When embarking on the journey to create your website, the plethora of available platforms might leave you contemplating the choice between Wix and WordPress. Wix, an effortlessly navigable website builder with hosting services, stands in contrast to WordPress, a comprehensive content management system renowned for its unparalleled flexibility. Delving into the Wix Vs. WordPress discussion requires a thorough understanding of critical factors.
This article endeavors to furnish a comprehensive comparative analysis of both platforms, facilitating an informed decision-making process. Be assured that upon completion of this read, any uncertainties regarding the distinctions between Wix and WordPress will be dispelled. Let’s commence our exploration.
1. How to Build A Website on Each Platform
Wix:
– Navigate to the official Wix website and register for a new account.
– Log in to access your freshly created Wix account.
- Initiate Site Creation:
– Click on “Create New Site” to commence the website creation process.
– Opt for a category that best suits the purpose of your website.
– Peruse Wix’s template library for suitable options.
– Opt for a template aligning with your website’s intended use.
- Tailor Your Template:
– Leverage the Wix Editor for template customization.
– Modify text, images, and other components effortlessly through the drag-and-drop interface.
- Section Addition and Editing:
– Incorporate and modify sections such as About Us, Services, Contact, etc.
– Fine-tune the layout and design according to your preferences.
- Feature Integration:
– Explore the App Market for supplementary features.
– Integrate elements like contact forms, social media buttons, and galleries.
- Site Preview:
– Utilize the preview option to assess the appearance of your site.
– Adjust elements as necessary to meet your expectations.
- Domain Connection:
– Connect your existing domain or acquire one through Wix.
- Upgrade and Publication:
– Consider upgrading to premium to unlock more features.
– Once content, publish your site for a global audience.
WordPress:
– Procure a domain from a reputable domain registrar.
– Choose a hosting provider and establish your hosting account.
– Utilize the one-click WordPress installation offered by most hosting providers.
– Follow the provided instructions to complete the WordPress installation.
– Access the WordPress dashboard to initiate theme customization.
– Navigate to “Appearance” and opt for “Themes,” selecting or adding a new theme.
- Theme Customization:
– Utilize the WordPress Customizer to adjust colors, fonts, and other theme settings.
– Personalize your site’s header, footer, and additional elements.
- Page and Post Creation:
– Incorporate essential pages like Home, About Us, Contact, etc.
– If applicable, craft and publish blog posts.
- Plugin Installation:
– Explore the WordPress Plugin Directory for diverse functionalities.
– Install plugins catering to SEO, security, contact forms, and more.
- Site Preview:
– Employ the preview function to evaluate your site’s appearance.
– Make refinements as needed to align with your expectations.
- Domain Connection:
– Establish a connection between your purchased domain and your WordPress site.
- Site Backup:
– Regularly backup your WordPress site to mitigate potential data loss.
- Site Publication:
– Once satisfied with customization, proceed to publish your site for a wider audience.
Remember, Wix is known for user-friendliness, while WordPress offers greater flexibility and control, particularly for those comfortable with a slightly more advanced learning curve.
2. Functionality
Every website requires specific functionality aligned with its purpose. Not every template or theme encompasses all features, prompting consideration for the potential extension of website functionality. Wix and WordPress offer extensions designed to integrate specific functionalities seamlessly.
Wix Apps:
To incorporate specific features into your Wix website, you must explore the Wix App Market for relevant applications.
Comparing Wix Website Editor Apps: Wix vs. WordPress
In terms of the number of available apps, Wix provides a curated selection with approximately 316 featured apps in the Wix App Market. Adding an app to your website is a straightforward process, and each app undergoes compatibility testing, ensuring reliability.
WordPress Plugins:
WordPress boasts a repository of over 60,000 plugins, encompassing both premium and free options, enabling the realization of nearly every conceivable functionality.
Comparing Plugin Functionality: Wix vs. WordPress
However, a potential challenge arises: not every plugin seamlessly integrates with the theme in use. Compatibility issues may emerge due to existing plugins, necessitating careful consideration in selecting and configuring plugins for optimal performance.
Moreover, WordPress allows the addition of custom code to tailor your website’s functionality, a capability not present in the Wix platform.
3. User-Friendliness
User-friendliness emerges as a pivotal factor, especially for beginners managing their websites independently. In this context, an accessible dashboard, minimal settings, and reduced complexities become paramount.
Dashboard Experience
Wix presents an appealing, user-friendly dashboard, contrasting with WordPress, which offers a functional yet less aesthetically pleasing dashboard. Notably, WordPress excels in blog management, a feature not as prominent in Wix’s design focus.
While WordPress entails a learning curve, requiring time for familiarity with plugins and themes, adding blog posts is remarkably straightforward and doesn’t demand any coding skills.
Conversely, Wix facilitates the creation of visually striking web pages with ease, eliminating the need for additional page builder plugins that WordPress might require.
