blue Crab servers.
- Mature module set. ~15 modules including Voting, Surname Research, UDM.
- Migration cost. $60/hr — $1,800–$2,400 typical for ENS-C → ENS-R.
- ENS-Classic sunsetting May 31, 2027.
- Closed source. Likely WordPress under the hood, locked down.
- $60–$330+/month tiered by contact count.
- Hosted only. Personify, the parent company, owns the stack.
- Generic association tools. Members, events, donations — not genealogy-specific.
- No surname research. No First Families. No library catalog.
- Migration is BYO. CSV in, CSV out — no genealogy importers.
- Closed source. SaaS only.
- WordPress + plugins assembled à la carte.
- Per-plugin licenses add up — MemberPress, The Events Calendar, etc.
- You integrate. Five plugins from five vendors that don't talk to each other.
- No genealogy-specific features. Build your own surname directory.
- Maintenance is yours. Or your developer's, billed hourly.
- You own everything. Same upside as SocietyPress, more work.
Where SocietyPress is genuinely behind
Pretending we win every category is sales fiction. Here's the truth.
Track record
ENS has been running for 15 years and serves 170+ societies. SocietyPress is younger and growing. If "thousands of societies use it" is what you need to bring back to your board, ENS still wins that conversation.
Hosted convenience
ENS and Wild Apricot include hosting, backups, and updates. SocietyPress is self-hosted — you'll need a $5–$10/month cPanel host and to click "Update" when prompted. Most of our target audience is fine with that. If you want zero infrastructure responsibility, hosted is genuinely simpler.
White-glove migration
ENS will (for $60/hour) import your data, build your pages, and hand you a finished site. SocietyPress's installer + ENS CSV importer covers the data migration for free, but page rebuilding and theme customization is on you or a volunteer.
Phone support
ENS and Wild Apricot answer the phone. SocietyPress is a community project — questions go to GitHub Issues or the user forum. We'll get back to you, but not at 9 a.m. Tuesday on a guaranteed SLA.
Feature-by-feature
The full breakdown across the categories that matter for societies.
| Feature | SocietyPress | ENS-Responsive | Wild Apricot |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cost & ownership | |||
| Annual platform fee | $0 | $249–$700+ | $720–$3,960+ |
| Source code access | ✓ GitHub | ✗ | ✗ |
| You own the data | ✓ | ~ (export available) | ~ (export available) |
| You can self-host | ✓ Any cPanel host | ✗ | ✗ |
| Membership | |||
| Tiered membership levels | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Online dues with Stripe + PayPal | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Renewal reminders | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Lifetime / honorary tiers | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Member directory with surname/area filters | ✓ | ✓ | ~ (generic only) |
| Genealogy-specific | |||
| Surname Research Database (with Soundex) | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ |
| Library catalog (book/serial inventory) | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ |
| Lineage / First Families program | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ |
| Member-submitted ancestor photo wall | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ |
| Genealogical record collections (cemetery, census, etc.) | ✓ | ✓ (UDM) | ✗ |
| Events | |||
| Event calendar | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Online registration with paid tickets | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| iCal feed / Google Calendar sync | ✓ | ~ | ✓ |
| Speaker management | ✓ | ~ | ~ |
| Communications | |||
| Newsletter archive (PDFs) | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Built-in blast email | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Document library with member-only access | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Governance | |||
| Online voting / ballots | ✓ | ✓ | ~ |
| Committees as first-class records | ✓ | ✓ | ~ |
| Volunteer hours tracking | ✓ | ~ | ~ |
| Meeting minutes | ✓ | ✓ | ~ |
| Donations | |||
| One-time donations (Stripe + PayPal) | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Recurring monthly / annual donations | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Cover-the-fee toggle | ✓ | ✗ | ~ |
| Anonymous donations | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Store | |||
| Sell publications + merchandise | ✓ | ✓ | ~ (limited) |
| Per-item shipping fees | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Getting in & out | |||
| One-click installer | ✓ | n/a (hosted) | n/a (hosted) |
| ENS-format CSV importer (86 fields) | ✓ | $60/hr to import | BYO mapping |
| Full data export (your data, no friction) | ✓ Full SQL + media | ~ | ~ |
| Standards-based formats (.genrecord, GEDCOM) | ✓ (planned) | ✗ | ✗ |
| Compliance & security | |||
| GDPR data exporters / erasers | ✓ | ~ | ✓ |
| libsodium-encrypted sensitive fields | ✓ | ? | ? |
| PWA / mobile-installable | ✓ | ✗ | ~ |
✓ = supported · ~ = partial / limited · ✗ = not supported · ? = unverified
5-year cost for a 200-member society
Real-world numbers, not list prices. Hosting, payments, and migration included.
- Platform: $0
- Hosting: $9/mo cPanel × 60 = $540
- Migration: $0 (one-click installer + free CSV import)
- Stripe / PayPal fees: standard 2.9% + 30¢, no platform markup
- Platform: $499.95/yr × 5 = $2,500
- Hosting: included
- Migration to ENS-R: ~$1,800 typical (one-time)
- Plus payment processing (theirs or yours, varies)
- Platform: ~$140/mo × 60 = $8,400 (Community tier, 250 contacts)
- Hosting: included
- Migration: BYO (CSV in, your time)
- Plus payment processing fees (theirs or AffiniPay, varies)
Numbers are estimates from publicly listed pricing as of 2026. Stripe and PayPal processing fees apply on every platform. SocietyPress collects nothing from your transactions — your processor invoices you directly.
Coming from ENS?
The ENS migration guide walks you through every step — what to export, how to import, what carries over, and what doesn't. Free, no signup.
Read the ENS migration guide →Pick the platform that's actually yours.
Free to download, free to run, free forever. No vendor will ever invoice you for it.