Wix and WordPress are two of the most popular tools used to build websites. However, they take on absolutely dissimilar approaches. While Wix is recognized as a regular website builder, it is WordPress that functions more like a Content Management System (CMS). So, gaining an understanding of their innate differences is pivotal in making the right decision to choose the website builder that is perfect for you.
What is Wix?
It is an all-encompassing platform that permits you to develop a website from the outset, all by yourself, without the requirement of any coding skills. It is promoted as a perfect website builder for beginners, which is backed by 24X7 customer support.
The whole process of building a website and making it live is quite straightforward. You need to visit the Wix website, sign up, and use the website builder to create a fully functional website in a very short time span. You can furthermore add an e-commerce module in case you need one.
Wix allows you to create different kinds of standard websites, for example, personal project websites, business websites, e-commerce stores, blogs, portfolios, and more.
Currently, Wix has more than 190 million users.
What is WordPress?
It is the most sought-after website builder that is open-source and comes with a splendid range of useful features. WordPress needs to be installed on a web server before you can use it. Following this, you can fabricate web pages and manage them effortlessly. With WordPress, you can also install various readily available themes, interchangeable designs, numerous plug-ins, loads of in-built features, and an impressive content management system and put all of them into effect.
WordPress does not put any limitations on the types of websites you wish to create. It allows you to create simple single-page websites, business websites, e-commerce stores, blogs, portfolios, and so on.
Wix vs WordPress – Overview
Before diving into specific details of the differences between the two website builders let us talk over their basic, underlying theories. In essence, the comparison between Wix and WordPress is to find the right balance between the two key things that are as follows:
- To what extent is the website builder accessible to beginners? This also considers how easily a visually appealing and functioning website can be created by someone who is not a web developer.
- How much flexibility is provided in terms of customization? This means the level of customization offered while creating a website as per individual needs and preferences.
Wix gives up some of its flexibility to create an easy, functional website-building experience for novices. On the contrary, WordPress signs away some of its user-friendliness for the purpose of making you able to fully customize the website.
Key Difference Between Wix and WordPress?
The most noticeable difference between the two lies in the fact that WordPress is a standalone software that involves a preliminary installation on a web server controlled by a third party. Once this is done, WordPress becomes ready to use.
In contrast, Wix offers a website creation tool or service that helps develop and manage your website within its own bounds. Wix, itself, takes care of the usual requirements of hosting and other technical nitty-gritty.
The comparison between Wix versus WordPress is broken down into 6 categories that are discussed as follows:
1. Which platform gives you more ease and comfort to build a website?
Wix
In terms of the ease of creation, Wix wins the battle hands down. It renders an excellent solution to create a simple yet visually appealing website.
To start building a website with Wix, you need to register for free. Once the registration is done, you will need to proceed by selecting the type of website that you would like to create.
Next, you can choose the layout of your website from the available relevant templates. After choosing the template, you will be directed to the Wix editor which allows you to modify images, text, and more. Finally, all you need to do is make the website live by just clicking on the “Publish” button.
So you see, the entire process is undoubtedly easy for starters.
WordPress
It needs some elementary steps to be performed. Before setting yourself in motion, you are required to sign up, arrange for web hosting, and obtain your domain name. Nowadays, this process is simplified and can be pulled off in 5 to 10 minutes flat.
Once your hosting service provider gets WordPress installed, you are free to select a theme and customize the overall look of your website.
You can opt for either free or paid themes having pre-added content which only needs to be edited as per your requirements.
Although website creation through WordPress is not a simple task as Wix, still it is somewhat easy for non-developers to bring a functional, visually pleasing website into being with the help of WordPress.
2. How much are you in charge of the functionality of your website?
Wix
Given that you want to include features and functionalities to your Wix website, you can take recourse to its integrated app market. It offers you remarkable flexibility. But currently, there are only 288 apps in the Wix App Market that significantly fall short compared to what you get in WordPress.
