What are the differences between WordPress vs Wix vs Squarespace?
Should I choose WordPress or Wix or Squarespace?
Which is the Best Small Business CMS to fit your business requirements?
If you have all these questions together, probably you are planning to build your website in 2020.
So, Let’s review once again why a website is the most essential tool for small business & what CMS stands for,
Before the Internet boom, consumers recognized the legitimacy of businesses according to the presence of posters, billboards, and large neon signs outside their brick-and-mortar establishments. Now, those signs have been largely replaced by the presence of a singular structure – a website.
Ever researched a product before you bought it?
Perhaps by browsing through the company’s own website?
This is exactly what most people do as well – in fact, the eCommerce Foundation reports that 88% of consumers research products before they buy it.
Wouldn’t you want a beautiful website that showcases the exquisite abilities of your product?
Yet, not all are comfortable in coding ridiculous amounts of HTML & CSS all day long!
Luckily, we have Content Management Systems (CMS) coming to the rescue.
There are a lot of them out there, but a few globally popular CMS available are WordPress, Wix, and Squarespace.
Here comes the question again, Which one is better ? WordPress, Wix, or Squarespace?
In this article, I’ll discuss in detail the pros, cons, pricing & setup.
But before that can I share with you,
Why use a Content Management System?
As mentioned above, Content Management Systems (CMS) take away the requirement of needing to know how to code in order to build a website.
This means that anyone, working in any field, anywhere around the world can create their own.
A good analogy is to think of a CMS, at its core, like a way of using Microsoft Word to publish articles on the web.
You write your content, attach a few images, maybe including a quote or two – and bam! As soon as you click on the submit button, the article is ready to be viewed by billions around the world.
CMS providers also take care of most the back-end activities for you – like translating structural elements into code, adding data to a database, searching capabilities, and even revision control.
But every business has different needs – a healthcare company is going to focus on different features from a Finance Company.
Which brings us to a paradox of sorts.
A CMS is going to try to balance ease of use with accessibility so that everyone can benefit from the platform.
Which is why there are different CMS providers out there – and why we’ll compare the top three today.
WordPress
WordPress, is probably what you have read the most about whenever you searched for “How to build a website”. It’s one of the best CMS platforms out there – powering over 37% of the web. Everyone from bloggers, small businesses, and even Fortune 500 companies use WordPress than all other options combined. That’s how powerful of a platform it is.
Started in 2003, WordPress seeks to provide the experience of publishing your own content to everyone in the world. In fact, the core of WordPress is open source – operating under the GPLv2 license – and supported by passionate developers across the world.
Pros
- The greatest advantage of WordPress is that the core software is free.
- With WordPress, you have access to thousands of themes.
- Fast and friendly support, mobile ready websites, in depth statistics, built-in social media and SEO optimized elements.
- Starting a blog, a small business, a membership website, or running a marketplace – all of it is possible on WordPress.
- In fact, there are a lot of big-names that use WordPress. The official White House webpage uses it, so does Microsoft, and even the great Rolling Stones!
- The second best feature of WordPress is the sheer amount of plugins and themes they offer. Currently, there are more than 50,000 WordPress themes to choose from especially when it comes to email, security, and contact-forms.
Because of its adherence to open source, WordPress is extensible – allowing you to integrate forums or social networks into the website itself. Because of these features, WordPress forum support is known to solve pretty much all queries, making it an impressive option for your website.
Cons
Fame has its own problems, and WordPress is no exception to that idea. Sucuri reports that WordPress is the most hacked CMS platform in the world – due to the sheer amount of users that utilize it for their websites.
In addition to that, plugins and themes can sometimes cause problems when installed on the same website.
While this has improved over the years – codebases cannot be guaranteed to integrate smoothly all the time.
Lastly, plugins can be expensive – especially if you start out small. There are few one-time payment options, but most plugins subscribe to a recurring fee pricing model.
If you are choosing third-party plugins – do so carefully!
How much it costs to Develop Website on WordPress?
WordPress.org is usually Free and Opensource software.
The pricing and costs depends on the Theme, Plugins and Customization you required.
To get started with Custom WordPress Website Design, you might required the below listed things,
- Register a Domain Name.
- Buy a WordPress Managed Hosting Plan.
- Buy a Elementor WordPress website builder license. OR
- Hire a WordPresss Website Developer OR Hire a WordPress Development Agency.
Wix Website Builder
When Wix started in 2006, it boldly declared to the marketplace: we want to make websites easier to make and we want to make them better.
People really resonated with that idea. In 2009 they had their first million users, hit 50 million in 2014 and by 2019 they support more than 150 million.
Over the years to further reduce the workload of businesses in order to design dazzling websites – they have added products like App Market, Wix ADI, Ascend and Corvid.
Their flagship product, the Wix Editor, allows you to create a custom website or choose from over 500 designer made templates.
With mobile optimization, SEO friendly design, animations and video support along with an app market that gives you access to great plugins like MailChimp, Google Analytics and Shopify – you’re destined to find success!
Pros of Wix
Let’s now talk about why Wix is a fantastic choice for your website. With Wix Artificial Design Intelligence (ADI), they have replaced the drag-and-drop experience with a pick and choose one.
