Wix vs WordPress—find the right platform for you
We can’t really deny how having a website in the 21 st century has become a should-have when it comes
to most of the technologically inclined populace: from personal blogs to business websites and
eCommerce, as well as educational and informational websites to community forums and crowdfunding
websites, the possibilities are just endless.
The need to put out information on a great scale is easiest to achieve when you put it in a website,
designed just for you and your purpose. Your reach can be worldwide—and by connecting with experts
in the area, you’ll be able to establish your online presence.
Now, there are a lot of tools when it comes to building your own website. In this article, we’ll touch over
the most popular website builder—WordPress, and another frontrunner: Wix, for you to see which suits
your needs best.
Wix has ads everywhere, and in those ads, they show how easy it is to create a website with their
platform. It seems simple; an idea that could easily pull in interested audiences. WordPress has been
here for years—seems like it’s Wix’s more complex and advanced older brother—one that needs
someone who knows how to code.
But let’s break down the similarities and differences to make things easier for us to assess which is
better.
Convenience & accessibility
Both Wix and WordPress can be used by beginners, as these platforms allow you to create websites
without requiring advanced or expert technical knowledge, such as coding experience.
Wix has a drag and drop interface where you can select which elements to put on your site. It’s very
user-friendly, which can save you from trying to learn code.
On the other hand, WordPress presents you with the WordPress block editor, containing common
elements you can use when designing your page layout. A library full of website themes are also
available for your perusal, fully customizable with just a click. WordPress also has drag and drop page
builder plugins which allows you to enhance your site’s aesthetics, without needing to write code.
Both platforms are convenient and easy to use. Wix is good for simple website building, but WordPress
offers more advanced capabilities for your website to run on.
Apps and Plugins
To add more features and functionality to your website, you’d need plugins or third-party apps to make
it possible. Both WordPress and Wix offer a wide variety of Plugins and Apps that you can add to your
site—some paid and some available for free. These extensions can be anything from contact forms to
social media buttons, multi-language features, and email marketing.
Wix has a fair number of Apps available in their AppMarket, but WordPress has almost 60,000 free
plugins in their directory (at the time of this writing).
Wix is still growing, and for sure the basic features you’d want in your website will be available; but
being in the game for longer, WordPress can give you more of what you need in that area.
Helpdesk and support
When you build websites, you can’t avoid running into bugs or errors that sometimes you wouldn’t be
able to easily figure out on your own. This is something that easily differentiates Wix and WordPress.
It’s easy to ask for support when you use Wix—there’s phone support, live chat, and forums. There are
loads of articles and tutorial available too.
For WordPress, you’re on your own. They don’t offer official support, but you can get answers for your
questions from numerous community forums across the internet—you just have to find the solution
that does fix your issue from the numerous suggestions in the replies and comments section.
Wix takes the cake for this one.
Better for blogging
Blogs are usually simple, and this is something that both Wix and WordPress can do.
All the basic blogging features are available in Wix’s platform: the common stuff like bodies of text,
categories and tags, adding media, and archives. Writing blog posts is limited in Wix, as it only has a
plain text editor that you can’t really format that much. It’s decent and usable, but easier to use.
WordPress has almost everything and anything you can think of when it comes to blogging—it started
out as a blogging platform after all. It’s block editor gives you a ton of control in how you design your
blog—all the advanced options that you won’t see in Wix.
WordPress proves that it is the expert when it comes to blogging.
For eCommerce
Online selling and shopping have boomed in recent years. This is something that you’d surely consider a
need if you are in that industry.
Basic functionality for eCommerce is available in Wix with paid plans. This plan comes with features that
can help you create and run your online store but features from Wix for this are limited. Payments can
be accepted using Wix’s own payment system, or you can use third-party apps to use more well-known
payment gateways such as Paypal. Keep in mind that using Wix Payments comes with charges for
processing fees. Aside from this, themes in Wix are content-rich, and it makes it a bit harder for the
user’s shopping experience (sites tend to load slower).
True to how it’s been going so far, WordPress boasts with its features and functionalities when it comes
to eCommerce. You can build exactly the eCommerce website you want, with all its eCommerce plugins
available for selling goods, services, events, subscriptions and more. Any feature you can think about,
there is an equivalent plugin for it in WordPress.
When thinking about a more advanced and a suitable online shop, WordPress offers more options for
you to choose from than Wix. Simple or small businesses can make use of Wix’s simple navigation, but
WordPress is better for large stores.
Better for SEO
Search Engine Optimization is important if you want to gain more traffic for your website.
Wix offers basic SEO for your website, built into their platform. They do well, and it makes for the best
website builder for SEO. However, Wix can do better in loading websites with media such as images,
which can impact image-based SEO websites. Wix has useful tools for SEO, where you can set up rules
for auto-generation of meta titles and descriptions.
Plugins for SEO capabilities can be added for WordPress, as it doesn’t have this feature out-of-the-box.
With the right tinkering, full SEO functionalities can be utilized for your site using WordPress plugins.
Conclusion
These are just some of the topics we can point out to differentiate two good website builder platforms.
At the end of the day, it really depends on what your requirements are. If you opt to create simple
websites as a beginner, needing simple functionalities and features, you can go for Wix; but if you need
to go the extra mile for a better website and user experience, WordPress is something you should go
for. It has more advanced features and is more flexible—you can do anything you want with it.
When you’re a beginner, it might seem scary at first and a bit intimidating, but it’ll get better, and you’ll
learn new things with all of the tools and information readily available on the internet. In no time, you’ll
be building your very own website.
