WordPress Vs. Wix
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WordPress outperforms Wix in terms of flexibility, allowing users of all skill levels to create a more sophisticated website and customize it to their liking. Wix, on the other hand, sacrifices flexibility, so that beginners and non-programmers without advanced requirements can launch their websites in no time.
Since WordPress and Wix serve different users, the final decision ultimately depends on your experience and purpose in starting a website.
WordPress or Wix: Which is Better?
WordPress is a content management system best suited for those who value flexibility and versatility. It doesn't come with great features out of the box, but you can customize it through thousands of themes and plugins. Get your website idea off the ground with the powerful, flexible platform of WordPress.
Wix is best for beginners who want to build a simple website that doesn't require advanced features. It's an entry-level tool with an intuitive drag-and-drop editor that allows you to create a website in minutes without a lot of technical know-how. Create your own website today and let Wix do the heavy lifting.
A review of the best website builders
Website builders provide the tools you need to bring up simple or versatile websites without touching any code. However, it can be difficult to decide which website builder will suit your needs if you have no idea what to look for.
With years of experience, I've learned about the key differentiators that you should look for when shopping for a website builder. This in-depth review of the top four website builders will help you focus on the best platform to set up your website for future success. Both WordPress and Wix made it into the top 4.
WordPress wins
Full data ownership: Since WordPress is open source software, nobody will hold you by your neck. Therefore, the transfer from one host to another is not complicated. They own all of your files and can take them to any hosting provider that supports WordPress.
Site transfers are made easy with built-in WordPress import and export tools that you won't find in Wix. In addition, Wix Sites are only hosted on Wix servers. Hence, transferring your website files to a self-hosted WordPress requires a complex, cumbersome process.
Limitless design possibilities: WordPress is generous to errors when giving users the opportunity to design their websites. Free themes are available to get you started. But if you're looking for more features, there are over 5,000 premium third-party themes to choose from, which range from $ 25 to $ 299.
You can also hire a developer to create a custom theme with unconventional features to make your website stand out. The best part is that you can easily switch from one topic to another, unlike Wix which doesn't allow you to do so once your website goes online.
No WordPress sponsored ads: WordPress is free, but you need to purchase a domain name and hosting plan for it to work. Once your website is up and running, you can monetize it however you want. In the meantime, Wix websites are free, and most of the basic plans are littered with ads that are beyond your control. Wix will not remove these ads until you upgrade to higher award plans.
Unmatched customizability: WordPress is an open source software and immediately offers great flexibility. If you're a programmer or someone who knows how to code, you can tweak the underlying code of WordPress to make a website exactly the way you envision it. Beginners can also customize their WordPress sites however they want.
WordPress lets you change your website in ways that Wix can't, from switching templates after launching the website to improving website security to adding forms to blog posts.
And even if you love Wix for its drag-and-drop builder, WordPress has something better with plugins from third-party site builders like Elementor or Divi.
Massive selection of plugins: WordPress beats Wix because it has the most plugins to improve the functionality of your website. Whether you want to add a table, collect your visitors' emails, or create a landing page, there is always a plugin to suit your needs. There are over 55,000 free and premium plugins to choose from, making it easy to improve your website without manipulating any code.
Robust blogging platform: Even if WordPress has developed into a full-fledged content management system, WordPress does not forget its roots and continues to be the platform of choice for everything to do with blogs. It offers the same blogging features as Wix, but with advanced features that you can only find in WordPress.
This includes a native comments section where you can manage your readers' comments without the need for additional plugins. You also have complete control over the visibility of posts and pages as you can set them to be public, private or password protected.
The new Gutenberg editor has its shortcomings, but the ease of adding, dragging and dropping various items without scrolling up or down is unmatched.
Better search visibility: WordPress gives you more control so your website is more likely to rank in search engine results. Slow website? You can improve the performance of your website by employing speed improvement strategies.
WordPress users can also install Yoast, the world's most popular SEO plugin. With this tool, over five million websites can improve the appearance of their articles in search results, insert internal links and redirect old pages to new ones. All of this will help improve their rankings in the long term.
Ahrefs, a leading all-round SEO tool, once analyzed 6.4 million websites. The results show that WordPress websites have higher domain authority, backlinks, and more traffic than their Wix counterparts.
Scalable e-commerce functionality: WordPress lacks built-in e-commerce features, but you can easily integrate it with a powerful e-commerce solution like WooCommerce.
