Looking for a better way to set up and manage your website? Learn about the benefits of using WordPress vs Wix by comparing the two platforms. WordPress owns more than 30% of websites today, it is the most popular site builder. However, there are also other options for building a website.
Now the question arises, which one is better for building a website? In this article, we are going to explain some points to make the differences clear.
Pricing
The WordPress software is open source, and it is available for free to everyone. However, the platform is free but you need your domain and web hosting to install it. The cost of a WordPress website starts increasing as you start using premium WordPress plugins. There are thousands of free themes available on WordPress which can be used to reduce cost and if you want to add any feature, you can directly add using WordPress plugins.
Wix offers the basic website builder plan for free. However, there are two major issues – First, it adds Wix branded ads on the top as well as the bottom of your website. Secondly, you cannot use a custom domain name for your website, your website URL will be – username.wix.com/sitename
Each Wix premium plan has different storage and bandwidth limitations. You can pay monthly or choose a yearly plan.
Customization and Design
WordPress and Wix allow you to create attractive, best-appearing websites. but the question is, which one has more customizable design features?
WordPress is simply great when it comes to website design and customization. Once you learn it, you can create any type of website you want for your target audience. Using WordPress, you have more than thousands of free or premium website themes and designs. The drag-and-drop features available with WordPress allow you to customize any aspect of your page.
When it comes to design, Wix has more than 500 attractive pre-made templates. These are responsive designs written in HTML. You can change the layout of the templates and customize the designs using various tools. Unfortunately, with Wix, you cannot change the template once it’s selected. Even though you can customize it, you are stuck with it forever.
If you compare Wix to WordPress, you have limited customization options.
Easy to use
You do not need to have any coding skills to use Wix or WordPress.
WordPress has a built-in visual editor, you can customize themes using the theme customizer. It is easy to install a theme using WordPress. Even though WordPress doesn’t come with a built-in page builder, you have the option of availing of drag-and-drop page builders such as Elementor. This makes the web page-building process, quite convenient
Creating a basic website with Wix is simple. All you have to do is visit their website and create an account. Once you are signed in, Wix will ask you the kind of website you want to create and give you certain options. Then, you have the option of letting Wix ask you some questions and get an automatically designed website. Alternatively, you can choose a Wix template yourself.
Blogging
WordPress started as a blogging platform and evolved into a full website builder. Today it powers over 30% of all websites. It has all the blogging features you’ll need like a native commenting system and all other advanced features that are missing from Wix.
Wix allows you to easily add a blog section to your website. It has all the basic blogging features you’ll commonly use. Such as categories and tags, photos and videos, and archives. Comments on Wix blogs are slow and not as easy to manage as WordPress. Many users end up installing third-party commenting systems, It also lacks several features like backdating posts, and creating private posts.
Plugins and Apps
With both WordPress and Wix, you can add several features to your website, using third-party software. In WordPress, these are known as plugins, and In Wix, they are called apps.
WordPress has many free and paid plugins available. More than 40,000 free plugins allow helping you meet your needs for basic websites. However, if you are looking to run a more customized or high-end business website, you may require paid plugins.
Wix has over 250 apps available on its app market. Some of these apps are free or limited, but most of them will cost you to add premium functionality to your website. The charges may be a one-time fee or an ongoing monthly subscription.
While the number of apps as compared to WordPress is small, they are sufficient for your primary website requirements.
eCommerce Site
When you are building a website that can process online orders, you need more than just an attractive design, you also need specific functionalities.
WordPress makes it super easy to create your online store using WooCommerce, which is the most popular eCommerce platform in the world. There are also plenty of other eCommerce plugins available on WordPress that you can use to sell physical or digital goods and services.
Wix offers eCommerce with its paid plans. This means users with the free plan cannot run their eCommerce store on Wix without upgrading to a paid plan. If you choose to use Wix Payments, then they charge 2.9% of the transaction amount. As you sell more products, this processing fee becomes a substantial amount.
Page Speed
WordPress sites typically do not have problems with page load speed, but If your WordPress website loads slowly, you can use Google’s page speed insights to diagnose the problem. It will show how fast your web pages load, as well as how well the site performs overall on both mobile and desktop devices.
Wix has had a long history of using a lot of client-side Javascript, which leads to code bloat. This tends to make it impossible for search engines to crawl site links and index content.
Although Wix is taking action to improve page speed for its customers, WordPress gives its users more control over the process.
Customer Support
WordPress is free and open-source, they don’t include customer support— though sometimes if you pay for a theme or plugin, the creators will include support as part of the cost.
Wix includes phone, chat, and email customer support in all of their packages— and in the more expensive plans, you can get VIP Support.
Also, read 10 Fastest WordPress Themes to Improve Website SEO
