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7 Alternatives to Google Business Profile Websites (Compared)

Are you looking for alternatives to a Google Business Profile website?

Google has announced that it will start turning off all the free websites made for Google Business Profile users in March 2024. Unless you migrate to an alternative website, then visitors will see an error message when visiting your site.

In this article, we will share some of the best alternatives to Google Business Profile websites.

Alternatives to Google Business Profile Websites

Why Do You Need a Google Business Profile Website Alternative?

Creating a Google Business Profile is an easy way to make sure your business appears in local search results. It provides potential customers with your contact information, directions to your locations, and a link to your website.

Previously, Google offered to create free small business websites for Google Business Profile users that included all the information in your profile. 21.7 million business owners took them up on the offer.

However, Google announced that it is shutting down all Business Profile sites from March 2024 onward.

While your actual business profile will remain intact, the associated Google website will stop working. Until June 10, 2024, Google will redirect your website visitors to your profile, but after that, anyone trying to visit your site will see an error message.

To avoid this, you need to find a different solution for your website.

With that being said, let’s take a look at some of the best Google Business Profile website alternatives for small business websites.

1. WordPress

WordPress

WordPress is the world’s most popular website-building platform and powers over 43% of all websites on the internet. It’s easy to customize and gives you complete control over your site.

Note: Keep in mind that there are two types of WordPress. Here, we are talking about the self-hosted WordPress.org. For more details, you can see our article on the difference between WordPress.org and WordPress.com.

While the WordPress software is free, there are costs involved in building a WordPress website such as a domain name and web hosting. This can be as little as a few dollars a month.

If you want your new website to be simple and minimalistic like your Business Profile site, then there are plenty of one-page WordPress themes to choose from, like the one in this screenshot.

One-Page WordPress Theme

However, you might prefer to take the opportunity to add additional important pages such as a contact page, disclaimer page, privacy policy page, terms of service, and more.

You can also add additional features to your site by installing some must-have WordPress plugins for business websites. These let you add business features to your site like contact forms, landing pages, popups, newsletters, automations, and much more.

WPForms Simple Contact Form

If you want to rank on local search results pages, then you should also install All in One SEO (AIOSEO), which is the best search engine optimization plugin on the market.

It will let you quickly add business hours, multiple location schema, and a store locator to your WordPress website. These features improve your site’s local SEO and help nearby customers find your business in the search results.

AIOSEO local business information preview

If you want help migrating your site to WordPress, then check this out: How to migrate Google Business Profile Site to WordPress.

Pros:

  • Complete control over your website
  • Add the features you need using plugins
  • Choose a theme with the look and feel you want
  • Plugins let you rank for local SEO

Cons:

  • Slight learning curve
  • You need to manage your own website

Why we chose WordPress: WordPress is used on 43% of the world’s websites and gives you access to SEO plugins that can help your business get found online. You can use WordPress to create a new website that grows with your business.

2. Wix

Wix

Wix is a popular, cloud-based website builder. It lets you easily build your website using drag-and-drop and is used by over 3.6% of all websites.

It’s a good solution if you only need a simple website like the one you already have on Google, but you may outgrow its features as your business grows.

When we created a test site on Wix, we discovered that after you choose an initial design, there is no easy way to change templates to give your site a fresh look.

Wix Drag-and-Drop Builder

While Wix doesn’t offer the same range of plugins as WordPress, it does have an online market that offers over 300 apps for adding features like booking forms, marketing, and online payments.

It also offers tools that help you optimize your website for search to attract more organic traffic.

There is a free version of Wix, but we found it quite limited in features, and it displays ads. You can also upgrade to a Pro plan to get more features, but this can become quite expensive.

Read our detailed comparison of Wix vs. WordPress for more information.

Pros:

  • Its drag-and-drop editor makes it easy to build a website quickly
  • Web hosting is included

Cons:

  • You can’t choose a different hosting provider
  • The free version is quite limited and displays ads on your website
  • Pro plans can become expensive

Why we chose Wix: Wix is a popular website builder that is a good option for people who prefer a simple business website similar to their Google Business Profiles site.

3. Web.com

Web.com

Web.com is another popular website builder for small businesses. Its affordable pricing plans make it an attractive alternative to Wix.

Like Wix, it has an easy-to-use drag-and-drop website builder and plenty of templates to choose from. That makes customizing your website design very easy.

Web.com templates

Wix’s plans include web hosting, a free domain name, a business email address, website security and backups, SEO and analytics, and other powerful website tools. They also offer affordable custom web design services separately.

Pros:

  • Easy to use drag-and-drop website builder
  • Affordable pricing
  • Pre-made website templates
  • Web hosting is included

Cons:

  • You can’t choose a different hosting provider
  • No free plan

Why we chose Web.com: Web.com is both affordable and easy to use. It’s a great Google Business Profile website alternative for business owners who are looking for a relatively simple website.

4. Squarespace

Squarespace

Squarespace is an easy-to-use premium website builder known for its great designs. Around 2.1% of all websites on the internet are built with Squarespace.

It uses a block editor for content creation similar to the Gutenberg editor in WordPress. When we tested it, we found it easy to add images, videos, and audio files. However, the editor doesn’t save your work automatically, so you will need to remember to do that yourself.

Squarespace editor

It offers customizable templates that let you get started building your site quickly. You can also add new features to your website using Squarespace extensions, though these are more limited than what is available for WordPress.

You can read our detailed comparison of Squarespace vs. WordPress.

Pros:

  • Easy to set up and use
  • Web hosting is included

Cons:

  • You can’t change to a different hosting provider
  • Costs more than shared hosting plans
  • No free plan

Why we chose Squarespace: Squarespace offers a secure hosting platform with an easy-to-use interface that lets you build a website with great design.

5. Weebly

Weebly

Weebly is a beginner-friendly website builder with loads of great designs. It’s a page builder that lets you create a website without coding skills.

You’ll find built-in support for contact forms, photo galleries, sliders, and more. Weebly also offers different free and paid applications to add additional features to your site, but the selection is more limited than with WordPress.