Used by over 40% of ecommerce websites, this plugin can help you view products, fulfill orders, receive payments in multiple currencies, and automatically calculate taxes by region.
To further improve functionality, you can also install additional WooCommerce plugins. For example, you can connect your store to a print-on-demand service that processes the orders on your behalf.
There's also the free HubSpot for ecommerce plugin that can be used to keep track of your visitors and lead them into your sales funnel.
WordPress losses
No telephone support available: WordPress relies on its global community of volunteers. As a result, there is no customer service hotline to contact if you run into technical problems.
However, over 39% of the websites in the world are powered by WordPress. Regardless of the problem you're facing, you can likely find a troubleshooting guide on support forums, Slack channels, or on YouTube. But having to look for solutions is annoying.
The costs of creating and maintaining a website vary: WordPress can be downloaded for free. It can't stand on its own, however, so you'll need to pay for a domain name and hosting plan before you can launch a website.
A custom domain name starts at $ 10 per year, while a hosting plan starts at as low as $ 2.95 per month. When your website has a lot of traffic, you will have to pay more for a hosting plan to avoid downtime with every spike in traffic.
The additional costs include premium themes and plugins to improve the functionality of your website. In total, you can spend anywhere from $ 200 to a few thousand each year.
Steep learning curve: WordPress is not the most intuitive and it takes time to understand. There is no official guide, so you have to learn everything yourself.
For example, WordPress' Gutenberg editor isn't as intuitive as Wix's drag-and-drop editor. The WYSWYG framework (What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get) is missing. So you need to preview the page you are working on to see what it will look like after it is published.
DIY security and maintenance: Maintaining the website is not child's play for WordPress users. The WordPress software itself carries out updates from time to time. It is your responsibility to make sure you are using the latest version.
You'll also need to manually update themes and plugins to fix bugs and prevent them from affecting site performance.
You can manage backups and security yourself with the help of plugins. In exchange for fixed monthly fees, you can outsource all of these to a WordPress maintenance service or choose a managed WordPress host to do it all for you.
Wix wins
No upfront costs: Anyone can register and create a Wix website for free. If you want more functionality and want to remove the Wix ads, you can upgrade to one of the Wix website plans or a business and ecommerce plan.
Unlike WordPress, which is 100% free but comes with an additional cost, Wix pricing is a lot easier.
You don't have to guess anything as the pricing page has all the details. For example, the Unlimited and VIP plans are $ 12.50 and $ 24.50 per month, respectively (billed annually). Both come with a custom domain, unlimited bandwidth, a free SSL certificate, and built-in analytics.
If you'd like more features like chatbots or event booking, you can also add free or premium Wix apps with prices between $ 3 and $ 20.
Effortless registration: Although the software itself is free, building a website with WordPress requires the additional steps of domain registration and signing up with a hosting provider. With Wix, signing up is as easy as signing in with your Facebook or Google account. Then you can start building your website right away, either through the editor or with the help of an AI tool.
Intuitive drag and drop editor: Wix sacrifices flexibility so that users can create websites quickly and without learning. Beginners can easily customize their website templates using Wix's drag-and-drop interface, which lets you move things around and add as many features as you want.
In contrast to WordPress' Gutenberg editor, Wix works with a WYSWYG paradigm (WYSWYG). So all you see is exactly what will be shown once the website goes online.
If you're short on time, Wix's Artificial Design Intelligence (ADI) tool can automatically create a website based on your answers to a series of questions.
Large selection of free templates: Wix offers the most free pre-built templates of any website builder. With over 500 templates, it's easy to choose one that best fits your brand, whether you're a nonprofit, photographer, small business, or school.
Each template has built-in elements that you can drag and drop anywhere. The editor also gives you the freedom to convert the background image to a video, choose a different color palette, change the font, and tweak other elements that are important to you.
Hand-picked in-house and third-party apps: The more than 250 apps from Wix are the counterpart to the plugins from WordPress, which improve the functionality of a website. WordPress plugins may be more numerous than Wix plugins, but you have to search through many clunky plugins before you can find what you need.
At Wix, however, quality is more important than quantity. Everything in the Wix App Market has already met the Wix guidelines so you don't have to go through a verification process. In addition, all of the apps integrate well with Wix, so you don't have to worry about incompatibility issues.
Multiple customer support channels: Unlike WordPress, which mostly relies on its support forums, Wix takes a more personal approach to customer service.
Users can request a callback through the Wix website so that a company representative can speak to them directly. That way, you don't have to waste time fixing the problem yourself and leaving it to a real person.
