Today, there are so many website-building platforms available. Choosing the right one can feel really overwhelming.
Two of the big hits in this crowd are WIX and WordPress. If you’re new to the whole area of web design, it can be hard to figure out which of these two platforms is best for your project.
We have put together this handy guide to help you better understand WIX and WordPress and understand which system is ideal for your business website. After reading this article, you can analyze the substantial differences between the two, like:
- Considering the ease of use,
- Functionality,
- Value for money,
- Design flexibility and support.
On the internet, to solve this “problem,” you can find many tutorials that help you manage the creation of a website step-by-step.
From the use of themes to the insertion of a new article to installing plugins, each step has its own well-structured tutorial. It helps you to create an ad hoc site.
WIX vs. WordPress: what’s the main difference?
WIX is an easy-to-use, beginner-friendly drag-and-drop website builder. It has been chosen by many people who have no experience building a website and want to speed it up. With WIX, all you need to do is drag and drop content, images, videos, buttons, etc., using the graphical interface.
WordPress is an open-source, self-hosted content management system. To create a website, you need to install various software, themes, and plugins. WordPress is more powerful than WIX and allows you to create custom websites. Although it is not very cumbersome, you need some technical knowledge to get the most out of it.
Ease of use: which one has a higher learning curve?
When it comes to ease of use, the learning curve for WordPress is definitely steeper. Many people choose WordPress for its great flexibility, which often becomes difficult.
WordPress opens up your website to endless possibilities if you have any programming knowledge. You can modify almost anything and integrate advanced features. However, for this, you need advanced technical knowledge to make changes.
Alternatively, you can always hire an experienced developer.
While it has many limitations, WIX is specially designed and built to be easy for non-developers to use. You can learn how to use WIX much faster.
WIX is a What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get (WYSIWYG) website design. Therefore, all you have to do is drag and drop paragraphs, images, layout, shopping cart buttons, etc., anywhere on your website. You can also resize each episode with a few simple clicks.
As for WordPress, the downside is that whatever content you put into the editor, you won’t see how it looks “live” until you preview or publish the page.
Lately, however, many plugins have been made available called “page builders” that allow you to create pages and articles interactively using drag-and-drop systems. Thanks to this, we can simply drag and drop the widgets available in a sidebar and rearrange them easily. The difference with WIX is that, to have this functionality, you will need to install a plugin such as Elementor, visual composer, or similar.
WordPress itself, with the latest updates, integrates a new CMS very similar to a page builder called “Gutenberg,” although still immature.
Furthermore, by choosing WordPress, you will have to worry about purchasing domain and webspace, which, instead, are included in the WIX plans. This implies knowing how to choose the right hosting plan for your needs and having at least basic knowledge of how to manage your own webspace.
Design and customization: how creative can you get?
Design and customization are the strong points of WordPress. There is practically no limit to how you can customize your site. Remember, however, that it won’t be easy without a minimum of technical skills.
As long as you are comfortable with programming, WordPress allows you to change virtually any theme and even create new, totally customized, and unique ones.
WordPress has a selection of free templates or “themes” you can work on. But if you are serious about the aesthetics of your site, it is recommended that you buy one of the top options. WordPress has thousands of free and premium themes.
Premium WordPress themes cost between $25 and $299. They are the best option if you want a stylish, bug-protected, constantly updated theme.
On the other hand, WIX offers you a wide range of over 500 templates. All of these templates are categorized and come complete with sample content to easily get an idea of the result.
WIX has over 500 professionally designed and categorized themes.
Another cool thing is that each model will have built-in features relevant to the industry it is ranked in. This can save you time and effort trying to find something like a subscription form for your magazine site, for example.
You can access the code of a WIX model, but it is not recommended unless you are technically capable. You should customize what you need just by dragging and dropping in the editor.
If you don’t care about design and adaptation or you don’t have the time, you can use WIX ADI. This is an assisted design tool that (thanks to the use of artificial intelligence) will create your website automatically based on the answers you give to a questionnaire.
Apps and plugins: who has the best extras?
Plugins (WordPress) and apps (WIX) both have the same function – they allow users to add extra functionality to websites.
These add-ons may include functions such as:
- Adding Facebook or Twitter feeds to a website,
- Monitoring your SEO,
- Creating and publishing contact forms,
- Creating popups,
- Integrating with external platforms and much more.
WordPress is an open-source platform. This means that its codes are open to all to be used and modified. Any developer can use WordPress to create their own themes or plugins that others can purchase or download for free.
This is one of the main reasons the WordPress community has expanded to over 75 million websites. The most recent statistics tell us that around 35% of all websites on the internet are built with WordPress.
There are over 57,439 WordPress plugins that have been downloaded more than 1.5 billion times. These numbers can give you an idea of how large the WordPress community is.
