If you have plans to build your website, you must ask yourself about WordPress vs Wix, which one of the two platforms is better. Though people often say WordPress site is slow, modern website speed booster plugins like PageSpeedy.io proved it can guarantee WordPress websites’ speed of 95+. So, speed is no longer an issue with WordPress.
This question is not easy to answer as both WordPress and Wix are well-reputed systems, and both are great platforms but quite different from each other.
One needs to look at various areas like different features, help, support, ease of use, and feedback. Being in the game for many years, WordPress is a veteran player that dominates the popularity charts. In contrast, Wix has been able to make some impressive strides with some powerful features.
I think it is important to stress it again, with every release, WordPress is getting bigger and, therefore, needs to stay fast and healthy. As speed can be a significant issue and your website can get slower, a plugin like pagespeedy.io is the best solution for increasing the speed. Pagespeedy.io is a speed optimization web app with a guaranteed speed of 99/100 for your WordPress site.
Introduction to WordPress and Wix
WordPress
WordPress is one of the most well-known open-source website software, and one needs to install a web server to use it. After that, one can easily create the content pages and manage them easily. WordPress also offers its users to install ready-made designs known as themes.
After having WordPress installed, you can take advantage of various built-in features and content management capabilities. There are different interchangeable designs and thousands of plugins, while most of these are free as well. With WordPress, you will find no limitations to what type of website you can build. You can also get help from the guide on how to set up a WordPress website.
Wix
Wix is an all-in-one platform that helps its users build a website right from scratch without any coding skills. Basically, it is marketed as a tool for starters, and it offers 24/7 customer support.
How Wix is able to work its magic is appreciated a lot by the users, and the platform has well over 190 million people who use it. Wix is able to handle any standard website like a business site, blog, portfolio, e-commerce store, a website for a personal project, and a lot more.
Pros and Cons of WordPress vs Wix
Pros of WordPress
- WordPress is free and open-source software and offers thousands of themes and plugins.
- WordPress is the most popular content management system on the web, and almost 40% of the entire web is running on WordPress. This makes it much popular when compared to Wix.
- WordPress has a lively community and offers frequent updates, and has a great blogging module.
- WordPress is highly customizable, and this makes it possible for you to control every aspect of your website.
Cons of WordPress
- Even though WordPress is free software, but one has to pay additional costs when launching a WordPress site.
- With WordPress, you have to do all the technical heavy lifting yourself if your hosting company is not that cooperative.
- All WordPress themes work very differently, and mastering one doesn’t guarantee that you will know how to use the other.
Pros of Wix
- As a user, you don’t need to go anywhere in order to set up your site with Wix because everything tends to happen within Wix.com.
- Wix offers you a great range of features right from the start, and with the help of AI, the Wix ADI module is able to build your site for you.
- If you like to build your website for testing purposes, there is a free plan available for you.
- Wix has integrated e-commerce, albeit on its higher plans, and offers excellent customer support.
Cons of Wix
- With Wix, you may not have complete control over your website, and it can take the site down if any of the rules are broken.
- One cannot change the design or the template of the site later and can get stuck with the design that was selected initially.
- Other than the free hobby websites, Wix might be expensive as compared to WordPress in almost all use cases.
WordPress vs Wix Costs
WordPress Costs
WordPress is free to download and use because it is an open-source CMS, but in order to put a website live, CMS is not the only equipment. A CMS like WordPress needs you to find and pay for the hosting provider that starts at $2.95/month and a custom domain name starting at $10 a year.
Other than that, with WordPress, you may also need to splash out some optional features like a Pre-made WordPress theme which is a one-time payment of between $25-$299. You may also need plugins for other functionalities by paying between $0-$70 per plugin especially to speed up websites.
Wix Costs
Wix has a free plan, but it is not recommended because one can’t remove ads from the site and cannot use a custom domain name. There are eight paid plans that offer a better value, while the pricing of Wix is between $14-$49 per month. It has four e-commerce plans and four website builder plans.
When you buy an annual premium plan, Wix offers you a one-year free domain that is valued at $10-$12, whereas $300 in advertisement vouchers. There are thousands of free & paid plugins offered by the Wix App Market, and these plans can be easily used to add additional functionality to a website.
Ease of Use (WordPress vs Wix)
WordPress Ease of Use
In order to get started, WordPress is a little challenging. The central confusing aspect is that WordPress doesn’t even begin at the official WordPress website but rather at the web host website. When WordPress is installed on the webserver, and you log in to the user panel for the first time, there is no onboarding. The user is basically left alone and has to figure out themself where to go next.
Although there are links that help to pick up a theme and create content, you are not led through everything with WordPress. The great thing about WordPress is that when you manage to go through its initial setup and build your site, then it becomes much more straightforward working with that site. One can easily find the content-management options while the blog posts and new subpages are created faster.
Wix Ease of Use
When you are working on a new site, Wix makes things easier for you, even if you have a unique experience with building your website. Its ADI module takes things to another level that any other tool may not offer in the market.
