Since the introduction of the internet, web design has been a complicated process that’s made running a business difficult. In the early days, people had to learn HTML and complex coding to be able to make any type of website for their business or service.
The good news is that now we have services available that make web design significantly easier. In the modern-day, we can design web pages without any coding knowledge or website design experience thanks to services like Wix.
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Last Updated: May 28, 2023
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We’ll provide you with everything you need to know about Wix in this Wix review so that you can go forth with the knowledge and feel confident about being an informed consumer. But first, we’ll discuss some of the basics, like what Wix is and what a website designer as part of this comprehensive Wix review.
Before we can start a Wix review, we need to talk about what Wix is.
Wix is a website designing service that uses templates and drag-and-drop functionality to make building your own website simple. In this Wix review, we’ll cover each of Wix’s numerous features and provide an in-depth analysis of how useful, intuitive, and beneficial these features and services are (or aren’t).
Many businesses use Wix to design their own websites and enjoy how simple and easy it is to use with no coding or web design experience, and after reading this Wix review you’ll be able to see why.
Before diving into the meat of this Wix review, we should cover what a website designer is.
Website designers are a set of tools and services used to make website building more accessible to people without any coding experience. In the early days of the internet, web design was often difficult and require intimate knowledge of HTML coding and computer networking to be able to build properly.
This made it difficult for small businesses to advertise their services via the internet and forced many people to rely on more traditional types of advertising, which can often be incredibly expensive. It also restricted their potential customers to what was locally available, as online shopping was fairly rare.
In the modern-day, websites and online shopping have become an integral part of our society. Now the list of items that can be obtained online ranges from retail items like clothes and shoes, to food from fancy restaurants. In today’s market, you need an online presence to stay competitive, and website designing services like Wix allow you to do just that.
And it’s not just businesses that benefit from Wix. Any person, group, or organization can benefit from Wix’s website design services. Many artists use Wix as a means to showcase their work and attract clients. Several charity organizations have also used Wix to build their websites and after seeing all the features covered in this Wix review you’ll see why.
We’ve talked a lot about internet history in general in this Wix review, but what about the specific history of Wix? Without discussing how this service has operated, we can’t really call this a comprehensive Wix review.
Wix has been in operation since 2006, and boasts over 200 million customers across 190 countries as of the writing of this Wix review.
That’s no small number. Prior to Wix’s arrival on the market, professional web design often required hiring a professional web designer (which can be incredibly expensive). Website design prior to Wix also often relied on expensive software that many people don’t know how to use.
After Wix’s service went live in 2006 all that changed. Now web design was being offered in a user-friendly, templated service that is still highly customizable.
Instead of learning complex computer coding and buying expensive software, Wix allows users to construct their site using a web-based service. Wix also hosts your website after it’s put together and ready to launch, so you don’t have to worry about renting servers or purchasing hosting equipment either.
As of the time of writing this Wix review, Wix has allowed millions of users over 15 years to construct thousands of websites for their businesses.
The next topic to cover in this Wix review is the reputation of Wix.
Wix is well known as a web design service, having been around for over a decade. Most people looking into web design have heard of, seen an ad for, or already been referred to Wix. And with their service being so easy to use, many businesses have already used Wix themselves. You may have even browsed a website built using Wix without even knowing.
Wix has also helped spread the word of their services through high profile ad-campaigns featuring well-known celebrities, making them fairly well known around the world. Wix has used this popularity to help their users power millions of websites.
Wix takes pride in keeping their services secure, so you don’t have to worry about any vulnerabilities in your digital security. Taking that and their well-established user base and market presence into consideration, Wix is definitely a service that the writers of this Wix review consider trustworthy.
We feel like we couldn’t write an unbiased Wix review if we didn’t address the elephant in the room that is Wix’s SEO reputation. You’ve likely already heard people tell you to pass on Wix because their SEO sucks, and you wouldn’t be the only one.