Harnessing the full potential of WordPress necessitates a deeper understanding of the platform. Nonetheless, the robust and responsive WordPress community serves as a valuable resource for addressing various challenges.
Taking a holistic perspective on user-friendliness involves assessing problem resolution, growth facilitation, and website maintenance. Further exploration of these aspects will provide comprehensive insights in the subsequent sections of this article.
4. Design Options
Creating an engaging website involves careful consideration of design elements that cater to both user preferences and the perspective of web designers. WordPress and Wix, both prominent website-building platforms, present distinct design frameworks through themes and templates, respectively.
Wix Templates:
Wix boasts approximately 500 HTML5 templates, all fully responsive and categorized based on business types or website purposes such as eCommerce, Travel blog, Restaurant, Business, and Portfolio. While the drag-and-drop feature allows flexible element manipulation and customization, a noteworthy limitation arises once a template is selected. Wix users cannot switch templates after selection, requiring careful initial choice.
WordPress Themes:
In contrast, WordPress offers an expansive collection of over 20,000 premium and free themes, surpassing Wix’s template offerings. The abundance of themes facilitates a pleasant design process, offering users the flexibility to choose a theme that aligns with specific needs.
WordPress themes allow further customization through the addition of custom CSS, enabling users to tailor the design to their preferences. The significant advantage lies in the ability to easily switch between themes, providing users with unparalleled design control and exploration.
5. Ecommerce
Creating an eCommerce store on your website stands as one of the most effective ways to generate income, allowing for revenue generation even when offline. Now, let’s delve into the effectiveness of platforms in facilitating online store management.
Wix provides a predefined online store template for customization, and alternatively, a “Store” Page can be added to your chosen template.
Wix vs. WordPress:
Wix’s online store functionality relies on add-on apps, such as Wix Stores for store management, Wix Art Store for selling digital art, Online Store by Ecwid, eCommerce by POWr for initiating an online store, and Amazon by Wix for showcasing Amazon products. While additional apps offer diverse functionalities like booking or restaurant orders, Wix falls short in providing extensive options for online store management. Limitations in payment gateways and overall control make Wix less flexible and performant for eCommerce.
WordPress boasts numerous themes and plugins catering to online store functionality, with WooCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads being standout options.
WooCommerce, a prominent player in the eCommerce sector, is a free plugin available for download in the WordPress Plugin repository, with over 4 million active installations. It offers versatility for creating various eCommerce websites, facilitating the sale of both physical and digital goods. With worldwide shipping options and a choice of over 100 payment gateways, WooCommerce stands out as a robust solution.
Comparison – Wix vs. WordPress:
WooCommerce’s ecosystem includes add-ons that enhance its features, supported by a vibrant community offering extensive support and discussions. For those exclusively selling digital products, the Easy Digital Downloads plugin is a viable option. WordPress, with its myriad plugins catering to diverse business needs, excels in supporting online business growth, making it a superior choice over Wix for running an online store.
6. Blogging
Blogging stands out as a crucial online activity, witnessing a continual rise in participants. Beyond a mere pastime, blogging has evolved into a potential income stream through effective monetization strategies.
For those aiming to create a website with a primary focus on blogging, a careful evaluation of platforms is essential to weigh their respective advantages and disadvantages.
Integrating a blog into your website on Wix is straightforward using the “Blog” option within the “Page” menu. While Wix provides fundamental blogging features like categories, tags, images, videos, and archives, its use of Facebook comments for interaction and the limitation of a plain text editor with minimal formatting options are notable drawbacks. Wix falls short in delivering a comprehensive blogging experience, lacking essential features required for optimal functionality.
Renowned as a dedicated blogging platform before becoming a content management system (CMS), WordPress excels in offering an exceptional blogging environment.
Boasting all essential blog features, including content management, commenting, a reverse chronological index, a robust editor, widgets, and plugins, WordPress ensures a seamless blogging experience. The introduction of the Gutenberg editor further enhances the process, providing users with powerful and intuitive features for creating and managing blog content effortlessly.
7. The Editor
An integral aspect of any website builder lies in its editor, the pivotal space for crafting posts, refining pages, and shaping content.
Wix distinguishes itself with a visual editor employing drag-and-drop functionality, providing users with a distinctive editing experience. Every element on the page is editable through simple actions like moving, rearranging, or deleting with a single click. Edits are made visually and reflected in real time, eliminating the need to navigate away from the editing page. Wix ensures a seamless editing process where changes are immediately visible, simplifying the user experience.
WordPress has recently transitioned from its Classic Editor to the block-based Gutenberg editor, enhancing the editing landscape. Gutenberg introduced a block system, allowing users to insert various features effortlessly.
