Are you unsure whether WordPress or Wix is the right choice for your new website? You’ve probably seen YouTube and television advertisements for Wix lately and it’s made you question whether WordPress is still the most popular CMS out there.
Well don’t worry, in this article we will compare WordPress vs Wix and highlight the pros and cons.
Please note, this article will be comparing Wix and WordPress.org, not WordPress.com. If you’d like to know more about WordPress and the differences between .org and .com, read this article.
We’ve broken down this article into five categories, plus the final verdict:
- Pricing
- Ease of use
- Design options
- Extensions
- eCommerce
1. Pricing
Cost is an important factor when choosing the right CMS, and we know that every penny counts when you’re just starting out on your journey.
Let’s look at the differences between them and see which one is the best value for money.
Wix pricing
The free version of Wix is great if you have no budget at all, but it comes with some undesirable catches. You cannot use a custom domain name, wix ads appear on every page, you don’t get customer support and Google Analytics is not included.
The basic version of wix offers a website builder, 1GB of bandwidth and 500MB of storage. Plus, you can also use a custom domain name if you wish. This plan costs £3.50 per month. However, it does come with its disadvantages.
The first one being the fact that it adds Wix advertisements to the top and bottom of your website pages. You wouldn’t want this appearing on any professional website. To remove the Wix ads you would have to choose between the next tier of pricing options which cost between £6.50 and £19 per month.
The other downside is that the basic version does not include Google Analytics, Favicons, eCommerce and other things you might need.
Business and eCommerce plans are a bit more, costing between £13 and £22 per month.
It’s also worth mentioning that whichever plan you go with, it does not include any apps that you may want from the Wix app marketplace.
WordPress Pricing
WordPress is open source software, which means it is available for free and anyone can use it. This is one of the reasons why people love it so much and why the community is so large.
In regards to pricing, the main difference is that you have to pay for your own hosting with WordPress. That shouldn’t put you off though, as hosting can cost around £2 a month with some providers.
WordPress also comes with thousands of free plugins and themes which can be installed in a few clicks. Of course there are also premium plugins which you can pay for if you wish, although most of the time there is a free alternative which is sometimes just as good or sometimes better.
Unlike Wix, eCommerce can be added to WordPress completely free of charge with the powerful WooCommerce plugin. It can be extended too, with the use of free or premium plugins to create pretty much any functionality you can think of.
Conclusion (WordPress vs Wix pricing)
We think WordPress wins in this department due to it’s open source nature, huge collection of free plugins and highly affordable hosting plans available online.
2. Ease of use
Assuming you don’t know how to code or you’re a beginner to coding, both WordPress and Wix offer a code free editing experience. Let’s dive in and see which one is easier to use.
Wix ease of use
Wix provides a front-end editing experience with a drag and drop interface. Pretty much everything can be selected and edited on the same screen which allows you to design your website quickly and efficiently, with instant results.
With the Wix builder you can edit and write content, rearrange items with drag and drop, add and change media, edit menus, change colours and so much more.
If you don’t have much technical web experience this is probably going to be the easiest way to get your website off the ground, if you’re building it yourself of course.
WordPress ease of use
The release of the new Gutenberg Block Editor in 2018 brought WordPress into the modern world of website building. Instead of the basic text editor it had always offered up to that point, Gutenberg offered a way to build complex layouts with the use of modular blocks. WordPress provides a variety of common blocks, such as text, headings, buttons, images, galleries, columns and more. Much like Wix, the Gutenberg editing experience is all done visually with drag and drop, with an instant preview.
If Gutenberg doesn’t take your fancy though, there are a bunch of other page builder plugins you can use in place of Gutenberg, for example Divi, Elementor and Oxygen. Each has their own pros and cons, but the fact that you get to choose the one that works for you to make using WordPress easier is a massive bonus.
WordPress also has tons of other plugins and themes available to help with the design and functionality of your website. Each one enables you to enhance your website without needing any coding knowledge.
Conclusion (WordPress vs Wix ease of use)
This one is very close and a difficult one to decide. However, based purely on the simplicity of its user interface and minimal options, we think Wix slightly takes the lead. However, WordPress offers a greater level of flexibility and more advanced capabilities, if you’re able to embrace a slightly steeper learning curve.
3. Design options
It could be argued that how your website looks is the most important aspect of your website. Therefore, finding the right tool which helps in this area is extremely advantageous.
Wix design options
Wix boasts over 800+ templates in its collection which users can choose from as a starting point. From there you can customise and tweak the design of your website to your liking using the front-end editor.
A major disadvantage to Wix’s template system is that once you’ve chosen a template, you can’t change it without having to completely start again from scratch. This is not an ideal situation to be in as things change for companies over time which require websites to be redesigned. Having to start again from the beginning could be a very timely and expensive process.
WordPress design options
WordPress has a huge community of designers and developers. As a result, there are thousands of free and premium themes available to website owners, which can be installed with the click of a button.
Such choice provides reassurance that there will always be something that suits your company perfectly, wherever you are along your journey. If you need something quickly and for free, you can simply browse the WordPress theme repository for something that works for you.
Alternatively, if you’re looking for a theme that’s maybe a bit more advanced with a greater level of functionality, you may opt for a premium theme that can be purchased from a marketplace such as Theme Forest. Furthermore, you can hire a developer to build you a completely custom theme which is tailored completely to your business.