In addition to that, Wix offers a very limited scope to make code tweaks for your website. Even if Wix allows you to put custom codes, it is just in “sandboxed iFrame” which in turn also has several restrictions.
WordPress
WordPress is quite flexible and offers several elevating features to users.
Firstly, WordPress plug-ins enable you to introduce new features and functionalities or improve the existing ones on your website without any need to code. There are currently 53,000 free ready-to-install WordPress plug-ins. You even got a few thousand more with the premium WordPress plans.
Following plug-ins categories are worth mentioning that you can incorporate into your WordPress website:
- Social media
- Advertising management
- Contact forms
- Quizzes
- Iframes
3. How is your data controlled on each platform?
Even though for beginners, it may not be identified as an important consideration, but data ownership anyway will turn into a major determining factor while you zero in on the right platform.
Data ownership alludes to things like:
- Is it possible for you to get a copy of your website content?
- Is it possible for you to move content to a different website builder?
With regard to data ownership, WordPress is an outright winner as against Wix.
Wix
Directly from its in-house knowledge base, an official statement from Wix on data ownership refers to the fact that all content pertaining to a website is hosted solely on the servers used by Wix. It is not possible to transfer the data somewhere else.
Especially, embedding or exporting files, webpages, or sites created through Wix editor to another external host or destination is impossible. This is a very big limitation of Wix as far as data ownership is concerned.
Although there are a few third-party tools that come up with certain workarounds for migrating your website from Wix to WordPress, still, you need the expertise of developers to execute this activity.
WordPress
WordPress allows you to have absolute control of your data. The whole user data can be downloaded or manipulated on your website. Plus, you can export or import WordPress users since you have total sway over everything.
4. What is the cost of creating and managing a website?
Easy, monthly pricing plans are offered by Wix. These enable you to choose how much exactly you need to pay. When it comes to WordPress, things can be a little more confusing.
It’s quite difficult to pick a clear winner among the two when it comes to the affordability of plans. Wix has a flat month-wise billing. While in the long term, WordPress is more likely going to cost you less when compared to Wix.
Wix
The monthly pricing strategy is laid out in the form of two sets of plans. They primarily depend on whether you have opted for an additional e-commerce store for your website or not.
Mainstream Wix sites come with the following pricing options:
Also, Wix offers a free plan. However, if you opt for it, you will not be able to make use of your personal domain names. It keeps on displaying Wix ads at the same time, which is also a complete turn-off.
WordPress
WordPress carries just two inescapable fixed cost liabilities.
- Hosting – Shared hosting comes cheapest at an annual fee of $50. But, high-end, well-managed WordPress hosts typically will cost you no less than $30 per month.
- Domain name – The cost of acquiring a domain name is generally an annual charge of $10.
Apart from these two outlays, you might be keen on buying a few premium plans consisting of themes, plug-ins. Although, they are optional to make a WordPress site run, still, every so often, they render lots of beautiful design templates and better functionality and support.
5. What about the maintenance of a website with each platform?
Wix has a closed ecosystem. So it is not very great as far as flexibility and data ownership are concerned. But, the most significant benefit you can avail of Wix is that it totally removes your involvement in taking care of your website’s security and maintenance.
In the case of WordPress, you have two options – either handle these tasks yourself or outsource them to a professional host manager that offers robust security and maintenance.
Wix
Wix does the whole lot on your behalf. Never do you need to invite headaches for updates or security risks.
WordPress
You need to be in charge of security and software backups and updates. Obviously, this does not essentially mean that you have to carry out these activities yourself. You may resort to several options such as:
- Use plug-ins to boost security
- Use plug-ins to ensure timely backups
- Choose a managed host
- Hire a professional maintenance service
6. Which platform is better for SEO?
This topic may generate quite a few differences of opinion. While some may argue SEO is more effectively performed by Wix, others may vouch for WordPress. Nonetheless, both the solutions espouse best practices when it comes to on-page SEO.
