Wordpress vs. Wix

I came across an article today comparing Wordpress and WIX. This is a frequent question from small business owners who are struggling with which platform to use. WIX is frequently on television ads so that certainly helps to drive traffic their way.

Full disclosure, I'm posting this as an extremely biased Wordpress user. I'm a developer and grew up during the beginning of websites and can remember the time-consuming and painful days when I was learning html code along with Dreamweaver to build websites.

I blew off Wordpress at the beginning because I thought it would create cookie-cutter websites. I was definitely wrong about that. I use Wordpress exclusively now to build websites. What I learned in the beginning from building websites with html code has benefited me in building Wordpress sites today.

The reason I love Wordpress is that I can work in code to customize the site. I still start with a Wordpress theme, of course. But from there, I customize the site through my own graphics built in Photoshop and editing the Wordpress theme files primarily with the use of CSS files.

The other reason I prefer Wordpress is plugins. There are thousands of plugins available in Wordpress that add additional features and functionality to the website like contact forms and e-commerce capabilities.

OK, back to the article, Comparing Wix with Wordpress. In the end, the author does not recommend one platform over the other. Their conclusions are that WIX is easier to start with while Wordpress has a learning curve to it.

Their assessments are correct. If you want a quickie website, WIX will do that for you. Wordpress is a better platform to grow a company website with. The chief difference in my mind is coding capabilities. Wordpress is an open-source platform where you can customize your site with code. You can still use Wordpress themes straight out of the box as well without any need for coding.

WIX is a drag and drop interface. You only have their elements to work with. Wordpress has unlimited customizations. I'm delighted with Wordpress because I know that I can build fully custom websites.