Having a website is a necessity for pretty much all businesses, in all sectors. Amongst small business owners getting ready to create their websites, the most common question (apart from can I build a website for free) is usually: Wix, Squarespace or WordPress? There are other website providers out there but these 3 are the most popular amongst small businesses when considering how to build a website. According to WordPress 2023, they alone account for 43% of the web. This blog will go over each option, their pros and cons, and our experiences with them at Creative Blend, helping you to make the all important decision of which one is best for your business.
Wix is a cloud-based drag and drop page builder for creating html5 web pages.
Pros of Wix:
- Very beginner friendly
- Highly customisable and supports animations
- Has a smart assistant
- Has a free plan
- 800+ themes that are all fully mobile responsive
- Has a lot of features built in ready to use
- Has automatic site back-up functionality baked in
Cons of Wix:
- Premium monthly plans are necessary for most users and can be pricey Most expensive and lowest value for money.
- Wix makes it tricky to change templates
- Not fully mobile responsive unlike squarespace’s templates
- Has more limitations than WordPress
Our experience:
Our experience using Wix is that it’s super clunky and does not feel very intuitive at all to update. If you are not very techy you might find it hard to update or fix if something goes wrong. Support-wise, it’s hard to come by Wix experts to help you if something goes wrong, if you want 100% support you are better off using WordPress.
Squarespace is an all in one website builder with paid subscriptions and built in hosting, analytics and much more. It is oriented around creating professional designs.
Pros of Squarespace:
- Great value for money
- Mobile friendly
- No coding required
- Good ecommerce tools
- Has a mobile editor
- It has ready made templates tailored to specific industries
- Has instant response support chats
- Known for more professional designs
- Offers a 14 day free trial
Cons of Squarespace:
- There are editor limitations such as hard to move items within editor
- No autosave feature
- Slow page load speed which can affect google rankings
- Only allows for one sub-navigation menu which can make complex sites far more difficult to make.
- It’s harder to change things than its competitors
Our experience:
Squarespace websites look much more aesthetically pleasing than the others and it’s easier to use than Wix. They are also really quick to update and gives you a high level of customisation meaning you can get creative. However we found many limitations to Squarespace websites. The first being, Squarespace websites are very easy to mess up. Also the language they use isn’t the most user friendly – they have their own terminology for certain components and it takes ages to find out what they are referring to sometimes! Port Hotel is one of our clients’ websites made with Sqaurespace.
WordPress is a free open source content management system (CMS). This means that you can use the platform for free and there’s tons of support available around. You can also edit the code as you wish to customise your website exactly how you want it.
Pros of WordPress:
- WordPress gives much more freedom and control but is less structured; this can be a pro or a con depending on your needs
- The cost of WordPress is hard to pin down as it is “free” but depending on your needs the cost can vary depending on page hosting, hiring developers and buying premium plugin versions. Generally it’s much cheaper to get into than WIX or Squarespace
- WordPress also has a free page builder
- Thousands and thousands of plugins and themes to choose from.
- WordPress can be very cheap to run
- Full code capabilities and low limitations means far more can be done within WordPress than its competitors
- As WordPress takes up such a large percentage of the web, finding help with development online can be very easy and free
- Open source (wordpress allows anyone to edit all of the code and distribute it)
- Especially good for blogging
Cons of WordPress:
- Reliance on some plugins can make development frustrating and updates can cause issues. Choice and management of plugins is important
- To get the most out of WordPress coding skills are necessary
- More difficult to learn
- Must use a theme unless you can code or hire developers
- Constant theme and plugin updates which can cause issues
- Slow page load speed which can lead to lower google rankings
- No mobile editor
Our experience:
Well, there’s a reason all of our sites are built on WordPress! We find it really safe and secure to use, it’s customisable, it’s versatile, super easy to find help if you are struggling with something and it’s cost-effective.
Some of the websites we have built in WordPress:
To round up...
To conclude, it is fair to say all 3 website builders have their place and each have their pros and cons. It’s best to identify your aims and needs and choose accordingly to what suits you and your business best. Check out some of our website development case studies.
Want us to take the stress out of creating and maintaining your website? Don’t hesitate to get in touch!
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