WordPress vs. Wix: Who’s the Best for Blogging?

It used to be that WordPress was the clear winner for all things content management. Running a blog? WordPress. Want to create a gallery? WordPress. Create a website for your company? WordPress. 

These days, WordPress isn’t the answer to everything. With fresh, new faces pouncing on the market, the winner is not who has been around the longest, but rather who is the most adaptable to the way the web works today, and the way it will change in the future.

Although WordPress started out primarily as a blogging platform, it has since morphed into a content management system that suits a variety of needs — allowing website owners to do everything from selling products to running forums and much more all from one centralized dashboard. 

Website building platform Wix offers some notable advantages over WordPress, but WordPress has still managed to hold its own after all these years and offers several benefits. So if you’re considering building a website, which platform is right for you? Let’s take a closer look:

Wix: The Easy Way to Build a Website (Even if You’re Not a Designer)

Wix is aimed at helping anyone build a website with no coding or design skills whatsoever. Over 70 million people use Wix and the base site builder contains over 500 different designs, so you’re sure to find something that suits your needs. Each template is divided by industry, so whether you’re looking for something corporate or something educational or anything in between, you can definitely find something on Wix to suit your needs. 

By default, you get a subdomain (like yoursite.wix.com). If you want a domain name like example.com, it will cost more. Plans with Wix start at $18/month. 

Using the Wix Website Builder

Even if you consider yourself the farthest thing from a designer, Wix will guide you through the process, even suggesting designs depending on what your industry is or the purpose of your site. So, for example, if your site is going to be a blog, it will suggest blog designs accordingly. 

But Wix goes a step further by letting you customize all kinds of aspects of a given design. For example, you can add your logo, change colors, add buttons, videos, social media icons and much more. 

The Wix App Market

If you want to integrate certain features on your site, such as site search, a calendar or even a shopping cart, you can add apps from the Wix App Market. You don’t specifically have to use these third party solutions, as Wix has its own store module that lets you sell products online and take payments securely online. 

Adding different features and designs to your page, including your own images and videos, are as easy as dragging and dropping them into place. But while we can go into great detail on all the features of Wix, it’s best to concentrate on one aspect: blogging. So how does Wix stand up to the king of blogging platforms?

Blogging with Wix

As with any other page in Wix, blogging is as simple as creating a new page. Once you do that, you can add a blog module to it, and then use Wix’s straightforward interface to create blog posts in much the same way as you create other types of pages within the system. 

WordPress: The Advanced Content Management System that Grows With You

WordPress differs from Wix in that it is not a website builder, per se. It’s a full-scale content management system. To enjoy the most flexible options, you’ll want to install WordPress on your web hosting account. WordPress is free, but web hosting costs around $5-10/month and a domain name costs around $10 per year. Your web hosting company can install WordPress for you if you aren’t sure how. 

With that being said, WordPress started as a blogging platform but has since grown to encompass a variety of uses. It is still a formidable blogging platform that is great for intermediate to advanced users who want to go beyond the simplicity of “click and drag” blog building to truly customize their blog in a way that makes it look unique and makes it very attractive to the search engines. 

Expandable and Customizable

WordPress is infinitely customizable, with thousands and thousands of website designs that are easily customizable beyond the foundations of what Wix allows you to customize. In addition, you can make WordPress do nearly anything thanks to the thousands of free plugins available. Some programming experience is needed in order to use WordPress to the fullest, but it’s quite simple to learn basic CSS and HTML to make more advanced changes to your site. 

WordPress allows you to create both posts (the individual posts in your blog), as well as pages (like About Me, Services, Contact Us, and so on). This helps you keep your blog posts and informational pages separate. From within the WordPress system, you can add images, videos, links and more to your pages and posts. 

So Which Platform Wins?

The truth is that there’s no “one size fits all” platform for everyone. Wix definitely excels at being user-friendly and easy to learn. WordPress definitely excels at being fully customizable in a way that grows with your business or blog. If you want to start a blog and you have plans for it to scale into something more than just pictures of your dog or your favorite recipes, it’s definitely worth looking at WordPress over Wix.

And if you need help with maintaining and managing your WordPress site, the programmers and developers at WPDandy are here to help! For one low monthly fee, you can have our proficient development team work with you to make as many changes as you’d like to your blog, from changing colors to updating images and much more. We even offer a project management panel that makes it easy for you to communicate with your personal developer and assign them work to do, so there’s no constant back-and-forth over the phone or email. 

To learn more about our WordPress management and maintenance services or to get started with your WordPress blog, feel free to contact us and tell us more about what you have in mind!