Particularly advantageous for blogging, Gutenberg facilitates the addition of text, images, headings, embedded videos, and more. It extends its utility to page creation, incorporating widgets to enhance sections and features. Unlike Wix, Gutenberg does not display live changes; users need to click the “preview” tab to view and assess the reflected alterations on a separate page.
8. Data Portability
In the realm of websites, data portability emerges as a critical feature, especially considering the likelihood of changing hosting providers. The ability to seamlessly transfer data without loss, automation feasibility, associated costs, and portability limitations are key considerations when making such decisions.
Wix:
While Wix simplifies site creation, transferring your site to another hosting provider proves challenging. Content crafted using the Wix Editor can only be hosted on Wix servers, as explicitly stated in their support documentation. The inability to export content elsewhere stands out as a significant drawback, marking a substantial limitation in Wix’s data portability.
WordPress:
WordPress, in contrast, grants users full content rights, facilitating easy data transfer when opting for a host change. Premium-managed WordPress Hosts like Nestify offer secure data migration with zero downtime. WordPress further empowers users with the ability to take backups and provides numerous plugins for effortless data export. In the realm of data portability, WordPress distinguishes itself by offering comprehensive flexibility and ease of transition.
9. Maintenance
Maintaining a website is a very essential part of managing a digital presence, akin to tending to a digital machine. The ease of maintenance and the responsible party for this task are pivotal considerations, with both Wix and WordPress offering distinct advantages and drawbacks in this realm.
Wix:
Wix streamlines the maintenance and security of your site, alleviating the need for your direct involvement. The responsibility for updates and addressing security vulnerabilities rests squarely with Wix, ensuring a hassle-free maintenance experience for users.
WordPress:
Contrastingly, WordPress places the onus of maintenance and security on the user. While it equips users with tools for these tasks, the active management of site maintenance falls within the user’s domain. Users must consistently install updates for plugins and themes, with the security of the site becoming their personal responsibility, a facet not directly managed by WordPress.
For those seeking a worry-free experience concerning security, maintenance, backups, and updates, opting for managed WordPress hosting solutions like Nestify can offer peace of mind.
10. Pricing
When embarking on website creation, pricing emerges as a pivotal factor that cannot be overlooked in the comparison of the two platforms. Understanding the cost implications is essential, considering that these services come at a price, and a transparent comprehension of expenses is crucial.
Wix Pricing:
Wix presents a structured pricing model with four tiers. The Combo Plan initiates at $13 per month, followed by the Unlimited Plan at $17 per month, the Pro Plan at $22 per month, and the VIP Plan at $39 per month. Calculated annually, Wix expenditures range from $156 to $468, contingent on the selected plan. These costs encompass hosting and a complimentary domain for the initial year.
Download link: iPhone
WordPress Pricing:
WordPress distinguishes itself with pricing flexibility, liberating users from a specific web host commitment. Opting for any web host is feasible, with costs varying widely. Entry-level hosts may charge less than $4 per month, while Managed WordPress hosting providers such as Nestify may require $8 per month.
The pricing diversity hinges on the type of hosting chosen—be it shared, managed, VPS, or cloud hosting—each offering unique benefits and corresponding pricing. Additionally, users must factor in expenses related to domain names, premium themes, and premium plugins, enhancing the complexity of the overall cost consideration.
Conclusion
In specific aspects, Wix emerges as a clear victor, outshining WordPress in terms of user-friendliness. However, certain drawbacks position Wix as a less favorable option, notably its inflexibility in template switching, presenting a noteworthy limitation.
Key concerns revolve around data portability and pricing. Wix’s lack of support for data export raises questions about the willingness to compromise data transferability. Contrastingly, WordPress stands out with unmatched functionality and adaptability, boasting an extensive array of themes, plugins, and robust community support, making it a compelling choice.
In the grand scheme, WordPress proves superior for long-term gains, while Wix may offer short-term advantages. The pivotal question remains: is your website envisioned for the short or long term? The answer serves as a guiding factor in selecting the platform that aligns with your goals.
FAQs
What is the primary difference between Wix and WordPress?
Wix is a versatile website builder that provides a user-friendly drag-and-drop interface catering to beginners. On the other hand, WordPress is a versatile content management system (CMS) that empowers users with greater customization and control over their websites that makes it suitable for beginners as well as advanced users.
Which platform is more suitable for e-commerce websites, Wix or WordPress?
Both Wix and WordPress can support e-commerce, but Wix is renowned for its simplicity, providing built-in e-commerce features suitable for small to medium-sized businesses. WordPress, with plugins like WooCommerce, is a robust choice for larger enterprises or those requiring extensive customization and scalability in their online stores.
In terms of design flexibility, which platform offers more options, Wix or WordPress?
Wix stands out for its intuitive drag-and-drop editor, allowing users to easily customize templates. However, WordPress excels in design flexibility, offering a vast array of themes and the ability to modify code directly, providing advanced users with unparalleled control over the look and feel of their websites.