However, a lot of those remarks come from people who don’t understand how to use Wix’s SEO tools, so of course they had bad luck with them.
However, Wix actually did have several SEO problems which included:
But what you need to know about all of this is that Wix has been working to fix all of these issues and completely revamp their SEO reputation. In 2016 they corrected the issues listed here and upped their SEO game. As of the writing of this Wix review, Wix’s SEO has vastly improved from their past SEO problems.
You’re likely reading this Wix review wondering if Wix is right for you. Don’t worry, we’re going to give you a breakdown of who can benefit from using Wix’s services as part of this comprehensive Wix review.
If you don’t have any experience with web design, coding, or lack the free time it would take to learn all of these things, then Wix is definitely for you. As previously stated in this Wix review, their services are focused on providing easy and accessible web design to users without requiring them to learn any kind of coding.
If you’re looking for lots of well-designed website templates that come pre-made with designs appropriate for your chosen industry (such as fashion, jewelry, architecture, restaurant, hotel, or advertising), then Wix is a good idea for you.
Their interface uses drag-and-drop functionality, allowing you to assemble your website quickly with little to no hassle. This system does take a little patience to figure out the full extent of it’s functionality, but in general the service is fantastic for people who want a quick and easy way to design a website with a professional appearance.
Because of the ability to create a visually-appealing website layout with Wix’s website creation tools, Wix is a good idea for photographers, artists, musicians, restaurant owners, and other small businesses of this type. You can display your work or products in an eye-grabbing way on Wix.
In fact, Wix is especially recommended for photographers because of their gallery options, which allows you to display your art on your webpage in a visually stunning way. And Wix gives musicians a way to sell their music online.
It’s also a good idea for anyone who wants to use Wix’s apps and integration features for their website. You can easily add elements to your webpage such as an appointment scheduler, online ordering, a forum or event calendar, and can even allow you to do things such as send out an automated confirmation email, or design and sent an email newsletter.
Regardless of what kind of business you’re running or project you’re in charge of, Wix can create a professional-looking website for any brand or organization. Even if you’re just writing a blog or creating a site for a particular hobby, Wix can help you achieve that quickly and with ease.
This wouldn’t be a proper Wix review if we didn’t cover their web design toolbox. Wix offers many of the tools their competitors do, such as drag-and-drop templated designs, as well as a slew of other services. Instead of brief summaries of each tool, as part of this comprehensive Wix review we’re going to dive in and provide a detailed breakdown of what each feature can do.
The first tool we’ll cover in this Wix review is the editor itself.
Wix’s editing tool is a drag-and-drop style tool that lets you place design elements anywhere on the page. Most designers constrain you to using established columns or specific areas when adding element to the page, but Wix allows you complete freedom in how you design your page. You can adjust the placement of an element down to the exact pixel, which can be fantastic.
This does have a bit of a downside, though. Wix’s editor can be as confusing as it is intuitive. With so much freedom, it can also seem overwhelming when you first start using it. Another thing to consider when creating this Wix review is that although Wix gives you lots of design freedom, websites aren’t exactly meant to work this way.
Even though it makes sense as a user to be able to simply drag and drop an element wherever you want, HTML used in more traditional web design has a set structure that creates the general layout of web pages that we’re all familiar with.
Going outside of this traditional design can cause visitors to your site to feel confused and hinder traffic or cause the mobile and desktop versions of your site to appear out of sync.
Even though these are somewhat negative features, these issues are hardly crippling or deal-breaking. This is just something that you as a user will need to keep in mind when designing a website using Wix, and something we thought we should make you aware of in an attempt to provide you with an unbiased Wix review.
The next feature our Wix review is the design templates.
Wix offers over 800 design templates across more than 70 categories, and each one is professionally designed. The templates are also mobile-friendly and you can edit each version independently to optimize your website for each device.
Wix also offers blank templates that allow you to build your site from scratch. Wix templates range from one-page landing sites for sales ad marketing, to fully structured website templates to suit your website needs.