If telephone support is not available, Wix users can also contact them by email or search the Wix online help for relevant articles and video tutorials.
Easy migration from WordPress to Wix: If you've jumped on the bandwagon but soon found out that WordPress doesn't offer the simplicity you're looking for, Wix has an easy way out. All you need to do is enter the WordPress blog url into Wix's blog import tool. One click will convert your WordPress blog into a Wix blog.
This import tool only allows you to select the blogs that you want to move to Wix without having to create anything from scratch.
Hands-off security and maintenance: The benefit of hosting your website in a closed ecosystem like Wix is that the technical team does all the maintenance and security. This means you don't have to lift a finger to create backups, update apps or close security loopholes.
All updates are implemented and provided by the in-house technical team, so you won't even notice that an update is taking place. In contrast, WordPress doesn't do any of these tasks out of the box, so you're basically alone.
Wix losses
There is a lack of transparency on the price side: At first glance, Wix's pricing page seems to be showing how much you would pay for each premium plan each month. However, the prices are actually what any plan would cost if you took the annual subscription.
If the monthly cost of the Unlimited plan is $ 12.50 per month, you're actually paying $ 150 upfront. If you choose to pay monthly, the cost is significantly higher.
It wouldn't have been a problem if Wix had placed a toggle button that allows users to compare prices when billed monthly or annually. To be fair, there's a disclaimer below that says the prices shown are for annual subscriptions, but the text is so small that you won't notice it right away.
Limited flexibility: Wix may be easier to use than WordPress, but that comes at the cost of flexibility.
For example, the free templates have sufficiently good designs for inexperienced builders, but are restrictive for more advanced website builders. Not to mention, once the website launches, you won't be able to switch to any other template.
Wix isn't open source either, so programmers and other tech-savvy users won't be able to tinker with the underlying code. Finally, the 250+ apps in its App Market can improve site functionality, but they pale in comparison to the thousands of WordPress plugins.
Insurmountable blog features: Wix was not made for bloggers. So if written content is the main attraction of your website, choose WordPress instead.
While Wix has basic blogging features like categories, tagging, cover photo, and post scheduling, it lacks other important elements like native comments.
For reader comments, Wix only offers Facebook comments, which are much more susceptible to a wide variety of spammers. Also, the Wix blog editor doesn't have the WordPress Gutenberg drag-and-drop functionality, so the formatting options are limited.
The ad-free website isn't available on all plans: A free Wix website contains Wix ads and a Wix subdomain. You don't pay anything, but it's not good for branding. If you already have a custom domain, you can connect it to Wix for $ 4.50 per month (billed annually). However, the Wix ads remain at this level. You can only remove the Wix sponsored ads by upgrading to more expensive plans.
Difficult to get out of: Wix websites are hosted on their infrastructure. So if you build a website with them, it will get stuck in their hosting for life. It also lacks WordPress' import and export functionality, making moving your website files from Wix to WordPress difficult.
To give you an idea, your posts will be imported in the form of RSS files, while your pictures will have to be transferred manually. For most users, this complex procedure is enough to keep them from switching.
Inferior built-in SEO functionality: Wix isn't a terrible choice if all you're getting is direct or social media traffic on your website. But when it comes to search engine visibility, Wix lags behind WordPress.
Wix is incapable of sniffing from a technical SEO standpoint as it relies on Javascript to display its URLs, making it difficult to crawl. The Javascript also leads to bloated code, which results in slower pages.
Also, Wix doesn't have the basic features to set up a website for SEO success like Hreflang and AMP support. Users have limited control over redirects and are not allowed to edit the site's robots.txt and sitemap. It is also not possible to create shorter URLs. So you stay at https://www.neilpatel.com/.post/ keyword instead of the more concise and user-friendly https://www.neilpatel.com/keyword.
Comparison of the top website builders
Whether you are a tech-savvy geek or a technophobic looking to get into website building, there is a website builder that will suit your needs. Here are my four main recommendations:
- Wix – Best for general use
- Weebly – Best for beginners
- Shopify – Best for ecommerce
- WordPress – Best for Content Management
In terms of Wix and WordPress, Wix can get you online quickly if you're a beginner who needs to throw up a leg to build your first website. The ease of use of the drag-and-drop editor is second to none, while the wide variety of free templates can give you a professional looking website without breaking the bank.
For high-traffic websites that generate income from content, WordPress remains the best content management system.
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