You can choose from dozens of website designs as a starting point for your website, and edit your content using a live page editor. You can also build and manage your website using a mobile app.

Weebly Website Builder Interface

Weebly is particularly suitable for creating beautiful but small websites. It makes it easy to get started with a website, but you may find that over time, your needs outgrow what it offers.

There is a free plan, but it is quite limited and displays ads. Most business users will find their paid plans more suitable.

Read our detailed comparison of WordPress vs. Weebly for more details.

Pros:

  • Easy to use
  • Dozens of website designs
  • Free and paid applications add new features
  • Web hosting is included

Cons:

  • You can’t change to a different hosting provider
  • The free plan is limited and displays ads

Why we chose Weebly: Weebly is a beautiful website builder known for its simplicity. It’s most suitable for small websites such as those you typically find as Google Business Profile websites.

6. Carrd

Carrd

Carrd provides an easy way to create simple, single-page websites. It’s a great choice if you just want to recreate your Google Business website away from the Google platform.

You choose a template as a starting point, and dozens of business profile templates are included.

Carrd Template

You can then customize the template using simple tools and a drag-and-drop interface.

The free plan is all you need to create a business profile website as long as you are happy to display a little Carrd branding. There are also paid plans that remove the branding and allow you to use a custom domain.

Pros:

  • Very easy to use
  • Perfect for creating a simple single-page profile website
  • The free plan is suitable for most users

Cons:

  • Not suitable for more complex websites

Why we chose Carrd: Carrd is a simple and free way to create a single-page profile website.

7. Google Sites

Google Sites

Google Sites is the best choice if you simply want to recreate your Google Business Profile website and remain in the Google ecosystem.

You can use its block-based editor to add text, images, contact information, business hours, and more. The Google Sites template gallery also offers a handful of small business templates that will help you get started.

Google Sites Content Editor

However, after testing Google Sites, we only recommend it for the most basic websites. If you wish to customize your new website’s appearance or add new features, then you will be much better off with an alternative like WordPress.

For more details, please read our detailed comparison of WordPress vs. Google Sites.

Pros:

  • Allows you to remain in the Google ecosystem
  • Suitable for basic websites

Cons:

  • Not suitable for more complex websites

Why we chose Google Sites: Google Sites lets you create a basic website while remaining in the Google ecosystem.

What Is the Best Google Business Profile Website Alternative?

For most businesses, the best alternative to a Google Business Profile website is WordPress. This is especially true if you want to build a website that can grow with your business rather than remain a simple profile site.

You can choose from thousands of WordPress themes to create a unique look and feel for your website, including single-page themes, business themes, and corporate themes.

There are also plenty of business plugins that will add the features you need.

Besides that, you can choose a WordPress hosting plan that suits your budget. This can be as little as $1.99 per month.

However, if you want to create a simple website and avoid some of the maintenance involved in hosting your own site, then hosted website builders like Wix, Web.com, and Squarespace are also good choices. These are initially easier to set up, but they won’t grow with your business in the same way that WordPress will.

Finally, if you are looking for a free option to set up a simple business profile site, then Carrd and Google Sites will achieve that, but go no further.

FAQs About Business Profile Websites

Here are answers to the questions we’re asked most often about business profile websites.

When is Google discontinuing its Google Business Profile websites?

Google will turn off all the free websites it created for Business Profile users from March 2024.

Once Google shuts down your website, it will redirect your website visitors to your Google Business Profile until June 10, 2024.

After that date, unless you have migrated to a new website, anyone trying to visit your website will see a ‘404 not found‘ error message.

For more details on what you need to do, please see our guide on how to migrate a Google Business Profile website to WordPress.

What is a business profile website?

A business profile website is an online space where you can showcase your company’s identity, values, and offerings to potential customers and clients.

It is an online hub where you can make a good first impression and provide essential information about your business.

What should a business profile website contain?

A business profile website should clearly state your company name and describe what you do. It should also include contact information so potential clients can get in touch.

You may want to add an About Us page to share your story and mission, and a services section or landing page where you can provide more information about what you offer.

It’s also a good idea to have a clear call to action (CTA) that encourages visitors to take the next step, such as subscribing to your newsletter, asking for a quote, or browsing your portfolio.

How can you further enhance a business profile website?

You can showcase your expertise on your website by adding testimonials from happy customers or building a portfolio of your previous work.

You can also create a blog or news section to share valuable information and establish yourself as an industry expert.

Finally, you can demonstrate credibility by featuring client logos and any industry awards you have received.

Best Guides for Growing a Small Business Website

Now that you have seen the best alternatives for Google Business Profile websites, you may wish to see some other articles related to growing a small business:

We hope this tutorial helped you find the best alternatives for Google Business Profile websites. You may also want to see our guide on how to migrate from a Google Business Profile website to WordPress or our expert pick of the best social media plugins for WordPress.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post 7 Alternatives to Google Business Profile Websites (Compared) first appeared on WPBeginner.

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2022’s CMS Market Share Report – Latest Trends and Usage Stats

Are you looking for the latest CMS market share trends and usage stats?

These statistics can help you better understand the CMS market so you can choose the best CMS for your needs. Or you might even learn something new about your favorite content management system.

In this CMS market share report, we’ve collected the latest trends and usage stats for all the biggest content management systems.

2022's CMS market share report - latest trends and usage stats

CMS Popularity and Market Share Report 2022

We’ve divided this CMS market share report into several different categories. Simply use the table of contents below to jump straight to the statistics or content management system you’re most interested in.

CMS Usage Statistics

CMS usage statistics
  • In 2011, around 76% of all websites were hand-coded. By 2022, this figure had fallen to around 33%.
  • Today, over 78 million websites use a content management system. That’s around 58% of all websites.
  • When we look at the top 1 million websites based on traffic, almost 900,000 use a CMS. That’s nearly 90%.
  • However, experts warn that content management systems may be less popular in the business space. This is due to the higher costs of setting up a CMS for business use and a lack of CMS knowledge among small-to-medium enterprises.

