Website building is the most crucial part of starting any venture. The only way to get visibility in today’s world is by having a fully functional website that people can use to explore what you’re offering, place orders, make payments and contact you.
If you have no coding experience and don’t know the inner workings of websites, there’s no problem. Many people will have you confused between Wix and WordPress, but you don’t know enough about them to make a choice.
This blog will explain the key differences between Wix and WordPress, how to switch from WordPress to Wix, and much more.
What is Wix?
Wix is an online website builder that helps its users create professional-quality websites without much effort. If you’re someone who runs a blog or wishes to showcase their writing or photography portfolio, Wix is the ideal platform for it. It is simple, easy-to-use, and does not require you to have extensive coding knowledge to run it.
It offers you the following options to build a website by using its services:
By using the Wix Editor: It is this part of Wix that is responsible for its massive popularity as it helps beginners create user-friendly websites without much effort or expense.
By using Wix ADI: The ADI is short for Artificial Design Intelligence. This feature creates your website for you with the help of a few quick commands. It is the fastest way to set up an error-free website.
What is WordPress?
WordPress is an open-source CMS (Content Management System) that allows its users to make a website by using its platform. Because it is open-source, anyone on the internet can use or make changes to it. This feature means that WordPress has now become infinitely customizable because one can use so many third-party plugins to modify their website and its functions.
You can use WordPress to create:
- Blogs
- Photography or writing portfolios
- eCommerce stores
- Forums
- Small-scale social networks
- Membership sites
Wix Vs. WordPress — Key Differences
In this section, we will discuss the key differences between Wix and WordPress so that you can make a decision regarding your choice of a website builder.
The difference in cost: While both of these platforms offer free services, the features that website builders need to create a well-rounded website are included in the premium packages.
Wix gives you a domain name for free for one year if you purchase their annual package. On the other hand, you need to pay some extra fees for a unique domain name and a hosting provider if you wish to go with WordPress. This comparison makes WordPress the more pricey option, that’s for sure.
Ease of use: Ease of use is a very important factor for most coding beginners. Wix is a website builder that allows beginners to make excellent quality websites without having any knowledge of coding.
All one needs to do is drag and drop whatever components you want to have on your website. WordPress, however, requires you to know the basics of HTML and coding to smoothen your website-building venture.
The difference in method: Wix operates on the what-you-see-is-what-you-get (WYSIWYG) rule, which means that your website will look exactly as it does after you’ve made the edits. WordPress works differently. It requires you to save and preview everything before you can see how it looks on the website.
The difference in plug-ins: WordPress is an open-source CMS which is why it has over 55,000 plug-ins for users to integrate into their websites. However, not all of these plug-ins work perfectly.
Many of them cause problems that you cannot correct without making changes in the code. On the other hand, Wix only has some 300 apps from which you can customize your website.
While this library is exponentially smaller than WordPress’s, it is more convenient to use because Wix checks each of these apps for compatibility and potential bugs before making them available for use.
The difference in SEO services: Wix and WordPress do not have a lot of differences when it comes to SEO services as both of these platforms use plugins to help users boost their website’s ranking on search engines.
The WordPress SEO plugin is called Yoast SEO while the Wix SEO plugin is called SiteBooster. However, if you ask around, most people might say that WordPress’s Yoast SEO plugin is a much more efficient option to boost search engine optimization.
The difference in security: WordPress requires the user to be responsible for the security of their website. They need to make sure they’ve installed security plug-ins and all the core updates while also keeping track of any threats the website might have experienced.
In comparison, Wix takes care of the security side of things by itself. If you pay your fees every month, you can rest assured that the professionals are taking care of it.
While the Wix approach is great for beginners, some people might want increased security for their websites. They can customize their website’s security with WordPress’s features.
Differences in updates: All programs develop updates that fix bugs and help with functionality. With WordPress, you have to carry out the updates yourself as you would on a laptop or a mobile phone. While this is easy, falling behind on updates can cause your website to slow down or have errors.
On the other hand, Wix carries out automatic updates for all its users. Most of the time, you won’t even know an update occurred.
The difference in online stores: WordPress provides a more well-rounded solution to all your eCommerce problems with its online store plugin — WooCommerce. Wix only includes eCommerce features in its paid version.
How to Choose the Right Platform?
If you haven’t contacted a website developer and want to create a website for your brand by yourself, Wix and WordPress can be very helpful tools. However, it is important to choose one option according to your needs.
You can choose between these two website-building tools by comparing their pricing plans, ease of use, scalability, and how much coding you need to know to use these tools. Wix is a better option for beginners because of its ease of use but WordPress provides more options for switching up how your website looks from time to time.
If you’re comfortable with rewriting some of the website’s code from time to time to get the best results possible, switching from WordPress to Wix isn’t a challenging task. However, if you want to be hassle-free and do not know anything about code, you should opt for Wix.
Conclusion
The purpose of this guide is to help you decide on the best choice for your website. While money is a huge factor in deciding most things, you shouldn’t make your choice between these two platforms based solely on that.
Instead, take your time to read comparisons such as the one in this guide, read user reviews, and surf websites that you know are powered by Wix or WordPress. Moreover, talk to people who use these platforms to maintain their websites to get an idea of how they are run.