Customizing your website with Wix is also very easy because it has a visual drag-and-drop editor to put the pages together. Therefore, adding content to them and ensuring it may look great on the devices and screen. Other than that, if you find yourself struggling with something, you have the advantage of reaching out to the customer support agent at any time.
WordPress vs Wix Design and Layout
WordPress (Design and Layout)
When it is about the abundance of features, options, design, and layout, nothing can match WordPress. This particular platform is mainly focused on the functionality and content side of the online presence. Basically, the design option is being handled by the themes that are built by the third parties.
With WordPress, you have the option to choose from thousands of themes made by skilled developers and make a career out of these. The designs and themes are in abundance, and one may stumble upon the ones that are a bit outdated and may not adhere to some of the modern market trends, but it should never be a problem if the designs and layouts are used by the respected developers.
Wix (Design and Layout)
When compared to WordPress, the primary approach of Wix is towards the design and customization of the website. One can either let the Wix ADI for the preparation of the site design or pickup from the premade designs that are present in its catalog.
It is worth noting that one cannot change the template after selecting it. Therefore, it is a significant limitation because the design template cannot be changed later on. Wix never disappoints regarding the quality because all its templates are optimized, modern, and offer a great look on the desktop and mobile browsers.
WordPress vs Wix e-commerce comparison
WordPress e-commerce
WordPress has far more advanced e-commerce capabilities as compared to Wix, but you need to install an e-commerce-specific plugin before selling. For WordPress, WooCommerce is a popular plugin and is able to do many things, from multi-currency selling to automatic tax calculation.
There are a number of free extensions for the shopping and shipping features, but the more scalable features might be costly. The payment processors also come at a range of different costs, and therefore, they can be an excellent option for power and scalability. For Wix vs WordPress Reddit, WordPress also has a flexible layout, and its functionality is also much better.
Wix e-commerce
Wix offers eight paid plans, and three of these plans come with built-in e-commerce. You can have a number of tools that are required to sell online, from the actual online payments to the extras, including currency conversion and also sales tax.
The e-commerce features of Wix are much more advanced, but one may not compare these to the power of dedicated e-commerce website builders. When it is about Wix vs WordPress Reddit, Wix’s e-commerce plans are basically for those who would like to have a website that can sell a few products, and therefore, it cannot be recommended for the full-blown online stores.
WordPress vs Wix Data Portability Options
Data Portability Options in WordPress
WordPress is able to make exporting the content extremely simple. You are able to get a one-click export that is able to help you to import the XML format. As WordPress is a self-hosted website, therefore, if you are not fully satisfied with your current WordPress business, then you have several other available options.
Out of the number of data portability options available, you can download the media files, make full WordPress backups and even export your WordPress database in a completely manual way. Therefore, you can easily switch your WordPress site to a new host.
Data Portability Options in Wix
In order to transfer the content to a different site, Wix may not be offering many options, and you can export your blogposts only in XML format. Other than that, your videos, websites, pictures, and other materials have to be downloaded manually.
When we go to the Wix documentation, we come to know that all of the content is hosted on the Wix servers, and one may not export it anywhere else. Therefore, it can be a little difficult to transfer the content to the other site.
WordPress vs Wix Plugins and Apps
WordPress (Plugins and Apps)
When it is about Wix vs WordPress SEO, WordPress is well-known for its plugins like SEO, social media, and a contact form. There are thousands of ways with which one is able to transform a WordPress theme to fit the needs efficiently. Some of the WordPress plugins are free, while others may cost a small fortune.
In order to update or install the apps or plugins, one may need a little bit of technical knowledge. If your required plugin doesn’t exist, then you get an option to hire a developer who is able to create for you because WordPress offers complete access to the code.
Wix (Plugins and Apps)
Though you will have Wix subdomain in the free plan, there is an App Market with Wix where you are able to find 300 free and paid apps and a number of ways to expand your website. This can be great for things like business invoicing, hotel booking systems, and photographer image galleries.
Some of the Apps and plugins are created by Wix, whereas others are created by the developers.
Apart from the App Market, there is also a Wix Velo that is very helpful for you to add APIs and JavaScript to the site. This way, an experienced user is able to add custom interactions. It is quite unfortunate that there is not a good solution for everything with Wix. While there is a feature for multilingual sites but regarding Wix vs WordPress SEO, Wix is not SEO friendly and is considered a little cumbersome to use.
Final Thoughts: WordPress vs Wix
As with most things, whether you go for WordPress or Wix, it depends on how savvy you are when it is about building the site and what you exactly need from the site. WordPress can be used if you like to have complete control of what is happening on your side. The features of the site can be extended through plugins and thousands of themes.
Wix, on the other hand, is for the ones who are getting started with the websites and like to have basic to sell their products online. The costs vary, but Wix is relatively cheaper as compared to WordPress, and both have their own uses.
As we discussed, if your website speed score is low on GTMetrix, you can always use Pagespeedy to speed up your WordPress site which has an in-built CDN. It is designed specially to offer a massive site speed for its users. Its service optimizes your website on a continuous basis, and you will also find its setup to be extremely simple.
Therefore, you will get rid of any lazy loading by having a lightning-fast WordPress website with Pagespeedy.io.