The best content management systems make it easy to manage your content and create web pages, usually without having to write any code.

While it is possible to build a website without a CMS, you would need to learn a few different programming languages such as HTML, CSS, and PHP. You might even need to hire expert developers or web design specialists.

Without a CMS, you would need to write code every time you wanted to update your site. You might also have to deal with common errors if you make a mistake in the code.

With that being said, it’s not surprising that so many websites already use a CMS. In the future, we expect to see the number of hand-coded sites continue to fall, as more and more people realize the benefits of a good CMS.

CMS Market Share

CMS usage stats and market share
  • Throughout 2021, North America held a dominant share of the global CMS market, with Europe holding the second largest share.
  • Experts predict that North America’s share will continue to grow throughout the 2022-2028 time period.
  • When compared to other regions, it is estimated that Latin America, the Middle East, and Africa will contribute the least to the global market throughout 2022-2028.
  • According to experts, the government, life science, medical and health, retail, consumer goods, and defense sectors all contribute “significantly” to the size of the CMS market.
  • In 2021, enterprise web content management dominated the CMS sector, although the healthcare sector did acquire a “significant” share of the CMS market.
  • Experts predict that the Asia Pacific region will see the highest compound annual growth rate (CAGR) throughout 2022-2028. CAGR is the average rate that an investment grows or shrinks over a period of time.
  • According to experts, the CMS market in the Asia Pacific region is currently experiencing growth due to more small and medium-sized businesses adopting content management systems.

North America may continue to dominate the CMS market, but experts predict that the Asia Pacific region will get the highest return on investment out of all the regions.

This suggests the Asia Pacific market will play a much larger role in the CMS space, moving forward.

Content Management System Market Value

The CMS market value
  • The global CMS market was valued at approximately $35,903 million in 2018.
  • By 2021, the global CMS market was worth around $17.5 billion.
  • The CMS sector is predicted to hit $25.5 billion by 2028.
  • Experts predict that the CMS market will have a compound annual growth rate of roughly 6.5% between 2022 and 2028.

No matter whether you’re starting a blog, running a global eCommerce business, or making a small business website, the right CMS can help you succeed.

With 58% of all websites now using a CMS, it’s easy to see why this is a billion-dollar industry that shows no signs of slowing down.

WordPress Market Share

WordPress is the most popular CMS
  • WordPress has the biggest CMS market share.
  • Out of all the websites that use a known CMS, 45% of those sites use WordPress.
  • In 2022, WordPress has a 64.2% share of the global CMS market.
  • It is estimated there are 34,896,678 live WordPress websites.
  • There are over three million, five hundred thousand WordPress blogs and websites in the US alone.
  • When we look at the top 1 million sites based on traffic, 28.7% of those sites use WordPress open-source software.
  • 29.65% of the top 100 thousand websites use WordPress, and 29.41% of the top 10 thousand sites run on WordPress.
  • The WordPress CMS market share has grown from 55.3%-64.2% between 2011 and 2022, which is an 8.9% increase.

WordPress is the world’s most popular CMS, and that seems unlikely to change anytime soon.

The figures show that the number of hand-coded websites has decreased every year since 2011. At the same time, the number of WordPress websites has increased every single year. This suggests that WordPress is a popular choice among first-time CMS users.

This makes sense, as WordPress is one of the most user-friendly content management systems. WordPress is also one of the most flexible and customizable CMS platforms, and you can even download it for free from WordPress.org.

No matter whether you want to start a personal blog, an online store, or a multilingual website, you’ll have no problems finding the perfect WordPress theme and plugins. You can think of plugins as modules or apps that extend the core CMS.

WordPress is also optimized for search engines and gives you easy access to specialist SEO tools such as AIOSEO. All of this explains why WordPress has such a big user base.

Since WordPress is an open-source CMS, you can use it with a huge range of different WordPress hosting providers. Again, this makes WordPress a flexible CMS that appeals to lots of different people and businesses.

However, although WordPress has a far bigger market share than any other CMS, the content management system space is huge.

Even a 1% market share still translates to millions of websites. With that in mind, many of the content management systems in this report are still big players on the CMS market, even if they can’t compete with the sheer number of WordPress websites.

For more information, please see our ultimate guide on how to create a WordPress website.

eCommerce CMS Platforms Market Share

The WooCommerce eCommerce WordPress plugin
  • When you look at the top 1 million eCommerce sites, 2.67% of them use WooCommerce, a popular WordPress plugin.
  • 3.84% of the top 100 thousand websites use WooCommerce, and 3.82% of the top 10 thousand sites use WooCommerce.
  • Out of the top 1 million eCommerce sites, Shopify is the second most widely used CMS at 2.05%.
  • Meanwhile, 0.85% of those sites use Magento, and 0.49% use OpenCart.

It may not be a standalone CMS, but the statistics show that a significant number of online stores use WordPress and WooCommerce to create a CMS with eCommerce functionality. For this reason, we’re including WooCommerce in our CMS market share report.

According to the data, eCommerce sites that get the most traffic are more likely to use WooCommerce, although Shopify is a close second favorite among the top online stores.

Shopify is a fully hosted platform so you don’t need to worry about performance, which could explain why Shopify is used by 2.05% of high-traffic eCommerce sites.

Similarly, there is no shortage of managed WordPress hosting providers who can fine-tune your WooCommerce store and make sure it provides the best possible customer experience.

If you choose WordPress and WooCommerce as your eCommerce CMS, then you’ll also have access to lots of WooCommerce plugins that can extend and optimize the platform.

Since WooCommerce is a WordPress plugin, you can also follow our ultimate guide on how to boost WordPress speed and performance.

With their managed hosting and high performance, both Shopify and WooCommerce have a lot to offer online store owners and entrepreneurs. For a more detailed look at these two platforms, please see our Shopify vs WooCommerce comparison.

