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WordPress Vs Wix
When speaking to clients, I am often asked which website development platform is better between WordPress and Wix.
My personal preference is definitely WordPress (WordPress.org the self-hosted version not WordPress.com the service). This article compares the usability, costs and more to help you decide which is best for you.
The Fundamental Difference
It might not make a huge difference to your decision making process, but the fundamental difference between WordPress.org and Wix is that Wix is a service which you subscribe to online. In contrast, WordPress is software which needs to be downloaded, installed and configured.
Ease of Use
Both WordPress and Wix are renowned for being user-friendly which is one the reasons why they are both so popular.
Wix has 100’s of prebuilt templates for you to use with simple drag & drop functionality which is great for someone with no website experience at all.
WordPress is a little more complicated than Wix and it will take you a little more time to get around the interface. However, it is still easy to use and has so many more options for you to customise your site.
As far as ease of use is concerned, Wix definitely wins this one. However, in my opinion, that comes at a high price as you have to have everything with Wix – hosting, domain, website etc and if you want to move away from them in the future you have to build another website.
With WordPress the site is yours and you can host it wherever you want to without being tied to one company.
WordPress Vs Wix: Cost
The Wix template builder is free to use but you then need to subscribe to one of their monthly price plans which to be fair are pretty reasonable. With Wix you subscribe to everything in one place, so you pay Wix for your hosting, the theme and any site extensions and the site cannot be moved at a later date. There are also additional costs if you need any additional applications from the Wix Store.
With WordPress you can choose either a free template/theme or there are literally 1000’s of premium templates available at a relatively small cost (which are all customisable). The cost of WordPress therefore depends on the theme you choose and how many plugins you need. You will need to buy your domain and hosting separately but you have the freedom to choose whichever service is best for you, rather than being told where you have to host it.
Flexibility
Whilst Wix is very simple to use, this comes with disadvantages as previously mentioned. With Wix you can only do what they will let you do and you are tied to their hosting so it is not a flexible platform at all.
With WordPress you can literally do ANYTHING you want to do. There are thousands of plugins available to add functionality to the thousands of themes. You can also pay a developer to do some bespoke development if there’s something you can’t manage with a plugin. With Wix, bespoke development is not an option. You’re not tied to WordPress in any way, the website/code belongs to you so you can host your website wherever you want to, and you can make your website do literally anything you want it to.
SEO
Wix comes with templates and drag and drop functionality. This is not very SEO friendly compared to WordPress. With WordPress you can customise the entire site to make it optimised for search engines. You can also get free plugins which assist SEO even further, allowing you to customise your headings, images, title bar etc so that all of your keywords can be placed where it matters.
WordPress wins hands down from an SEO perspective.
Support
Both Wix and WordPress have extensive information online to help you. Wix does have a contact number – but this is for their team in America only – they do not have any UK-based support.
WordPress have a huge community of developers and there is no shortage of help out there. We always include WordPress training with our business websites so that you know how to make changes yourself if you want to.
WordPress vs Wix: Conclusion
Wix is an easier platform to use and is a cheaper DIY option to create a website – but it is much more restrictive.
WordPress is much more comprehensive, it’s a lot more SEO friendly and you can do literally anything you want with your website. It does require more knowledge though, and you should really invest in a developer if you want a professional business website.
Looking at all of the features of each platform, in my opinion, WordPress is definitely our preferred choice.
If you need a new website for your business or you’re struggling to be noticed online, please get in touch. We’d love to help.
