If you are looking to create a new website for your small business, an attractive and well-built website is helpful in communicating what you can offer to a wide base of potential customers.
When you are building or creating a new website, choosing the right platform for your business website is hard. Because many organization will need to save costs initially by building their own website.
Wix and WordPress are widely recommended leading options for building website. Both providing easier development, high-quality web page templates and easy ways to add content, these builders reduce the effort and skill required to build a great website for your business.
Are you trying to decide between Wix vs WordPress to build your website? When it comes to building a website, WordPress is the most popular website builder in the world, It is not the only way for you to make a website. Wix is another popular builder that allows you to easily create a website.
In this Wix vs WordPress guide, we look in-depth at both solutions and consider the pros and cons of each. We will discuss their top features, differences, and give you a complete understanding of what these platforms offer. By the end, you will know whether it is Wix or WordPress that will help you to build a website.
we compared these two website platforms within these categories:
Costs
Ease of Use
Design
Flexibility
E-commerce.
1. Pricing and Cost of Each Platform
WordPress is free to download and use, there are associated costs such as website hosting, domain name, and any extra functionality to beconsidered. Wix includes all of its premium features under set subscription plans for paying customers.
Wix
Wix offers you 7 premium plans, ranging from $5 to $35 per month. The higher the plan, the more tools you get. Just note that you can still use Wix for free, but it will display a Wix advertisement on your website. This will be removed when you upgrade to the $11 a month Combo paid plan.
The premium plans include the drag & drop website building interface (no coding required), over 500 templates for you to choose from, hosting services, and dedicated support team (note that if you sign up to either of their VIP plans, you get dedicated support services from their VIP support team). if you want an eCommerce store, then you need the eCommerce plan ($16.50 / month).
WordPress
Since WordPress is a free open-source platform, the only thing you need to have your own domain name and web hosting to install it. This can be purchased from many different providers. The “official” hosting service at WordPress.com has a limited free version and a low-cost Personal edition, both of which limit your site to basic blogging and informational pages.
Our recommendation is to try our Managed WordPress H
2. User Experience (Ease of Use)
Most beginners don’t want to spend too much time learning new skills. Both Wix and WordPress allow you to create websites without learning to code.
Wix
To create a website with Wix First, you sign up. Then, you choose what type of website you want to create. Once you choose your type, you can select from all the relevant templates. And once you choose your template, you’re dumped straight into the Wix Editor where you can easily change text, images, and more. And once you’re done, all you do is click Publish to make your website live.
The whole process is simple and undeniably easy for beginners….assuming you like Wix’s pre-built templates and don’t want to customize things too much.
WordPress
The WordPress user experience is extremely different from Wix. Firstly the setup process takes longer, as you need to purchase a domain name, register with a hosting service, and install WordPress (this is extremely easy and can be done via your hosting service in usually just one click). Only then will you find yourself within the WordPress dashboard of your website and ready to choose and customize a theme.
WordPress comes with a visual editor to write your content and theme customizer which allows you to edit your theme properties in a WYSIWYG environment. However, by default WordPress does not come with a built-in drag and drop page builder. Many premium themes include a drag-and-drop builder, or there are numerous page builder plugins that you can purchase. Most themes will enable you to customize certain elements of your site on the front end using the Customizer. Many themes provide extensive customization options via the Theme Options Panel. This is another straightforward option if you want to make universal changes across your website.
Wix is clearly the winner here. However, once you have become accustomed with the basics of the WordPress dashboard, it won’t take long until you are easily accessing its range of features
3. Design Options(Templates and Themes)
Both of these website builders begin with the idea of a template (for Wix) or theme (for WordPress). Effectively, these are very similar – they provide a base design from which you can build a website with the content you want to include. However, they emphasise the importance of themes to different extents.
Wix
You can select from more than 400 HTML5 Mobile-Ready templates on the Wix Templates directory, all of which are divided in their appropriate categories. Templates range from simple Blog Themes, to more sophisticated designs for restaurants, health industries, and online stores. Users can preview templates before making a final choice, however there is a significant catch with this.