Wix Market Share

Wix is the CMS with the second biggest market share
  • Out of all the websites that use a known CMS, around 10% of those sites use Wix. This makes Wix one of the most popular content management systems.
  • Wix is used by around 7 million websites.
  • In the United States, 991,860 websites use Wix.
  • Despite holding a 10% share of the global CMS market, Wix only powers 0.56% of the top 1 million websites.
  • 0.69% of the top 100 thousand websites use Wix, and 0.98% of the top 10 thousand sites use Wix.

When we compare Wix’s market share to its closest competitor, we get interesting results.

Out of the top 1 million sites, 28.7% of those websites use WordPress but only 0.56% use Wix. This suggests that Wix appeals to small sites and businesses that get less traffic, rather than high-traffic websites.

By comparison, high-traffic websites are much more likely to use WordPress.

For a more detailed comparison, please see our complete guide to Wix vs. WordPress – which one is better?

Squarespace Market Share

The Squarespace CMS
  • Looking at the websites with a known CMS, around 3.71% of those sites use the Squarespace CMS.
  • Around 2,896,221 live websites use Squarespace.
  • 0.69% of the top 1 million sites use Squarespace.
  • 1.36% of the top 100 thousand websites use Squarespace, while 3.16% of the top 10 thousand sites use this popular hosted platform.
  • Squarespace’s CMS market share has grown from 0.2%-3.0% between 2011 and 2022, which is a 2.8% increase in 10 years.

Similar to Wix, Squarespace is much more popular among sites that have less traffic, compared to sites that get lots of visitors.

This makes sense, as Squarespace is best known for its ready-made templates and ease of use, which makes it a great platform for first-time website owners and smaller businesses.

Squarespace also has some limits that may be less appealing to larger businesses. For example, Squarespace only has a few integrations with third-party services. This can be a problem for big companies that want to use lots of different software and services with their content management system.

All of this may explain why we see larger organizations opt for flexible platforms such as WordPress, while smaller sites tend to choose hosted platforms like Squarespace or Wix.

For more information on this topic, you can see our guide on Square vs. WordPress – which one is better?

GoDaddy Market Share

The GoDaddy website builder
  • 2.24% of all websites with a known CMS, use the GoDaddy website builder.
  • It is estimated that 1,750,645 live websites are GoDaddy sites.
  • When we look at the top 1 million sites, 0.02% of those sites use GoDaddy.
  • 0.02% of the top 100 thousand websites use GoDaddy, while 0.03% of the top 10 thousand sites are built with GoDaddy.

Our market share stats show that very few high-traffic websites use GoDaddy, which reflects the audience that GoDaddy seems to be targeting.

GoDaddy’s website builder is a simple and easy tool that lets you create a professional looking website without any special design or development skills. It comes with ready-made blocks and layouts, which are perfect for anyone who is looking to create a website, fast.

However, GoDaddy is not as feature rich or flexible as some of the other content management systems and builders on our list. This could explain why it’s only used by 0.02% of the top 1 million websites.

If you’re looking to move away from GoDaddy, then you can see our expert pick of the best GoDaddy alternatives.

Joomla CMS Market Share

The Joomla CMS
  • 1.72% of all websites with a known CMS, use Joomla.
  • It is estimated that 1,325,993 live websites use Joomla.
  • When we look at the top 1 million sites based on traffic, 1.34% of those sites use the Joomla CMS.
  • 2.04% of the top 100 thousand websites run on Joomla, while 1.89% of the top 10 thousand sites rely on Joomla as their CMS.
  • Joomla’s CMS market share has reduced from 10.9% to 2.5% between 2011-2022. That’s a 8.4% decrease in 10 years.

Joomla still has a significant user base, but the growing popularity of user-friendly platforms such as WordPress and Shopify have affected its market share.

Many shared hosting providers offer one-click install packages for Joomla. However, the Joomla control panel isn’t as straightforward as other systems, with lots of different menus and settings that you can use to customize your site. This means that Joomla has a steep learning curve.

By default, Joomla also doesn’t allow users to install extensions and templates from the control panel, which can make it difficult for first-time users to find helpful addons.

This is a powerful platform with a loyal fanbase, but with so many user-friendly alternatives we may see Joomla’s market share continue to decline.

To learn more, please see our guide to WordPress vs. Joomla Vs. Drupal.

Weebly Market Share

The Weebly content management system
  • 1.28% of all websites that use a known CMS use Weebly.
  • It is estimated that 991,368 live websites run on Weebly.
  • When we look at the top 1 million sites based on traffic, 0.09% of those sites use the Weebly CMS.
  • 0.17% of the top 100 thousand websites are built using Weebly, while 0.31% of the top 10 thousand sites use Weebly.

Weebly is a fully hosted platform that has everything beginners need to build a website, including ready-made templates. a built-in contact form, professionally-designed sliders, and photo galleries.

It’s an easy-to-use platform, which explains why Weebly has a user base of over 991,000 websites.

However, as a fully hosted platform you’re locked into the functionality that Weebly provides. You can’t hire a developer or designer to add new features to a Weebly website, which might be why so few high-traffic websites use Weebly.

For more details, please see our guide on WordPress vs. Weebly – which is better?

Drupal CMS Market Share

The Drupal CMS
  • 0.71% of all websites whose CMS is known, use Drupal.
  • It is estimated that 555,754 live websites use Drupal.
  • When we look at the top 1 million sites based on traffic, 2.93% of those sites are built using Drupal.
  • 6.82% of the top 100 thousand websites use Drupal, compared to 10.46% of the top 10 thousand sites.
  • Drupal’s CMS market share has reduced from 6.1%-1.8% between 2011 and 2022. That’s a 4.3% decrease in 10 years.

The CMS statistics show that Drupal has a smaller overall market share compared to other content management systems on our list. Despite this, Drupal is used by a much larger percentage of high-traffic sites.

By comparison, Wix has a much larger overall market share (10%) but is used by a much lower percentage of the top 1 million websites (0.56%).

Drupal may not be the most popular CMS platform, but it’s a powerful software with lots of support resources. It also has a reputation as a very secure CMS.

While smaller websites, first-time site owners, and bloggers are choosing user-friendly platforms, the figures show that Drupal still has a loyal following among high-traffic websites.