Where WordPress shines in this category, is the fact that themes can be switched at any time, to give your website a fresh new look. Themes can usually be switched seamlessly without any issues, however always take a backup of your website beforehand just to be safe.
Conclusion (WordPress vs Wix design options)
WordPress is a clear winner in this category due to its huge range of themes available and the fact that they can be switched easily at any point in time.
4. Extensions
Plugins (WordPress) and apps (Wix) are modular extensions which enhance features and provide new functionality to a website. So, who offers the best extensions and what are the differences?
Wix apps
The Wix App Market has over 300 apps you can install to enhance your website. Most of these apps are free to use, although some require a monthly subscription. You’ll usually find an app for what you need but the selection is quite limited.
The user interface for the Wix App Market is very well organised and enjoyable to navigate. It provides clear ratings, user comments, screenshots and more.
WordPress plugins
WordPress has around 60,000 free plugins in the WordPress Plugin Repository and it’s constantly growing.
This doesn’t even include the premium plugins which can be purchased from other marketplaces. It’s a ridiculously large collection of plugins available, which opens up a world of possibilities.
It’s highly likely that if you think of a website feature right now, even one that’s fairly unique, there’ll be a plugin for it. As a website owner, having that amount of choice is very exciting and reassuring.
The user interface for browsing and downloading plugins is well organised and all information can be found easily. It’s not as visually appealing as the Wix App Market but it’s not in any way hindered by this.
Conclusion (WordPress vs Wix extensions)
WordPress is undoubtedly the winner in this category because of its incredible amount of plugins – in comparison, Wix’s selection is a drop in the ocean. Yes, the Wix App Market does look more modern but we’ll take the volume of plugins with WordPress over the design, any day.
5. eCommerce
Building an ecommerce store should not be done hastily without carefully exploring your options. It’s something beginners can sometimes rush into and then hit barriers months down the line. If the decision is between WordPress and Wix, we hope to arm you with the knowledge to make the right decision for your business.
Wix ecommerce
The first thing you need to know is that if you want to sell products online with Wix, you’ll need to sign up to an eCommerce plan which starts from £13 a month for the basic package. The basic plan doesn’t include all features so make sure you check in the feature list on their pricing page.
You should also know that Wix has its own native payment system which is very easy to set up and start using straight away. However, be aware of the fees involved with this method as it can become quite costly when your volume of sales increases. Here are a breakdown of the fees for the UK and USA:
UK: 2.1% of the transaction amount + 0.20 GBP
USA: 2.9% of the transaction amount + 0.30 USD
If you’d like to avoid these costs, you can opt for a third party payment app such as PayPal or Authorize.net but, of course, make sure you compare their fees and ensure they are suitable for your business.
In terms of controlling the design and layout of your ecommerce store, this comes back to the design options mentioned in section 3 of this article. It’s pretty flexible to edit the design of your site but, in our opinion, not being able to switch templates is a major issue.
The ecommerce features can be customised but there are limitations to what is possible. So you have to be able to compromise when it comes to Wix.
If you have little technical knowledge, want to build the website yourself and aren’t too concerned about being able to have full control over appearance and features, Wix might be a good choice for you. You can quickly get a basic ecommerce site live and working in a few hours if that’s your main goal.
WordPress ecommerce
First of all, you do not have to pay extra to sell products online with WordPress. All you need to do is install the free WooCommerce plugin which is the world’s most popular ecommerce platform.
The company that owns WooCommerce has a large collection of plugins which extend its functionality further, so you can pretty much build anything. There are also hundreds of free third party plugins and themes which add even more flexibility.
Alternatively, you can use a number of other ecommerce plugins, such as Easy Digital Downloads, Ecwid ecommerce, WP ecommerce, and more. Each plugin usually offers different features which can each be extended and customised further with other add-on plugins.
If you’re looking to build a membership site, sell online courses, sell restricted content or whatever your unique ecommerce needs may be, there is sure to be a plugin that will do exactly that.
As we know, WordPress offers the most flexible way to edit your website with different themes and customisation options at your fingertips. Therefore, you can get your ecommerce website looking exactly the way you want it.
Conclusion (WordPress vs Wix ecommerce)
Although it may be slightly easier to build a website yourself on Wix, but because of the fact that WordPress allows you to sell products for free, has a much larger selection of plugins and provides limitless design potential, WordPress is a clear winner for us.
Final Verdict: WordPress vs Wix
After careful deliberation, we have to say that WordPress is our prefered choice of platform for building websites. After examining all five categories above, WordPress takes the lead with a final score of 4-1. Here’s a breakdown of the results:
Pricing – We put our money on WordPress
Ease of use – Not an easy decision, but Wix took the lead
Design options – WordPress looked great in this category
Extensions – WordPress gets the plug in this category
Ecommerce – We were sold on WordPress
At Cariad Web Design, our web developers have created WordPress templates suitable for micro businesses, sole traders, freelancers and consultants that will give you the professional functionality you’ll need to not only produce a great looking website, but also to get you noticed by the search engines.
If you’d like us to bring your ideas to life with WordPress, get in touch and we’ll walk you through the process. Alternatively, if you’d like to learn more in your own time, have a look at our ‘How it works’ and ‘Tour’ pages.