The majority of Wix templates are also available for free, though a few designs are locked behind service packages. With the volume of content Wix offers for free, though, we don’t feel as part of this Wix review that this is a true negative.
The only real downside worth mentioning in this part of our Wix review is that you can’t change templates mid- design, so changing templates will always result in you have to start over from square one. This can be frustrating for a lot of users, so keep that in mind when choosing a template for your website. The amount of content available can also feel overwhelming when you start designing your site too. These are some of the things we’ve kept in mind while creating this Wix review, as well.
With all of these options available in the design kit though, we still think Wix provides an amazing value as a website builder.
One of the more niche tools in Wix’s box, Wix ADI is an artificial intelligence designed to streamline and empower your creative process. This is such an interesting feature that we had to include it and provide a detailed description of it in our Wix review.
Wix ADI helps filter relevant content and design choices to your site through a few simple questions, making the whole process much more streamlined and helping you feel empowered by your design choices. Wix ADI will use your input to create a tailor-made design that’s unique to the needs of your brand, which is a huge plus when designing a website.
Even better, Wix ADI has been live since 2016, meaning that it’s had years to refine its design parameters when it comes to creating and filtering content necessary to build your website. If there was ever an AI that’s perfect for making your website, it’s definitely Wix ADI.
Of course, Wix ADI does have its drawbacks and this wouldn’t be a good Wix review if we didn’t discuss them. Any AI-based service will have the occasional misfire when it comes to content referral, and Wix ADI is no exception to that rule. Wix ADI also doesn’t completely design the site for you, so a human element to approve all of the choices it makes is still very much a necessity.
All things considered, Wix ADI is still an incredibly useful feature and can help get the ball rolling when it comes to designing your own website.
It wouldn’t really be a good Wix review if we didn’t mention the SEO features that Wix offers. As of 2016, WIx covers all the SEO capabilities that most standard websites will need.
Wix allows you to edit the meta descriptions and titles of your web-page to better optimize them for Google, Bing, and various other search engines. Wix also allows you to connect your site to Google Search Console, further optimizing your SEO options.
You can also use the mobile editor to further adjust the compatibility of your site, allowing it to appear higher in search options. Features like this help users raise the discoverability of their site, which in turn helps promote their business opportunities.
Wix also allows you to personalize your web-page URLs, which can help your site’s content remain easily identifiable on search recommendations. When you combine this with some of the more advanced features, such as their tag system (which is robust and somewhat complex), Wix really offers a lot in terms of SEO options and discoverability tools for your website.
The next part of our Wix review is some of the other services and features Wix provides, such as their customer support.
We wouldn’t have done our due diligence writing this Wix review if we didn’t cover Customer Help and Support.
Wix has an extensive help center filled with thousands of articles in 9 languages (including Japanese and German). These articles cover almost every topic you could ever need to learn about Wix and each of its services and features.
The Wix Editor also contains video guides that will walk you through the design process and help you overcome any stumbling blocks you encounter along the way. If that’s not enough, the Wix Education (Wix Ed) YouTube channel provides video tutorials and product overviews in case you need help troubleshooting or learning the platform.
Apart from that, there’s also the Wix Code Forum, which can help you find experienced advice on any coding-related questions or challenges you may have as you design your web page. Other issues or questions can be addressed to the customer support center by submitting a ticket online or by calling during regular business hours.
Wix also makes it incredibly easy to request new features or report existing issues, and the level of feedback from the development staff refreshing enough that we had to mention it as part of this Wix review.
They constantly monitor recurring issues and collect votes from their user base to find and resolve any issues on the platform, meaning that your feedback is valued and that commonly experienced problems or desired features are quick to be added.
With a robust support system like this, it’s easy to see why Wix has gained so many users since its launch in 2006. We were pleasantly surprised when writing this Wix review because it’s rare to come across an online business service such as this with such a comprehensive support and knowledge system.