For more information, please see our guide on WordPress vs. Joomla Vs. Drupal – which one is better?

Shopify Market Share

The Shopify hosted eCommerce platform
  • Shopify has a 6.2% share of the CMS market.
  • Impressively, Shopify’s market share has risen from just 3.4% in 2020 to 6.6% in 2022. That’s an increase of 3.2% in just two years.
  • It is estimated that 3,834,405 live websites use Shopify.
  • Shopify is used by 2.05% of the top 1 million eCommerce websites.
  • 2.62% of the top 100 thousand websites use Shopify, while 3.99% of the top 10 thousand sites are Shopify websites.
  • During the fourth quarter of 2020, Shopify reported earnings of $977.7 million, which was a 94% increase compared to the same period in 2019.
  • In 2020, Shopify reported a 53% year-over-year increase in subscription revenue.

Shopify had a sudden spike in popularity between 2020-2022, which saw its market share rise by 3.4% in just two years.

Many experts say this is due to the COVID-19 pandemic. With physical shops closed around the world, many businesses needed an easy way to sell their products online during this time.

As an all-in-one fully hosted eCommerce platform, Shopify is a user-friendly choice for anyone who wants to launch an online store, fast. Shopify comes with full inventory management, unlimited products, powerful analytics, marketing tools, and lots of designs, all in one product.

However, Shopify forces you to use its Shopify Payment platform. If you prefer to use your own payment processing solution, then Shopify charges an extra 2% transaction fee which is very high compared to other eCommerce solutions.

With that in mind, we may see Shopify’s growth slow as store owners start to look for more affordable Shopify alternatives. For example, you might move from Shopify to WooCommerce.

CMS Predictions for 2022 and Beyond

CMS predications and trends
  • Experts predict that artificial intelligence and machine learning will be big trends in the CMS space.
  • In particular, they see an increasing demand for image recognition, voice recognition and transcription, natural language understanding and natural language processing in content management systems.
  • Studies predict that personalized technologies will be another must-have feature among CMS users.

Artificial intelligence and machine learning promise to make all kinds of tasks easier and more efficient.

The world of content management systems is no exception, and it will be interesting to see how these platforms use advanced technologies in the future.

Sources: BuiltWith Trends, W3Techs, Zion Market Research, Facts and Factors, Statistica, Shopify, BuiltWith Knowledge Base.

We hope this CMS market share report helped you learn all about the latest trends and usage stats. You may also want to see our research on top marketing statistics as well as latest web design trends and stats.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

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8 Best Wedding Website Builder and Templates of 2022 (Compared)

Are you looking for the best wedding site builder and templates to create the perfect wedding website?

The good news is that there are plenty of ways to create a beautiful website that has everything you need for your special day.

In this guide, we’re going to compare the best wedding website builders that you can use to build a wedding website without writing any code.

9 best wedding builder and templates (compared)

How to Find the Best Wedding Website Builder for You?

Creating a wedding website helps your guests find all the information they need to prepare for your big day.

For instance, you can inform them about the travel information, accommodation details, gift registry, seating chart, and other wedding details. Plus, it also helps share your love story, wedding party details, engagement photos and videos, and send guests digital Save the Date option.

When considering which wedding website builder you should use, you’ll want to look for features that make the following tasks easy.

RSVP management: You’ll need a way for wedding guests to register for your wedding and manage these easily. 

Calendar for events: If you have an eventful wedding planned, then you’ll need a way for guests to keep up with the timeline for your wedding. 

Design and templates: You’ll want to pick a site builder with a wide range of wedding templates and design options. You’ll also want the builder to be easy to use and customize so that you can create a wedding site just as beautiful as your wedding. 

Content management features: Beyond building a website, you’ll need an easy way to add pages like an FAQ page, your story, venue directions, and more. 

Gift registry: It’s not a requirement, but many website builders and platforms let you embed your gift registry or easily add links.

With that said, let’s take a look at some of the pros and cons of the most popular wedding website builders, so you can choose the right software for your needs. 

1. WordPress.org

WordPress Website Builder

WordPress.org is the most popular platform for creating websites. It powers over 43% of all the websites on the internet, and it is 100% free to use. WordPress.org is open source software, and you can easily use it to create a wedding website.

There are multiple WordPress plugins, themes, and website builders that give you complete freedom and flexibility when it comes to creating a website. To start, all you need is a web hosting service and a domain name.

Wedding themes in WordPress

Normally the domain name costs $15 per year, and web hosting can cost you upwards of $7.99 per month.

Luckily, the folks at Bluehost have agreed to offer our readers a 60% discount + free domain name which means you start your wedding website for $2.75 per month.

Bluehost is an official WordPress recommended hosting partner.

After getting a website hosting, you can then use a website builder like SeedProd. It is the best drag and drop WordPress page builder and custom theme builder in the market that’s used by over 1 million sites.

It lets you create completely custom WordPress themes without writing a single line of code. This means you can build the wedding website of your dreams with all the features you need. You can use the pre-built collection of themes and customize every element.

SeedProd Example

You can add multiple pages to your WordPress wedding website, like a custom RSVP page, rehearsal dinner page, bridal shower page, and a section for engagement photos and videos.

Pros

  • It’s open-source software that is 100% free and super easy to use.
  • You get complete control over your website design, functionality, and data.
  • There are numerous free and paid WordPress plugins and themes for customizing your WordPress wedding website.
  • You can create an eCommerce store section, sell digital products, accept online payments, and make money from your website.
  • WordPress.org websites easily integrate with Google Analytics and help you track their performance and see which strategies are working.

Cons

  • To run a WordPress.org website, you’ll need website hosting. The initial cost isn’t expensive and could cost you around $3 to $10 per month. However, as your website grows, the cost of hosting will also increase since you’ll need more space to store website files and deliver fast performance.
  • With WordPress.org, you’ll have to make sure of website backups. Luckily there are many WordPress backup plugins you can use.
  • Similarly, you’ll also have to ensure that your site, plugins, and themes are up to date.

