When To Choose WIX over WordPress

Believe it or not but creating a website has never been easier but also has never involved so many decisions and critical ones at that. Website content management systems have improved in leaps and bounds over the last decade to a point where you don't even need to know a simple line of HMTL and CSS to create a stunning and perfectly functional website. These self-service CMS's have disrupted the market and made web developers jobs more manageable and for those consumers who are brave enough to do it on their own has lowered the technical barrier and cost to have a website.

When we think of self-service platforms all competiting to run your website, we often think of WordPress. While it is the most popular, it does require a little more technical knowledge than the closed source projects which offer a more polished approach, though limited in feature sets. Platforms like Squarespace, Wix, Duda and even Webflow have all taken the CMS experience and turned it into a drag and drop or "in page" creation process that users seem to love.

If you're narrowing down your CMS search and you're deciding between WordPress or Wix, then here are a few considerations on why Wix could be the better option for you in the short or long term.

1. You're tight on budget

WordPress might sound like the cheaper option since its open-source tech is free, but once you start to add up the expenses it can quickly add up to more than you bargained for and this is something many site owners don't know and end up with a subpar site because they did not budget correctly. The WordPress CMS is free, but you will still need to purchase ad domain, pay for hosting, purchase a theme, if you cannot find an ideal free theme, you will also need to customise it which can be costly and take time.

Wix provides an all in one solution, while it comes at the cost of many of the freedoms WordPress provides for those looking for a simple pay as you play approach then Wix is ideal for you. All you do is pay Wix for the package you feel suits your site best, and it will supply with all you need to build a website without much coding knowledge if any. You can get away with knowing a lot less about website building using Wix than you can with WordPress.

2. You don't have a reliable or cost-effective developer

WordPress can throw you a few curve balls when setting up a site, especially when you're using a theme with limited feature sets, which is usually the case when you're looking to cut costs. The shortsighted approach can either result you having to purchase or install additional plugins or getting a developer to add custom features to your site.

If you're not comfortable with technical aspects of a website, then Wix with its basic feature sets and add-ons is a far better approach. Since they are all verified to work with Wix, you won't have any performance issues or bugs when adding new features to your site.

3. Your website doesn't require many custom features

If all you plan on doing is having a simple catalogue site where you can add your content such as images, video, podcasts and audio files or want to host a few blogs, then Wix is perfect for your needs.

If your website needs aren't going to change any time soon, such as expanding into eCommerce, selling merchandise or eBooks or running a subscription service then Wix has you covered.

Wix will be a great long term partner for you continue to add content to your site and manage the growth of it.

4. You're a content creator

If all you're going to do is host a blog or need a place to house your videos and transcripts for all your content. Then Wix is by far the better option. WordPress was initially built as a blogging platform but has since expanded into a tool that can be used for eCommerce and much more. This pivot to supporting more features has alienated the WordPress blogging community in some cases. Wix keeps it pretty simple, and the blogging interface is less complicated.

5. You're a photographer

Photographers often want a simple catalogue site where it's less about what the site can do and more of a place where they can show off their images in high quality. Hosting a photography site/blog with vibrant photos and video on a shared hosting platform like you would with WordPress can lead to issues and space can get costly unless you migrate to a CDN, which requires technical know-how to port your WordPress site.

WordPress also tends to do a poor job of image hosting and resizing according to specific themes and parts of the site while not properly compressing images.

Wix makes it easier for you to tap into CDN features, and this means you can support high-quality photos without having to know how to optimise them correctly. While it does help to compress images before you upload them in any CMS manually, Wix does give you a bit more room for ignoring optimisation tactics.

6. You don't want to have too many admin or technical issues

If you don't want the headache of having to update PHP files, having a hosting provider, keeping your plugins and themes updated and renewing your domain all being managed by you then give Wix a shot.

Usually, you would need to manage all the tasks above through the various providers and want a simple once of payment and one go-to for all your website queries and needs, then Wix is the better option.

Wix helps by being the custodian of all the middle mean you would typically have to deal with if you were running with WordPress. It also eliminates the need to continually manage your CMS and the code base as new updates for various plugins or the primary CMS or SQL databases are released over time.

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Protip! If you're still unsure about what you're going to get from each CMS and what you could possibly miss out on then check out this side by side comparison of WordPress and Wix that may help you decide on which CMS is ideal for what you're trying to build.

Wix on, Wix off

There you have it young grasshopper, your CMS Mr Miyagi has spoken and shed some light on why Wix could be the better option for what you're trying to achieve. Remember websites change over time and what works today may be all you need, you can always re-evaluate in a few years and decide to spruce up your website as your user base or customer base require more feature sets to keep them happy and spending their money with you.

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Recommended reading

If you enjoyed this post and have a little extra time to dive deeper down the rabbit hole, why not check out the following posts about content management systems.

• How To Pick The Correct CMS For Your Business
• 8 Open Source CMS Options

Tags: WIX, CMS, Web Hosting