Remember “the template”? This is arguably one of the worst things we could open this post with, mostly because, as a Wix user, you cannot forget the issue.
Putting a lot of effort into creating a website and then realizing that you picked the wrong platform does not sound like a great idea. Nobody likes redoing what is ready. In order to either avoid such a scenario or make the outcome less painful keep reading and find out why choosing WordPress over Wix might be the right solution for you. Or vice versa. It all depends on what plans for your website you have.
General Overview
Both CMSs are very user-friendly and do not require much expertise. In fact, you might know nothing about website building and yet create one.
Wix is a pure drag-and-drop platform that allows you to insert your content anywhere and see what it looks like without any preview or waiting until published.
WordPress comes with a visual editor to write your content and theme customizer which allows you to edit your theme properties in a WYSIWYG environment.
Mobile-friendliness, Templates & SEO
Wix is not as favored by search engines as WordPress is, which means that when it comes to SEO, WordPress is an immediate winner. One more its unpopularity feature is that its themes are not always mobile-friendly and may look frustrating on iPhones and other devices.
Conversely, WordPress is very mobile-friendly. If you look at WordPress websites on a mobile phone, for the most part if they are using a modern theme, the website will be responsive. It will look great on any device. Wix — not so much. If you look at Wix websites on a mobile phone, you will see all sorts of problems.
We found out websites made with Wix and pulled up the ones we found on the official showcase of the platform. We’ve put them on a test with a site called http://mobiletest.me/. There you can see what the website will look like on a mobile phone. This is what it has resulted in.
Winner – WordPress
Web host & Storage
Can you transfer to a new web host if you get tired of either Wix or WordPress.com? With WordPress, yes. You can transfer to a new web host and continue using the software. Conversely, with Wix you cannot do that. Not unless you completely initiate your entire website project all from scratch.
Jumping right to storage, WordPress offers 3 GB of Storage space. Wix offers 500 MB.
Winner – WordPress
Subscription service & Cost
Both Wix and WordPress stands out themselves as free and open-source solutions. Though, if you purchase your domain name through WordPress, the cost for its upgrade is $18 per year. With Wix, the cost shifts to $4.08 per month and $48.96 per year.
Domain privacy protection will sum up at $8 per year with WordPress and $9.90 per year with Wix.
Domain name mapping (connecting your existing domain name to WordPress website) is free with WordPress.That costs $4.08 per month ($48.96 per year) with Wix.
WordPress offers subscription service. Your users can subscribe and get automatic notifications of your new posts to their email. Wix does not do this.
Winner – WordPress
Biggest problems with Wix:
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If you start with Wix – you’re stuck with Wix, even if you don’t like them.That’s not the case with WordPress.com. You can start with this platform and then decide that you want another web host later and you can still use your WordPress software on your new web host. That is not a case with Wix.
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Wix websites don’t typically render well on a mobile device. If you don’t believe that, go to the official showcases of the platform, go to your mobile phone and go through all the Wix official showcase website examples. Believe us or not, you will see a ton of problems.
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We also don’t like that there is no subscription service offered with Wix. If you’re a website owner and you’re sending a blog post every week, you want your site subscribers to be updated automatically
of your new content. Wix doesn’t have that feature but WordPress does. -
Also, we don’t like the fact that once you pick up a theme in Wix, you cannot change this theme later, even if you want to change the outlook of your website. That is so limiting.
We hope you’ve found this review helpful and we hope you’ll make the right decision with your website. Let us know how it goes in the comment section below.
If your preference does fall onto WordPress and you would like to change your platform for it, consider automated migration via CMS2CMS plugin. It will transfer your data fast and safe.
Seize a pleasant opportunity to test what Wix lacks most and WordPress triumph in for free now!