Pricing

WordPress is free, but you’ll need to pay for a domain name and web hosting. A domain name costs typically around $15 per year, and web hosting costs $7.99 per month.

Luckily, Bluehost, one of the largest hosting providers, has agreed to offer WPBeginner readers a 60% discount on hosting, plus a free domain name and SSL certificate.

You can get started for as low as $2.75 per month.

→ Click Here to Claim This Exclusive Bluehost Offer ←

If you need help setting up your website, then see our ultimate guide on how to make a website.

2. Web.com

Web.com Website Builder

Web.com is another popular website builder for small businesses that offers a user-friendly tool. You can easily create a wedding website of your choice in no time using their website builder.

It comes with a DIY builder which lets you drag and drop different elements for your website. Plus, there are over 150 different templates, including wedding themes that you can use to get started.

Wedding templates for web.com

With Web.com, you can also create a WordPress website. It offers its own web hosting service and automatically installs WordPress. You also get 1-year domain registration, unmetered bandwidth, automatic WordPress updates, and more.

Pros

  • Web.com offers an easy-to-use drag and drop website builder that makes it effortless to create any type of website.
  • There are over 150 different website templates to choose from, so you can get started quickly and customize the web design according to your needs.
  • The builder also offers powerful features like photo galleries, testimonial sliders, social media buttons, and more.
  • You easily create an online store using the website builder, accept credit card payments online, manage your products and inventory, and more.
  • With Web.com, you get different customer support options, including detailed documentation, phone call support, email support, and live chat.

Cons

  • Web.com is a great solution for small businesses, but as your site grows, it lacks some powerful features that you might need to grow your business.
  • The online store builder is relatively new and doesn’t offer as many features as you would get in WooCommerce.
  • If you’re looking to start a blog using Web.com, then you will get limited features.

Pricing

Web.com prices start from $4.95 per month with the Website Essentials plan, and you get free SSL, free domain, secure web hosting, and more. If you want different marketing tools and basic analytics, then you can choose the Business Essentials plan, which will cost you $7.95 per month.

Besides that, Web.com also offers an eCommerce Essentials plan for $13.95 per month and an eCommerce Premium plan for $19.95 per month.

3. Wix

Wix

Wix is a drag-and-drop website builder that makes it easy to create a website without writing code. The best part is that you can create a free wedding website in no time.

The template library includes hundreds of beautiful wedding templates you can use as a starting point for your website. 

Wix wedding templates

These templates also include standard wedding website features like an online RSVP system, a location map, links to your gift registry, and a calendar for your wedding events. 

Beyond the selection of wedding themes, there’s an included Wix logo maker to create a wedding couple logo and a wedding playlist creator. 

Pros

  • The drag and drop builder makes it very easy to customize your beautiful wedding template.
  • It supports all kinds of integrations if you need to add more features to your website.

Cons

  • The Free and Connect plans will show branded ads on your site.
  • It’s a difficult process if you ever want to move your website away from Wix.
  • Once you choose a template for your website, you won’t be able to change it.

Pricing

You can get the basic Wix website builder for free. However, with the free account, your wedding website will be on a subdomain, have ads, and a Wix logo.

If you want access to a free custom domain and remove the Wix ads, then paid plans start at $14 per month.

4. WordPress.com

WordPress.com

WordPress.com is an all-in-one website hosting platform with the same underlying code as WordPress.org.

It’s easy to get confused about the difference between WordPress.com and WordPress.org. To learn more, see our comparison of WordPress.com and WordPress.org and which is best.

It does offer a free plan, but it’s quite limited, and there are restrictions on what you can do with your website compared to WordPress.org. 

However, you will find a few wedding-specific free themes that give you features like a guestbook template, large featured images, and guest RSVP to create a free wedding website.

WordPress.com wedding theme

If you’re looking to quickly build a simple wedding website with limited features, then it might be the right choice. 

Pros

Cons

  • You won’t have the same level of customization as you would with other website builders. 
  • You’re limited in storage size, so you won’t be able to add many high-resolution photos.

Pricing

You can use the free plan with a subdomain (such as yourname.wordpress.com), but it’s very limited in features and storage space, and they will show ads on your website.

Paid plans start at $15 per month when billed annually and include a custom domain name. 

5. Joy

Joy

Joy is a free wedding website builder app. Instead of simply being a website builder, it includes additional features to help you manage and even organize your wedding. 

For example, you’ll find features for managing your guest registry, creating a guest list, sending out save the dates, storing photos, and more. There’s also a unique feature that creates your own wedding app for you and your guests. 

You can choose between hundreds of different wedding website templates. They aren’t highly customizable, but you can control the fonts, colors, and more. 

Joy wedding templates

You can create a guest FAQ section for common questions, provide travel and flight information, create wedding bios for your guests, and more. 

Pros

  • There’s an easy-to-use dashboard for managing all of your website and wedding planning features, so you only need to keep track of one tool.
  • It’s almost impossible to find all of the features this platform offers at such an affordable price.

Cons

  • The themes are beautiful, but they may be too simplistic for some users.
  • You don’t have many options for creating a unique site with custom features. It will look very similar to other websites using the same platform.
  • Once you build your website, you won’t be able to migrate it away from the platform.

Pricing

Joy is completely free. You don’t have to pay a dime to use the service or build a wedding website. 

Instead, they earn a commission on any item that gets sold through the wedding registry. However, if you want a custom URL, then you’ll need a custom domain name and it will cost you $19.99.

6. Squarespace

Squarespace

Squarespace is a popular drag and drop website builder that helps you create a website for your wedding day. The design has always been at the core focus, so you’ll find a template library filled with beautiful modern templates.

There are currently dozens of different wedding templates available you can customize using the drag and drop builder.

Squarespace wedding templates

Plus, when you choose a wedding template, it includes other helpful features like a wedding gift registry, RSVP pages, wedding invitations, and creating and sharing photos with friends and family. 

Pros

  • The platform is easy to use and built for beginners.
  • The theme templates are beautiful and focus on high-quality images, videos, and font choices.