Another key feature that we need to talk about in this Wix review is their App and Extension market. This is a service that allows you to integrate additional functionality into your website via extensions or apps that are available through the Wix app market.
It’s important for the purposes of this Wix review that we point out that in a technical sense, most of the “apps” offered on the Wix app market are not true apps. Instead of separate programs they are more like webpage extensions or sometimes just simple iframes (which are basically browser windows).
As an example, the Etsy app doesn’t actually add integrated Etsy functionality to your page. The app instead creates a window on your page allowing the user to navigate your Etsy store. As of the writing of this Wix review these “apps” aren’t currently as good as they could be, but they still function on a basic level and are easy to integrate with your page.
Wix offers image and video integrations allowing you to display your own custom content as elements on your page to help with your branding and marketing, which is especially useful if you’ve already designed elements such as a company logo or even a video advertisement.
The Wix Shoutout app also allows you to collect data from users who view your site and establish email marketing campaigns. This is useful to create an email list and things of that nature for marketing.
Wix also offers apps and extensions to help develop your eCommerce if you’re running an online store, although it’s important to note as part of an unbiased Wix review that these options aren’t as extensive as some of their competitors.
Wix’s eCommerce options are better suited to smaller stores and business owners that have limited experience with web design. Wix will still supply the basics for any store (discounts, point-of-sale systems, shipping, etc.), but for more innovative features the writers of this Wix review feel that you may want to look elsewhere.
Even though the apps aren’t true apps, they still offer a wide array of functionality. Wix offers extensions that allow you to add appointment-booking, online store options, customer reviews, and more. Over time these apps could become more robust, but as of the writing of this Wix review, they function well enough for a basic web page.
Our Wix review has discussed several of Wix’s most notable features in detail, but let’s do a recap of the service’s pros and cons.
| Wix Pros | Wix Cons |
| + Template variety + Drag and drop style editor + AI tools + SEO tools | – Changing a template means starting over – Too much customization for beginners |
Of course, we’ll cover the pros first in this Wix review.
Wix offers an amazing variety of templates and design elements with a simple to use drag-and-drop style editor. The creative freedom this system affords the user isn’t seen anywhere else on the market, and when you factor in the wide variety of templates available for free it’s easy to see the appeal.
Wix also offers the Wix ADI tool, an AI designed to streamline the creation process and help you get a solid foundation for your web page. Wix ADI helps bring relevant content to your design and can even tailor a unique design template for your site after getting feedback from you in the form of a questionnaire.
There are lots of SEO tools to help increase your website’s visibility in search engines. The ability to edit the meta description and description of your website through Wix is enough to boost the amount of visitors to your site. And, the ability to use a customized URL for your website to increase your SEO rating is a nice touch, as well.
Wix’s Help Center, Customer Support Team, and YouTube channel provide a nearly endless amount of assistance with learning the platform and resolving any issues that may arise when designing your web page. Considering how important a good customer support system is, this was a definite plus to our Wix review.
The apps and extensions that Wix offers allows you to add more layers of customization to your website and are worth mentioning in this Wix review. The picture and video integration can make your website more visibly appealing, which can mean more visitors. And their ecommerce and Wix Shoutout options are great for any business.
Wix has an excellent blog add-on. It’s SEO-friendly and allows for things such as tags, RSS and categories for your blog posts. You can easily schedule blog posts, as well, rather than posting them once you’ve created them.
And you can use the Wix Owner mobile app to create blog posts or edit them while you’re on the go. Another great thing about Wix’s blog option is that you’re able to sell subscriptions to your blog, which creates another avenue of profit for your website.
As part of an unbiased Wix review, we won’t just tell you about all of the great features Wix has to offer. We’ll tell you about the drawbacks of Wix’s services as part of this Wix review, as well.