Wix limits its users to one template per website, meaning once you have made your final decision on a template, it is final and you won’t be able to choose another one. Wix also imposes limitations towards custom modifications using HTML and CSS, as all design management is done through the drag & drop interface. Choose a template that you know is going to be a good fit for your websit
WordPress
WordPress on the other hand doesn’t come with an in-built drag & drop interface (although it can be added using custom plugins), but makes up for it with a huge library of free themes, and the ability for website owners to purchase a premium theme from marketplaces such as ThemeForest — typically a premium theme will range anywhere from $30 to $75 per theme.
Majority of new WordPress theme releases are built to support modern web browsers and come integrated with modern features, like responsive design, search engine optimization, and custom homepage designs for business purposes. Besides that, WordPress is a self-hosted platform which means that you can make any kind of customizations as you like, there are no limitations.
If you’re considering a WordPress website, be sure to check out our WordPress themes or templates, including Business Edition, Restaurant Edition, and LawFirm Edition.
4. Plugins and Apps(Functionality)
Wix and WordPress both provide a wide assortment of apps and plugins to enable users to add extra features and functionality to their websites
Wix
Since Wix is not an open source website builder, you cannot freely modify the platform or tools. Only their own in-house developers can create tools and adjust the platform.
You still have really good creative control over the design of your Wix website, and you won’t have to worry about any tools not functioning, or your website breaking.
All the tools provided to you by Wix are closely monitored and tested within its own operating environment. This means that you won’t have to worry about any technical aspects of your website as this is all taken care of by Wix.
However, this also means that if you want to insert non-Wix widgets, it won’t be easy (or possible in some instances, depending on the tool). But Wix does have an App Market where you can find extra tools that have been configured specifically to work with your Wix site, with simple one click installations.
WordPress
WordPress is an open source platform so you can pretty much modify your website however you want to as you have full access to the codes (assuming you are a decent coder, or if you are working with one).
WordPress plugins let you add new functionality or tweak existing functionality without needing to know any code. Currently, WordPress has over 53,000 different free plugins that you can install, with thousands more premium plugins. Beyond that, you (or a developer) are free to add any custom code to your website, which gives you even more flexibility. Unlike Wix, you don’t have to contend with any code limitations.
WordPress knocks things out of the park when it comes to flexibility and customizations.
eCommerce
If you are looking to create an eCommerce store then either Wix or WordPress could be the solution for you.
Wix.
If you want to create an online store with Wix, then you will need to opt for one of the Business eCommerce plans, which start at $18 a month (billed annually).
Wix provides over 100 storefront template to help you design a professional and beautiful shop. These templates can all be customized in the Wix Editor, enabling you to create a store that reflects your brand.
Wix includes a manual shipping and tax calculator with the option to set up a real-time calculator powered by USPS. However, unlike WordPress, automatic tax calculation and abandoned cart recovery are not supported.
My other gripe with Wix is the limited display options. In particular, there’s no keyword search for products, and you cannot move the filter bar away from the left corner. These are subtle limitations, but it was enough to make me ultimately move away from Wix for an e-commerce store.
WordPress
Compared to Wix, the WordPress e-commerce system, known as WooCommerce, gives you much more control of your online store. You can choose from a huge range of templates and fully customize how your products are displayed and organized.
Using extensions, you can add many features Wix is unable to support, including a product search bar, tax calculator and abandoned cart recovery. In all, there are almost 300 WooCommerce extensions that add extra tools and integrations to your online store.
WooCommerce is completely free to install — another attractive element considering Wix’s $17 per month fee. On the other hand, some WooCommerce extensions can get expensive, so you might still be paying a lot for an advanced online store.
If you want to build a proper online store and be ready for growth, then WordPress offers much more flexibility, freedom, and choices when compared to Wix.
Conclusion
You should now have a very clear picture of the features and user-experience that Wix and WordPress provide. Both solutions have pros and cons, and both will enable you to create stylish and user-friendly websites.
Ultimately, the decision between Wix and WordPress should be based on your needs, experience, and budget, as well as the needs of your project. However, although Wix appears to initially be a better fit with beginners, if you are looking to create a successful online blog or business that will grow over time, then we would always recommend WordPress.