Yes, you read that right! Instead of picking out each element by hand – you can choose from a selection of templates once you tell the AI about what your business is all about!
Getting your website up and ready within 5 minutes is now reality.
Still feel like those AI designs are missing a human touch? No problem!
You can move the ADI websites into Editor mode at any time and customize to your heart’s content – which brings us to the next powerful feature of Wix – its editor.
The Wix Editor is designed to provide…well…everything! From a photo studio for each individual photos (with tons of filters), customizing how the shape of your video looks, to creating your own online training programs – Wix has it all.
Want to upload files? Done.
Create a shared gallery space for your members? Done.
Support multiple languages for your worldwide audience? They support that too!
Finally, if you’re a web developer you’re probably wondering if they’ve somehow left you out. Nope.
For those hard workers who know the struggle of creating both feature-packed and functional web applications – Wix offers a special product named Corvid.
Corvid, is an open development platform that lets you build advanced web applications.
In fact, Corvid offers serverless computing, access to hundreds of APIs, integrated databases and total design freedom.
With support for Node.js, npm, and access to a built-in IDE, along with the ability to assign roles & permissions to your users!
Wix is a powerhouse when it comes to building websites and a great choice for beginners and professionals alike.
Cons of Wix
Despite having a whole suite of products that are designed to aid their customers, Wix does fall short in some areas.
One is the inability to change themes once you publish your website(s). Sometimes, a lock and load mechanism isn’t the best choice for entrepreneurs.
The second area where Wix fails is the abundance of themes, elements and choices to choose from.
Information overload and analysis paralysis are very real things – and when you’re looking to build a website as soon as possible, this can impede progress.
How Much Wix Plans costs ?
Wix’s basic premium plan starts at $13/month – which allows a lot of flexibility for integration of third-party add ons such as MailChimp, SendinBlue and WooCommerce.
If you’re a freelancer, the Unlimited plan is awesome – at just $17/month.
For small businesses and sellers, Wix offers a $23/month plan.
And enterprises can get in on the action for a sweet $700/month (or $500/month when billed annually).
Overall, these prices are about as competitive Wix can get considering the sheer amount of features they provide. Regardless of your payment choice – Wix is a great option for beginners, freelancers, professionals or businesses!
So, thinking about to start a wix website ? Check the plans here.
Squarespace Website Builder
Squarespace gets business in the 21st century – it recognizes the role that websites play in the life of consumers.
Which is why their product campaigns revolve around the idea “A website makes it real.”.
As we discussed before, consumers research a company before buying its products – and its adamant that you leave a lasting impression that invokes a sense of security and excitement.
Founded in a dorm room (like half of Silicon Valley!) in 2003, Squarespace employs more than 1,000 people around the world and supports millions of websites.
In fact, they’ve won awards such as ‘Career-launching Companies’ and ‘Best place to work’ since 2017.
In fact, squarespace is built on squarespace. Recognizing that design is not a luxury, it strives to provide well-designed templates that customers can customize according to their own needs.
Pros of Squarespace
Squarespace provides templates across a variety of categories like portfolios, blogging, consulting, and even gaming! Of course you are restricted to a particular category – if mixing is what you desire, Squarespace doesn’t hold you back.
With built-in SEO tools to fetch you those coveted first page rankings (or even first link), analytics to help you understand your audience better, apps and tools to integrate into your website like Zapier, YouTube, Twitter, Google Maps and Instagram – you’ve got complete control over the functionality of your website!
Sometimes, you’re in a tight spot.
Price tags change within seconds – and you forgot your laptop at the office. No worries!
With Squarespace’s mobile apps for iOS and Android, you can edit on-the-go and amaze your customers without a single hiccup.
Freelancers and consultants have one nightmare in common: scheduling.
Squarespace makes that go away, with calender coordination, streamlined payments, video conferencing and subscriptions all built-in.
For a monthly fee you can tweak it according to your requirements and you’re ready to go.
And their editor is gorgeous. You can upload files, images, video and even audio to your website – your visitors don’t have to open any new tabs every single time they click on a link.
After all, you built a website so that you could serve your clients – not have some third-party vendor take away your client’s personalized experience right?
Cons of Squarespace
Squarespace, in its effort to build the best experience, has faltered in some aspects.
We said earlier that the UI for designing websites is gorgeous and we stand by it, but saving your changes seems to be a bit of a hassle.
The editor asks you after every change – instead of auto saving and creating a version history in the background.
Squarespace is notorious for providing websites for freelancers and small businesses – if you’re looking to scale your website, Squarespace might prove to be a challenge.
Furthermore, it sometimes loads a bit slower than other platforms and with Google’s Page Rank algorithm taking loading speed into consideration – that might impact your own rankings.
Pricing
Squarespace has a three-tier plan package: personal, business, and commerce (basic and advanced).
Personal plans start at $12/month,
business at $18/month,
basic commerce at $26, and advanced at $40.
All of these plans include free domains, SSL security and unlimited bandwidth and storage.
Their premium plans give you access to email domains, integrated e-Commerce, and subscriptions.
If you’re looking to build a website that fits perfectly within your company vision and client’s expectations – Squarespace can help you get there!