The first drawback we’ll discuss is a fairly major one. Sure, there are hundreds of templates to choose from, but once you choose a template and start customizing it you can’t just change it out.
Changing templates means that all of the work you did on the first template is lost and you’ll need to start over. This is a real pain to deal with. If you choose a template, you need to be sure that’s the template you want to before you begin to customize it.
The amount of freedom that Wix grants you with their editor can be great, but it can also be quite overwhelming- and not just for you. It can cause you to create a web design that doesn’t follow the standard structure we’re all used to, which can cause confusion for visitors to your site. It can also mean that your desktop and mobile website versions are out of sync with each other.
Wix’s ADI service is a great idea, but Artificial Intelligence (AI) hasn’t progressed to a point where it’s faultless yet. Any AI-based program will still bug out a bit and have errors (such as the autocorrect features on most mobile phones). Wix’s ADI is no different, and you need to approve every change it suggests.
Wix’s “apps” aren’t true apps. They aren’t separate applications, and often are simply a new window that pops open (such as the app for the Etsy store that pops up a new window that includes your Etsy storefront). It’s fair to say that Wix’s apps and extensions aren’t as good as they could be.
Wix’s ad-free site starts at $14 per month. There are other website-builders who charge far less than Wix for an ad-free experience. For instance, Weebly’s cheapest ad-free option starts at $8 per month.
Even though Wix has made recent attempts to shorten their load times, they still have a long way to go when it comes to their mobile load speeds. A lot of the templates that Wix offers are very graphics and media-intensive and it creates a problem with the performance of mobile website load times.
Wix’s multilingual website system isn’t good for SEO. Wix URLs are static, regardless of their language. So if you don’t structure your URL like this: yoursite.com/es/post, you’ll wind up with something like yoursite.com/post?lang=en, which is awful for SEO purposes.
Another SEO issue is in regards to the image file names that Wix generates when you upload an image. You’ll be given file names that resemble this: 07a0ab9~mv2.jpg/. These names are not only bad for SEO purposes, they’re an especially annoying problem for sites who want to make it into Google images.
The depth of navigation of your Wix website maxes out at two levels. Another level would be better for large websites with more than 30 pages. Wix sites are restricted to 100 pages, but with each page you add the editor slows down.
Wix has a great blog add-on, but there are two downsides to it. The first is the comment section, which requires users to create an account with your website before they can leave a comment. This will turn off many users to commenting on your posts. Also, there’s no way to easily add tables to your blog.
We briefly discussed in this Wix review the ability to use Wix apps to create additional functions to your website. In this section of our Wix review, we’ll discuss some of the apps in-depth.
This is one of Wix’s most-used apps for businesses, so it needs to be mentioned in our Wix review. There are several business functions that this app brings to Wix websites, such as a CRM, automations, email marketing, live chat, forms and more.
You can access it for a limited time with a free plan, and there’s also a premium package, which we checked out during the research for this Wix review and we think they could offer more for their paid plan.
This is a great app for anyone who owns a business that is either appointment or service-based. This includes businesses such as beauty salons, consultants, yoga studios and personal trainers, so of course we need to discuss it in this Wix review.
Wix Bookings is a scheduling app that allows visitors to your site to schedule or book appointments, consultations or classes from your website. It can also take payments for you, which is a useful feature.
It offers Zoom integration so you can schedule and conduct online meetings or consultations with clients, or perform screening calls to ask pre-appointment questionnaires. There are also features in this app that allow you to manage calendars and staff, as well as offer memberships.
There’s a free version of the app, a paid version, and you can access it with a subscription to Wix’s Business and Ecommerce apps.
We feel like it would be a failing to not discuss the many industry-specific apps that Wix offers in this Wix review. Here are a few of the industry-specific apps you can take advantage of with Wix:
Wix Hotels is a great app to use if you create a website for your hotel. It has a feature that allows you to add a reservation system to your website, as well as manage your bookings easily. Not only can you allow your guests to book a room, it allows you to add seasonal rates to your site and your booking system, as well as set different rates per room, and specify minimum stays.