However, the fact that WordPress is so large and accessible can create problems. The quality of these plugins may be excellent, or they may be junk. Therefore, you must check their quality and provide updates from this point of view.
WIX is not an open platform. It means that only its private development team can develop web development tools. As a result, WIX tools are fully integrated into the core of the website and are much less likely to be “holed up.”
If you run into any technical issues with the WIX apps, WIX will fix them for you.
Ecommerce: Which is best for Selling Online?
One of the main differences to consider when deciding between WordPress and WIX is that WIX has an integrated ecommerce platform. You will need to sign up for one of their dedicated ecommerce plans, and everything you need to sell online will be ready at your disposal.
WIX has three dedicated ecommerce plans with built-in sales features.
With WordPress, however, you will need to install an e-commerce plugin to be able to sell online. WooCommerce is the most popular option as it is free and highly professional. The latest update also made it much more like native e-commerce applications.
WooCommerce offers WordPress websites e-commerce features.
WIX ecommerce features are relatively advanced but cannot be compared to pure ecommerce platforms like Shopify.
WIX ecommerce has very limited functionality. It is recommended for anyone who wants to sell some product and doesn’t need a dedicated ecommerce platform.
Blog: Which Manages Blogging Features Best?
People want information, and you have to give the answers. You have to be the best solution. What is a blog? It is an intermediary tool to shorten the distance between those who seek and those who offer. You do this by offering your skills at no cost. Through the blog, you intercept user searches. This way, you find yourself. The blog is an investment.
Both WIX and WordPress offer full blogging support.
WIX offers basic blogging functionality: it supports articles, includes categories and tags, and provides a free media archive with images, videos, and GIFs.
WIX doesn’t include great comment handling, and you’ll likely need to use Facebook or Quora comments with their pros and cons. Conversely, WordPress has native comment handling.
However, to allow you to have a multi-author blog, you will need to install the WIX Blog app.
WordPress was born as a blogging platform. It offers blogging features like WIX. Besides, it adds others, including options to present, set a featured image, the ability to change the dates of the articles, set the articles as “private,” And have several authors with different roles.
SEO: is one more optimized than the other?
Before delving into which platform is best for Search Engine Optimization, let’s stop and try to understand what SEO actually is.
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of making changes to your site to increase your chances of being ranked higher in SERPs. No plugin or app will do this work for you. It’s good to remember.
The plugins or apps that you install on your site will only be used to modify or optimize some elements to make them more “attractive” to the engines. It helps to improve the information that will be displayed in the SERP. Magic plugins and apps don’t exist.
WordPress and WIX are similar in terms of SEO – it depends on the tools or plugins.
You need to install a plugin like Rank Math in WordPress. Rank Math is a great WordPress SEO plugin used by over 500,000 websites.
Yoast is also the number one SEO plugin for WordPress.
Rank Math is totally free at the moment and offers great SEO features such as:
-
- Editing metadata: Editing the text displayed on search results pages.
- Internal Linking Tips: Helps in choosing internal links when creating a new webpage or article.
- Redirects: this allows you to manage redirects when the address of a page is changed or deleted.
- Google Schema Markup Setup: Google can supplement your site’s search results with additional information in the form of rich snippets, which have been shown to help your click-through rate in organic search results.
- Integration with the Google Search Console: WIX also has many special SEO programs. The most popular is Site Booster. Site Booster is free if you subscribe to a WIX Unlimited or later plan, and it’s free for users of the plan and Combo.
Site Booster is a free add-on for WIX users with an unlimited or newer plan.
There are many good Site Boosters SEO features, including your business address in search results, keyword targeting, and performance tracking.
Support: Who has the best support?
WordPress doesn’t have a good support team, but it has a huge community of users ready to help you. You will find forums, blogs, Facebook pages, discord groups, and dedicated sites where you can ask for help in case of need. The developers of themes and plugins also offer support for their products, but the response times may be slow if the plugin is free or faster in the case of premium plugins.
A solution to not lose your head with maintenance is to rely on a developer or Website Development Company specializing in website maintenance. Though, this will come at a cost.
WIX has a loyal support team that helps customers solve problems. It has also created many guides to help you design your website. WIX also offers regular email and phone support.
The WIX support team saves valuable time. WIX produces everything that a site creator uses, so it is less likely to cause serious problems with your website.
Wix vs. WordPress: conclusion
Now you should have a clear idea of what WIX and WordPress are and how they work. We have covered the basic differences between the two platforms and now you should be able to choose the one that best suits your needs.
WIX is an easy-to-use webmaster designed to help anyone build a website. At the same time, WordPress is a powerful and flexible platform that gives you maximum control over your website design and security. WIX is best for beginners and satisfied people. At the same time, WordPress is more technically demanding and targets those who need more customization and functionality.
WordPress is best suited for creating complex websites, but it requires more effort and resources. WIX is easy to use but not as flexible as WordPress offers.