Cons

  • There are limited integrations built into the platform, so you can only add the included tools and features.
  • The price point can be a limiting factor, especially if you want to accept cash donations instead of gifts.

Pricing

Squarespace offers a variety of different pricing plans depending on your needs.

Pricing for the Personal plan starts at $14 per month when paid annually and includes all the features you need to build your wedding website.

However, if you want to accept cash donations as a cash gift registry, then you’ll need at least the Business plan that starts at $23 per month when paid annually. 

7. The Knot

The Knot

The Knot is another free option and a wedding planner platform you can use to create a website quickly. 

The website builder offers hundreds of different wedding templates that can be customized with a simple drag and drop editor. 

The Knot wedding templates

You have control over your site images, color scheme, page layouts, and more. 

If you’re ordering wedding invitations and other paper goods through their service, then it’s really simple to have these match the design of your website. 

Beyond quickly building a wedding website, it offers different wedding planning tools like you can integrate your registries, view an event timeline, manage and track RSVPs, and more. 

Pros

  • It’s truly an all-in-one platform, so you can manage your website, send wedding invitations, buy gifts, use budgeting tools, and even find vendor recommendations during the planning stage.
  • There are unique live chat, and live streaming features integrated into the tool to keep all of your guests updated.

Cons

  • Although the website builder is free, most of the wedding websige designs are quite simple and don’t offer a lot of customization options compared to other tools.
  • The platform might be too complex for users looking to simply build a wedding website.

Pricing

The Knot is entirely free to build a wedding website and access the wedding planning features. However, if you want to use a custom domain name, then you’ll need to purchase a custom domain name for $20. 

8. Appy Couple

Appy Couple

Appy Couple is an all-in-one wedding platform and wedding website builder that includes over 500 different wedding templates you can choose from. 

When you choose a wedding template, it also includes a mobile app with a similar design.

Appy Couple wedding templates

As you customize your site, you can choose from pre-set sections like save the date, RSVP forms, and more. You can also use drag and drop widgets to add image galleries, highlight hotel reservations and travel deals, and more. 

There’s also a helpful guest list manager that lets you manage your guest list from both the website and mobile app. 

Pros

  • You can use the Android and iOS apps to build your site on your mobile device.
  • The platform includes advanced features to take care of everything related to your wedding, even helping your guests get reservations.
  • The template library is smaller, but they offer unique designs from artists you can’t find anywhere else.

Cons

  • Some users may find the back and forth between the website and mobile app confusing.
  • You can’t purchase a custom domain elsewhere, and you’ll have to buy it through the platform for an added fee.

Pricing

Appy Couple is either $49 per year or $12 per month, giving you access to all the platform features. 

You can also add a custom domain name (such as www.mywedding.com) for $20 per year. Otherwise, you’ll get a free subdomain (mywedding.appycouple.com) when you sign up. 

Expert Pick: What is the Best Wedding Website Builder?

WordPress.org is the best solution to build a wedding website. It offers lots of freedom and flexibility in how your website will look and function. Plus, you have complete control over your data as you own the website.

With WordPress.org, you get free and paid WordPress plugins, themes, and page builders to get started and customize every element of your wedding website.

For example, you can use SeedProd to create a website. The builder comes with a theme and template library and can be used to create an entire WordPress site perfect for your wedding without writing any code.

You can even create a simple one-page site with all the details about your wedding.

SeedProd wedding site example

It’s also very affordable since you can use the Bluehost web hosting deal to get a free domain name and discount hosting. 

If you need to add any other wedding-related features like a gift registry, RSVP management system, email notifications for wedding updates, and more, then you can always use a popular WordPress plugin.

We hope this article helped you learn about the best wedding website builders and templates. You may also want to take a look at our guide on how to create a free business email address and how to create an email newsletter for your website.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post 8 Best Wedding Website Builder and Templates of 2022 (Compared) first appeared on WPBeginner.

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Wix vs WordPress – Which One is Better? (Pros and Cons)

Are you trying to decide between Wix vs WordPress to build your website? While WordPress is the most popular website builder in the world, it is not the only option.

After seeing TV commercials for Wix, some of our users asked us to do a detailed comparison of Wix vs WordPress to find out which is the better choice.

In this article, we will compare Wix vs WordPress and highlight the pros and cons. Our hope is that with this Wix review and comparison, you’ll be able to decide which platform is right for your needs.

Comparing Wix vs WordPress

Note: This article compares Wix vs Self Hosted WordPress.org NOT WordPress.com. See the difference between self-hosted WordPress.org vs WordPress.com sites.

We have broken down this comparison into 7 categories:

Let’s see how Wix and WordPress stack up into each of these categories.

1. Pricing and Costs

The cost of website building is an important factor when choosing your site builder platform. The total costs of developing and maintaining your site will entirely depend on your needs. Our goal is to make sure that you can do whatever you need within your budget.

Let’s compare the pricing of Wix and WordPress to find out which one gives you more bang for the buck.

Wix Pricing Comparison:

Wix offers a basic website builder for free. However, there are two major downsides to it.

First, it adds Wix branded advertisements on the top and bottom of your website. Second, you cannot use a custom domain name for your site, so your website address will be: username.wix.com/sitename

Apart from that, the basic plan does not offer necessary add-ons such as Google Analytics, Favicons, eCommerce, etc. To remove ads and get additional features from their apps market, you’ll have to upgrade to one of the premium plans they offer.

Each Wix premium plan has different storage and bandwidth limitations. You can pay monthly or choose a yearly plan.

Wix Pricing Plan

The best value plans on Wix is the Unlimited plan ($12.50 / month).

If you need eCommerce and business features, then you need to select a Business & Ecommerce plan.

Wix eCommerce and business plans

Pricing for small business website and eCommerce plans start from $17 / month.

Regardless of which plan you choose, this cost does not include any apps that you later choose to buy from the Wix app market to use on your website.

WordPress Pricing Comparison:

The WordPress software is open source, and it is available for free for anyone to use.