If you use Wix’s Channel Manage, you can link your website to booking systems such as Booking.com and Expedia, and there’s an integration for TripAdvisor. You can use multiple languages to display your reservation options, as well. Wix Hotels will even send out automated booking confirmation emails to your guests on your behalf.
If you’ve created a Wix website for your restaurant, you should really check out Wix Restaurants. Some of the features included are: table reservations, menu layouts, a contact form, online ordering for food deliveries, Google maps integration so customers can find your restaurant, reviews and testimonials, an online business card from Google My Business, app integration for directories such as Yelp, TripAdvisor, Urbanspoon, Foursquare and Yello Pages, marketing features, a blog, photo gallery and video uploads.
Okay, maybe this isn’t industry-specific, but if you’re an event planner or if you want to host events for your business, this is a great tool to have in your toolbox. It allows you to host events, showcase them online, collect RSVPs or sell tickets to your event and check guests in with the Wix mobile app while you’re on the go.
There are several other nice features, such as the ability to scan tickets from your mobile device and check in guests, send out event invites, allow your customers to make secure payments, and track the sales of your tickets and the growth of your guest list.
One of the most common questions is about the cost of Wix, so this is one of the most important sections of our Wix review.
It’s worth noting that there is a free version of Wix that you’re free to use as long as you wish. You simply won’t have access to some of the fancier features that their paid services provide, and you’ll be limited to a wix.com URL. You also can’t sell products from the free version and will need to upgrade your service plan to do so.
Here’s a look at Wix’s service packages and offerings:
With the Connect Domain package, you get 500MB of storage, and you can connect your domain. The downside is that you only get 1GB of bandwidth. Every piece of media you add to your site increases the amount of bandwidth your site requires so that it doesn’t affect loading times. Also, there will be Wix ads all over your site.
With the Combo package you get a free domain for a year and 3GB of storage. This is a good option for personal use. There are several features, such as 2GB of bandwidth, the option to remove the Wix ads from your site, 30 minutes of video hosting and more. This is a good plan for those with blogs who want more from the Wix experience than the free version has to offer.
The Unlimited package offers unlimited bandwidth, a free custom domain for your website for a year, 10GB of storage, a form builder app and the ability to remove Wix ads from your website. This is a good option for small business owners, entrepreneurs and freelancers.
With the VIP package, you get all of the features that come with the less-expensive packages, plus extra bandwidth, VIP support, priority response, social media logo files and $300 ad vouchers. This package is best suited for large businesses or websites.
Now that we’ve given you a description of the prices and services offered in each package in this Wix review, you can make a decision about which one is right for you.
It’s important to mention some of the promotions that Wix offers in this Wix review. Wix offers a 14-day free trial, which is excellent news to most savvy consumers. This means that you have the opportunity to try Wix’s services before you decide to purchase a monthly paid subscription plan.
We were delighted to find this feature while researching Wix for this Wix review because many companies forego the free trial these days, even though most customers consider them to be a nice touch that help build trust with a company.
Another important topic to cover in this comprehensive Wix review is Wix’s refund policy. Many online services don’t offer refunds on their services, which is quite disappointing. But Wix isn’t one of those companies.
Wix offers a money-back guarantee, and you can cancel their services if you aren’t satisfied with them for a full refund with no questions asked. (Although we suggest that you tell them which part of their services you were dissatisfied with so they can improve on their services.)
We knew when we began writing this Wix review that techies would be concerned about various aspects of Wix and wonder how well they function in real-world scenarios. So we took notes during our research to report the findings.
One of the more interesting reviews we read included a graph and a bar chart that indicated Wix’s uptime, downtime and response time over the course of an entire year. Given how much people complain about the load times of Wix webpages, we were a little concerned about these statistics in particular.
