Wix vs WordPress: an honest comparison

Wix deserves a fairer hearing than it usually gets, and it still is not what we would build on. Both of those can be true.

What Wix is genuinely good at

The editor is the best of its kind. You can drag things where you want them and they stay there, which sounds trivial and is the reason most people who use Wix like it.

Performance used to be its weak point and largely is not any more. Modern Wix sites are respectable on Core Web Vitals, and anyone still repeating the 2018 criticisms has not checked recently.

Hosting, security and certificates are included and invisible. For a one- person business that wants a decent site and no admin, that is a real offer.

Where it stops

You cannot take it with you. There is no export worth the name. Leaving Wix means rebuilding from scratch, which gets more expensive every year you stay.

You are limited to what Wix supports. Usually fine. Occasionally the exact thing your business needs is the thing that is not possible, and there is no route round it.

Templates cannot be swapped. Changing template means rebuilding the site. On WordPress, a redesign keeps the content.

WordPress, in the same terms

More capable, more portable, and somebody has to look after it. Updates, backups and hosting are real responsibilities. Built badly it is slow and fragile. That is where the reputation comes from, and it is almost always a page builder doing the damage.

Built properly, it is fast, it is yours, and it has no ceiling.

The deciding question

Same as every one of these comparisons: who is building it?

Doing it yourself, small site, no appetite for admin: Wix is a perfectly sensible answer and we would rather you used it than paid us for something you do not need.

Having it built by anybody: the case for Wix mostly evaporates. Its advantage is that it is easy for a non-developer, and if a developer is doing the work, you are accepting the limitations without collecting the benefit.

SEO

Both are fine. Wix had genuine SEO problems years ago and fixed them. WordPress gives you more control at the sharp end, which matters when you are chasing something competitive.

Anybody who tells you Wix cannot rank is working from old information.

Our answer

Wix if you are building it yourself and the site is small. WordPress if somebody else is building it, if it needs to grow, or if the ability to leave matters to you.

Here is how we build the latter: WordPress web design.