The following capabilities are offered by both of them:
- You can change meta descriptions, webpage titles, and H1-H6 tags.
- You can generate sitemaps to effectuate easier and quicker web crawling.
- You can include alt tags in graphics and images.
- You can make use of standardized short and friendly URLs.
- You can incorporate mobile responsiveness.
- You can establish a connection with the following:
- Bing Webmaster Tools
- Google Analytics
- Google Search Console
When it comes to off-page SEO, the precise association of backlinks with the type of platform is inconsequential. But, there is indeed one area where WordPress reigns over Wix. It is endowed with the ability to deliver more control.
This takes in the aspects of your website loading time and several other advanced capabilities such as indexing, crawling or blocking. All these aspects have a direct influence on your website’s SEO and rankings in major SERPs.
The following pie diagrams show how many domains get organic traffic based on research conducted by AHREFS.
One way or the other, the vital thing about SEO is to put less emphasis on the platform type. Instead, you should focus more on the published content quality, social media promotions, and quality of backlinks.
Pros and Cons of Wix
Pros
- All things integral to building a website take place with Wix only. You are not required to leave the site domain and go elsewhere to put up your website.
- You need not be concerned about technical stuff.
- Wix comes with a wide-ranging array of powerful features.
- You can incorporate e-commerce into your website.
- Wix has a built-in ADI module that can help bring your website to fruition with the help of AI.
- It is very easy to get going.
- You have 24X7 customer support to guide you in creating your website.
- Wix offers a free plan in case you want to develop a test website.
Cons
- Wix does not extend absolute control to you when it comes to handling your website. In the event you violate any rules, Wix holds the right to dismantle your website.
- Once you have selected the design or template of your website, you cannot modify it later.
- Wix’s blogging module is quite wobbly in its operation.
- In comparison with WordPress, it is much more costly in nearly all use cases.
Pros and Cons of WordPress
Pros
- The software is open-source and comes free of cost.
- It has numerous available themes and plug-ins.
- It is highly popular for providing an ideal CMS. Almost 40 percent of the websites on the World Wide Web run on WordPress.
- It supports a massive, encouraging community.
- It comes up with frequent updates for new features and functionalities.
- It has got an impressive and robust blogging module.
- It can be highly customized where you are in full charge of all aspects of your website.
Cons
- Albeit, the software is free of charge, the launch of a website through WordPress entails additional costs to set its domain and hosting afloat.
- If the hosting service provider you are collaborating with is not cooperative, you will end up doing most of the complex technical work on your own.
- The built-in themes work in different manners. So, gaining expertise in one does not necessarily mean you grasp the know-how to use others as well.
- There is no proper onboarding process, which makes it difficult for beginners to get going with WordPress.
Wix vs WordPress: Which is your pick?
Wix is most likely the preferred solution provided you want to create a basic website easily with little flexibility for customizing the website and you are not concerned about getting full data ownership. Bear in mind, in case you have plans to add in more flexibility afterward, Wix may lead to problems.
Nearly all users consider WordPress as the most effective solution. Even though it may not be friendly to beginners, still, one can easily understand the basics of how things work in a WordPress website. The presence of the huge WordPress community can make things even more plain-sailing.
WordPress is more flexible when it is all about integrating several features and functionalities into your website. This is because of its enormous plug-in ecosystem.
Moreover, with WordPress, you have total control over the ownership of your data.
Conclusion
It is quite clear that you have to choose the right website builder depending on your unique needs. In case you would like to have a robust solution that will last for years, WordPress is a perfect choice. Plus, if you need to consolidate more sophisticated features, WordPress can help you create compelling sites with multilingual support, blog sections, directories, FTP access, and complex databases.
On the other hand, Wix is more suitable when it comes to making small-scale, explanatory websites. Websites that talk about your industry, the products/services you offer and mention your contact details are the typical websites made using Wix.
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