However, we were pleasantly surprised to see that the uptime number was nearly 100%. Well, it was 99.95%, but that’s close enough, right? The downtime was 4 hours with 88 outages. And that sounds like a lot, but if it was only 4 hours during an entire year (which contains 8760 hours), that’s not as bad. These outages weren’t for long and couldn’t have effected service much.
The response time, or the number of milliseconds required to obtain a response from Wix servers was also surprising. It was between 200-500ms, which isn’t bad. If you get a response time of 800ms, you’re going to notice that the site is slow and get frustrated by the loading times.
The response times of 200-500ms really only count for users in the United States, however, as that’s where their servers are located and load times will be faster for American users who visit your site.
This wouldn’t be a fair and impartial Wix review if we didn’t account for the fact that Wix isn’t going to be a good fit for every person. Much like any other activity that can involve creativity, there’s not a one-size-fits-all approach that will work website design.
If you want more control over your website design, then Wix isn’t for you. Not everyone will appreciate the hand-guided approach provided by templated designs. If you start building a site with Wix only to think “What if I didn’t want that element in that location?” or “I could definitely do that better”, then it may be time to move to a different service.
It’s pretty likely that if you have much experience with graphic design, web design or have a specific look in mind for your website, Wix isn’t for you. Wix is great for beginners, but if you want more intermediate or expert-level web design, Wix isn’t for you.
And, while it’s nice that anyone can create a site with Wix, we know from personal experience that if you don’t really work with Wix’s tools and templates to customize them the websites that beginners produce with no real effort can look really generic.
In fact, if you want a website that’s truly unique, we felt it was a good idea to let you know as part of this Wix review that you won’t benefit from Wix’s vast array of templates and design elements.
So, you’ve decided that Wix isn’t for you. Now what? As part of this comprehensive Wix review, we’ll provide you with some alternatives to try and tell you a bit about them.
Squarespace is Wix’s biggest competitor, so it wouldn’t be a real Wix review if we didn’t mention them. While Wix gives you complete freedom of design and page layout, Squarespace uses a more traditional design structure while still allowing you to have a high degree of creative control over your designs.
Squarespace will make sure all of the elements fit together nicely, but you’ll also have to accept that the general layout of your site will have to follow a specific design, no matter how much you customize it.
Squarespace does allow for more experienced designers to add their own HTML coding, but if you already posses those skills then you’re better off hosting and building the site yourself. Beyond that, Squarespace is also more expensive than any of their competitors. Wix has plans that compete with all of Squarespace’s functionality that are free.
If you’re running an eCommerce store then you’ve probably already had someone refer you to Shopify, and it wouldn’t be a proper Wix review if we didn’t mention one of their biggest competitors.
Shopify offers an intuitive and easy-to-use interface that’s great for online retailers and sellers of all sizes. Even though Wix offers eCommerce tools, Shopify specializes in that particular service. All of Shopify’s templates are well-made and visually pleasing as well, so you’ll still be able to get that professional look.
Oddly, Shopify lacks flexibility with their URL structure and that can negatively effect your SEO and make your website harder to find.
Wix offers much more flexibility and SEO integration, which can make a world of difference. Shopify also lack the ability to create multi-lingual websites, which can exclude a significant number of potential customers or make their experience more difficult.
When compared to Wix, Shopify is more beneficial to larger stores and sellers looking for a dedicated eCommerce service. If your store is smaller or attached to blog, then Wix is likely a better option.
Another one of Wix’s main competitors is WordPress.com, and it wouldn’t be right to leave them out of this Wix review.
WordPress.com is a service for building websites using the incredibly popular WordPress software. The software can be obtained through WordPress.org, an open-source community based around the software itself. WordPress software is just one piece to setting up your own site, and for the other parts you’ll need WordPress.com.
WordPress.com is all-inclusive and will cover everything you need for designing, registering, and hosting your website. All the tools you need to accomplish this are provided with the platform, which offers extension, support, and vital analytics to help you monitor the success of your page. This is fantastic because you don’t have to worry about a particular integration breaking your page.
