Having a site is essential for everyone who wants to increase their online visibility. If you’re a business owner, a website can help you reach potential customers. As an artist, you can showcase your works to the world. So, the next question is how can you do it quickly?
In this article, we’ll compare WordPress vs website builders and see what options are available to build your website easily.
Difference between website builders and WordPress
Website builders usually have a drag and drop interface. They can have CMS functionality but serve a different purpose than “pure” CMS. Using these tools, beginners in web development can drag and drop elements to build their website. 000webhost free website builder as well as Wix and Weebly are the most popular builders.
WordPress is a CMS. By default it doesn’t have a drag and drop interface (although you add it using plugins).
Picking up a method can be subjective. It depends on your needs, budget, time, and willingness to learn.
To help you pick, we will take a look at the pros and cons of each of them.
WordPress
Released in 2003, WordPress is a sophisticated web builder. It powers 32% of websites on the internet — everything from personal blogs to business’ sites. It even powers the White House website.
WordPress has all plugins you could ever think off. In their official directory, WordPress offers over 37,000 plugins for free. What is more, there are also loads of paid plugins and plugins from third-party services.
To help you with website developing, WordPress offers plugins and services that provide visual website building. To name a few, you can use Elementor, Beaver Builder, or the always-free Make by Themefoundry.
By default, WordPress already helps your website to rank well on search engines. With the right SEO plugins, you will have unlimited control of your site’s optimization.
With WordPress, you can download your whole website. This way you can hire professional to customize your site or move it to whatever hosting services you prefer. You can’t have this privilege in any other website builders.
WordPress.org software is available for free, but you need to arrange the domain and hosting services elsewhere.
The downside: With all the benefit and flexibility offered by WordPress, you will need technical knowledge to manage your website adequately. If you want to build a site with WordPress, you will have to invest time to learn how to navigate it.
Website Builders
Wix
Wix is a cloud-based web development platform founded in 2006. Wix is easy to use and is packed with many useful features. Even if you’re a complete amateur, you can build a website from scratch. According to the latest data, Wix now powers around 110 million sites.
Wix has hundreds of Apps for you to utilize to improve your website. You can also choose from over 500 pre-built templates.
Protip: Pick your theme carefully as you can’t switch at a later point.
If you want to sell products online, you can use Wix eCommerce. Although it is not that advanced, Wix helps you sell a small number of products pretty well. Regarding SEO, Wix covered the basics. It automatically optimizes your site to become SEO friendly and provides you with the guideline too.
You can also purchase a domain, hosting services, and an SSL certificate. And the Wix team will manage the back-end for you. Wix has a range of subscription plans. The most popular one is the Unlimited plan, which costs $150 a year.
The downside: Although Wix has an amazing templates collection, you can only choose one. Should you switch to a new one, you’ll lose all the customization and content from your old template. Migrating your site to a new service can be complicated too.
Weebly
Weebly is a web hosting company founded in 2006. Today, it powers over 30 million websites. There are hundreds of Weebly Themes to choose from in their Theme Gallery, or you can turn to third-party sellers such as Mojo. You can also switch between themes without losing your data.
Unlike Wix, Weebly provides the option to customize the HTML and CSS codes to extensively customize your site. Even if you use the free plan, Weebly provides the hosting, subdomain, and SSL security. To add more functionality, you can also choose a range of apps in the Weebly App Center. There are both paid and free Apps for you to choose from.
As for SEO, Weebly covers the basics as well as provides dozens of SEO tools in the App Center. Compared to Wix, Weebly allows you to have more advanced SEO settings. For someone with an eye towards eCommerce, the Weebly Business plan covers all the features you might need.
The downside: Even though Weebly has a good selection of tools in the App Center, you can’t add features from third-parties. Also, even though Weebly lets you download the code of your site, it only contains HTML pages and images, not the blog content.
The Verdict: WordPress vs Website Builders
There are quite a few, easy to use and popular services to help you build a site. However, we always recommend our clients to use WordPress. It does have a steeper learning curve, but WordPress compensates it with its flexibility and long term growth.
Using website builders seems like an easy choice, especially for beginners. But as your knowledge, needs, and audience grow, it will interfere with your site development. Installing and developing a WordPress site is pretty easy nowadays. Using 000webhost 1-Click Installer, you can have a WordPress site up and running in no time.
WordPress really is the best tool to help you create a professional site.
