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The Wix platform and WordPress platform both make building websites relatively more convenient to manage. Whether you don’t want to code a website from scratch or just want a standard base to build all of your websites, they’re both great options.
Wix offers a user-friendly interface for building a website with standard features, while WordPress provides thousands of different addons to create fully customizable websites to perform almost any kind of task you need.
What’s clear is that both the Wix platform and WordPress platform allow you to build great websites, but which one is right for you to get your website up quickly and with the least cost? Follow along as we take a look at some of the most important features and compare Wix and WordPress so you can make an informed decision.
Wix vs. WordPress: Which Is More User-Friendly? Wix provides a standard interface that takes you through a guided approach to setting up the best default options—offering you templates based on the type of business or idea you want to use the website for. As a result, it’s very intuitive to get started with Wix if your requirements match their standard options.
WordPress, by default, needs to be installed on something, or you need to find a hosting provider that offers WordPress, which does include Wordpress.com, but you start off with a lot more options on how to install and use WordPress, including different prices from different vendors.
Once installed, WordPress requires some knowledge or technical skills to get your first-page setup. You need to maneuver around the admin section to select themes, plugins and create your pages. It may take you some additional time to get up to speed on how to use WordPress the first time you use it.
If you need to make modifications to Wix or WordPress, you’ll find Wix a much more user-friendly process to make simple updates and don’t run the risk of breaking your entire website, which is possible when trying to make updates through WordPress admin menus.
Wix is much quicker to set up, though there is less functionality or power if you don’t fit into the standard templates they offer during installation unless you have a web designer at your service.
Wix vs. WordPress: Which Is More Adaptable or Customizable? Wix offers hundreds of themes and 250+ plugins that you can install to meet most of your needs from a standard website. If your website has requirements not met by the standard plugins, you’d need to pay a developer to build a custom plugin for you.
With the Wix platform, you can make modifications to your theme through the website builder sections, so you can take a theme and add new menus, sections, or any other customizations you want from the themes available.
WordPress has limited themes by default and fairly standard options when you first install. However, the WordPress community offers thousands of free themes and 46,000+ plugins that continue to grow daily.
As long as you’re willing to search, you will find a plugin that matches exactly what you need, even if it’s an integration to a third-party payment system or similar vendor.
Wix has a great selection of themes that you can customize, with some good standard plugins, though the community of developers is smaller than WordPress.
WordPress offers limited themes and plugins by default but has a massive community of free themes and plugins. The development community is much larger, so you also get access to more developers that can assist with modifications and customizations. You also have a much larger amount of documentation available with WordPress if you want to customize the website yourself.
Wix vs. WordPress: Which Has Better Security? The Wix platform is entirely managed by Wix. Security updates are automatically done to the entire system. You just need to set your usernames and passwords and decide to use two-factor authentication.
The Wix team will quickly handle any known security threats, so security and vulnerabilities are something you don’t need to worry too much about.
WordPress puts the work into your hands when it comes to security. You decide when you take software updates, which security plugins you’ll use, and if there are vulnerabilities with your site or any plugins you use, it’s up to you to upgrade, disable, or change the plugins.
WordPress requires a lot more hands-on security reviews and updates, which is often not ideal for people that just want their website to do its job.
Wix vs. WordPress: Which Has Lower Maintenance Costs? Wix offers a standard monthly cost that includes access to all of the themes, plugins, and the ability to make changes as you see fit. Your hosting and the maintenance of everything are included in your monthly price, including support for Wix and unlimited bandwidth.
You can pick and choose some additional features and even upgrade or downgrade your pricing plans with Wix, but overall there won’t be any surprise charges or outages.
WordPress can be installed anywhere, so your pricing can depend on which provider you decide to you. This could end up costing you more or less than Wix depending on who you use, and the features can be variable.
The most significant hosting issue may be how much bandwidth you get with your provider. If you grow too quickly, your plan may not allow a quick upgrade to more bandwidth or resources.
The Wix platform is a much more user-friendly system to set up and maintain, so anybody with general computer skills will be able to maintain, manage it, and make simple updates. You or your marketing team could handle this if you have one.
The WordPress platform is more complex and may require hiring or contracting developers or dedicated IT staff to keep track of updates and perform any necessary upgrades or changes.
Wix vs. WordPress: Conclusion The Wix platform and WordPress platform both have their places and will match with different people depending on what your needs are from a website and how much time you want to put into setup and maintenance.
Wix is the superior platform for simple information websites where you don’t need advanced features, don’t want to handle the website’s maintenance, and keep costs low and without surprise.
WordPress is a better platform if you have advanced requirements with an interactive and complicated website. If you want to take on much of the work yourself with a dedicated developer or IT team that can handle installation, updates, and even add new plugins to the system.