WordPress does come out to be pricier than several of its competitors for the paid service, but it offers a free plan that’s comparable to Wix. The trouble is that WordPress has a steeper learning curve than Wix and the design tools simply aren’t as intuitive as Wix’s drag-and-drop toolkit.
WordPress also locks much of its design flexibility behind a paywall. If you aren’t subscribed to their premium business plan, you simply don’t have access to many of WordPress’s more advanced functions and features.
Weebly is another all-inclusive option worth mentioning in our Wix review. It features a similar drag-and-drop style editor and many features similar to Wix, WordPress, and Squarespace and still doesn’t require you to download any additional software or purchase additional hosting for your site.
Weebly’s pricing model is similar to Wix and includes a free option with no expiration. Unlike Wix, Weebly removes ads on your website at the first service tier, meaning you don’t have to subscribe to their premium package for ad removal. Their higher service tiers are also competitively priced, meaning you can expect to spend similar amounts of money when choosing Weebly over other web designers.
Weebly’s content management system is lacking, though. Their system isn’t as efficient as many of their competitors and can be difficult to work with. Weebly’s content management system also lacks a way to add any kind of custom content, meaning you can’t be as creative as you can with Wix.
There’s also not an easy or efficient way to transfer your content if you decide to move your website off Weebly. They do allow you to export the majority of site content via zip file, but any blog content will require manual copy/pasting and it can be a hassle to transfer your URLs.
If you have experience with HTML then Weebly’s site builder does allow for custom coding and HTML editing, but without full control over your site it’s difficult to properly use this feature. It can also be more of a hindrance when compared to other services.
In general, Weebly is an alright choice for a short-term or starter website, but if you have longer term projects in mind then consider Wix.
Unbounce is less of a competitor to Wix and more of a niche tool, but depending on what your needs are it may be the better choice so they’re worth mentioning in this Wix review.
Unbounce is a site designer built specifically for landing pages and has specialized features for that purpose. Although Wix allows you to build landing pages too, Unbounce does it better and is more specialized for that purpose. Unbounce also allows you to build multiple landing pages and has a similar drag-and-drop editor to Wix, so it offers a simple and intuitive system.
Where Unbounce stumbles is its pricing and limitations. You can make a basic page, but anything fancier than that will require learning how to code. Unbounce is also fairly expensive and only allows you to build landing pages, so if you need a full website or more features in general then it might be better to consider another service.
So what’s the final verdict of this Wix review? After covering the competitors and all of the pros and cons earlier in this Wix review, we feel comfortable suggesting Wix as a website builder when compared to their competitors, especially if you don’t have web design experience.
Considering how many features Wix offers for incredibly competitive rates (including a free option), it’s easy to see how Wix has gained over 200 million users since it’s launch in 2006. The intuitive design and professional look afforded to their users has also helped solidify Wix’s reputation as an industry leader in website building and design.
Wix provides their users with hundreds of well-made templates and design elements, many of which are available at no cost! And with the simple to learn drag-and-drop style editor, you can have your web page looking professionally designed without any coding experience or prior knowledge of graphic design.
With their paid subscriptions, you also gain access to custom domain names and Wix’s incredibly robust SEO tools, allowing you to fully optimize your website and maximize your online business traffic.
Wix does have a few drawbacks. First-time users can feel overwhelmed by the choices and design options available, and you won’t be able to change templates without starting your entire web page over.
The freedom of the design tool can also hinder as much as it helps, and being able to place elements in ways that go outside of traditional website layouts can create problems with how your site present.
These issues are hardly crippling and are easily avoided if you remain mindful of them, so don’t that discourage you. The take-away from this Wix review is that you should absolutely use Wix when starting a website, especially if it’s your first time. Many of Wix’s competitors aren’t as intuitive or are simply too expensive to seriously consider.
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