Vows vs Zola
A wedding registry with a free website, guest list and invitations attached to it. Vows writes a wedding website from a sentence about your day, for one payment. Here is what separates them, and who should choose which.
Side by side
| What | Zola | Vows |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free. About $20 a year for a custom domain | $99 once, or $49 for a year |
| How it is paid | Free | One payment, when you publish |
| What pays for it | The registry: Zola earns on the gifts your guests buy through it | The payment. Nothing else is sold on or through the site |
| Advertising on your site | The site is built around the registry, and the registry is the business | None, and nothing tracks your guests |
| How the site is made | You choose a template and fill it in yourself | Written from a sentence about your day, in a minute |
| Changing it afterwards | You edit it yourself in the builder | Ask in a sentence and it changes |
| Languages | Whatever you type. No translation of its own | Any language. One whole-site translation included |
| Replies and guests | Reply form and guest list, tied to the registry and invitations | Reply form, guest list, your own questions, export |
| Address | A Zola address, or a custom domain for a yearly fee | Your own vows.day address |
Prices and features as published on 15 September 2026. If anything here is out of date, write to hello@vows.day and it will be corrected.
What Zola is good at
- The registry is the best in the market: physical gifts from hundreds of brands, cash funds and group gifts in one place.
- The website, the invitations, the guest list and the registry are one account, which is genuinely convenient.
- It is free, and for a one-day wedding in one place that is a perfectly good answer.
What Vows does differently
- You describe the day in a sentence and the whole site is written for you: your story, the schedule, travel, the gallery and the reply form. Nothing to fill in.
- Building and reading it cost nothing. The one payment is when you publish: $99 and it stays online, or $49 for a year.
- Nobody is selling anything to your guests. No registry, no vendor advertising, no tracking.
- Change anything by asking, in a sentence, for as long as the site is up.
- Any language. One whole-site translation is included, reply form and all.
Choose Zola if
Choose Zola if the registry is the point. It is the strongest one there is, and a website that lives next to it is a fine thing to get for nothing.
Choose Vows if
You want a designed site written for your wedding rather than a template you fill in, at an address of your own, for one payment, with nothing sold to your guests. And if your wedding is the kind the template builders handle badly: two languages, guests flying in, a weekend rather than a day.
Looking for a Zola alternative?
People looking for a Zola alternative usually want a site that is theirs rather than a page inside a shop: no registry pushed at their guests, their own address, a design that does not look like every other Zola site, and something that handles a wedding with two languages or guests flying in. That is what Vows is for.
Try it before deciding: describe your day, read the whole site, and pay only if you want it online. Start with a sentence, or look at the designs first.