We often get asked about why is WordPress free and what’s the catch?

Well, the biggest catch is that you need your own domain name and web hosting to install it.

There are several WordPress hosting providers that you can choose from. See our guide on how to choose the best WordPress hosting company.

Depending on your budget, you can start with a basic plan with a WordPress hosting provider like Bluehost that will cost you $2.75 per month and includes a free custom domain name.

Bluehost WordPress hosting

If your budget permits, then you can use a managed WordPress hosting provider like WP Engine which costs $29 per month.

The cost of a WordPress site will increase if you decide to use premium WordPress themes or plugins (similar to apps in WordPress).

However, there are thousands of free WordPress themes and plugins available that you can use to reduce costs. You can add any feature to your WordPress site using a plugin without upgrading your hosting plan.

For more information, see our guide on how much does it cost to build a WordPress website.

WordPress comes with full support for eCommerce out of the box. You can install the WooCommerce plugin to create an online store on your website. Just like WordPress, WooCommerce itself is free and opensource.

For more information, see our article on how much it costs to build an eCommerce website.

Conclusion:

WordPress beats Wix with flexible plans available from a variety of web hosting companies. The cost depends on how much resources you use, and you are free to use your WordPress website in any way you want.

2. Ease of Use

Most beginners choose Wix or WordPress because they don’t want to hire a website designer. Both Wix and WordPress allow you to create websites without learning to code.

Let’s take a look which one of them is easier to use for beginners with no coding experience.

Wix:

Wix comes with powerful and easy to use tools to build your own website. It offers a simple drag and drop interface where you can select any element on your site and start editing it in a WYSIWYG interface.

Wix Editor

You can drag and drop items anywhere on your site, rearrange things on your pages, write content, and add media in a user-friendly environment. Many beginners would find this feature a blessing as it saves them from dealing with code.

WordPress:

WordPress comes with an incredibly powerful WordPress block editor that allows you to edit your pages with a live preview.

This allows you to create visually stunning layouts by adding blocks. There are blocks for all common elements like text, headings, buttons, background images, galleries, and more.

WordPress editor

WordPress also gives you access to thousands of themes (website templates) to use on your site. Each of them is also fully-customizable using the live theme customizer.

WordPress customizer

Need even more code-free ways to edit your website visually? WordPress has some of the most intuitive drag and drop page builder plugins. These drag-and-drop editor provide you even more tools to create professional-looking websites without writing code.

For example you can use a page builder like SeedProd or Divi that lets you build completely custom websites without writing any code.

SeedProd Page Builder

All of these options give a lot more choices and tools to edit your website.

Conclusion:

There is a tie when it comes to ease of use between Wix and WordPress. Both offer easy code-free ways to write content, make pages, and manage business and eCommerce websites.

Wix does a great job with their editor interface, but it lacks advanced capabilities. WordPress offers ease of use that can be extended with a little bit of a learning curve which is great in the long run.

3. Design and Layout

Your site’s design and layout play an important role in your success. Every site owner needs a web design that’s not only good-looking but also user-friendly and makes their brand stand-out.

Wix:

Wix comes with more than 900+ pre-made templates to choose from. All Wix designs are fully responsive and written in HTML5. Using the built-in tools, you can further tweak your site design, change the layout, and rearrange items as you see fit.

Wix website templates

There are designs available for every kind of site. Templates are divided into categories like business, eCommerce, hobbies, arts & crafts, personal, etc.

One big disadvantage is that once you have selected a template, you cannot change it. You can modify it and customize it as much as you want using only the built-in tools, but you cannot switch to another template.

WordPress:

There are thousands of free and paid themes available for WordPress. Free themes come with limited support, but they also go through a strict review process. Paid themes generally offer more features and come with premium support options.

WordPress themes

WordPress themes range from small personal sites to full-fledged eCommerce sites. Most themes come with built-in customization options of their own. You can also use one of the many styling plugins to further style or customize your WordPress themes.

Users can download free themes from WordPess.org directory. For paid themes, there are several WordPress theme shops like Astra, StudioPress, Themify, CSSIgniter, and more. See our list of the best commercial WordPress theme shops.

Furthermore, you can hire a developer or learn to create a completely custom theme for your company.

There are also plugins like SeedProd, a landing page builder plugin that allows you to quickly deploy a website, a sales page, product page, or even a coming soon page regardless of which theme you are using.

More importantly, you can change your WordPress theme anytime you want and use a different theme. This allows your website design to grow and evolve with your business.

Conclusion:

WordPress has a much larger range of themes and design layouts than Wix. WordPress users can also easily switch themes or customize them as much as they want without any restrictions.

4. Plugins and Apps

Plugins and apps are like third-party extensions that you can use with your platform to add more features.

Wix calls them apps, and in the WordPress ecosystem, they are called plugins.

Let’s compare apps and plugins available on both platforms and what you can do with them.

Wix:

Wix comes with nearly 200+ apps that you can add to your site. These apps offer a wide range of features like adding contact forms, gallery, comments, social media buttons, email marketing and so on.

Wix App Marketplace

Many of the apps are free or have a lite version. Other apps require monthly payments and vary in prices. Even though there is a limited collection of apps, they cover the most commonly requested features by site owners.

WordPress:

At the time of writing this article, there are more than 58,000+ free plugins available in the WordPress.org plugin directory alone. Not to mention, premium plugins available on other marketplaces.

WordPress plugins

The saying goes: if you can think of a feature, there’s probably a WordPress plugin that makes it happen.

Whether you want to create a contact form, install Google Analytics, build a membership website, or sell online courses, there’s a plugin for that.

You can do just about anything you like with WordPress. There are plenty of plugins both free and paid which you can use to build the website of your dreams.

Conclusion:

WordPress easily beats Wix in this area as well. Even though Wix’s app library is growing, it is still limited in comparison to the huge choice available to WordPress users.

5. Wix vs WordPress – Which one is better for blogging?

Many users are looking for an easier platform to start blogging. Wix and WordPress both can be used to create blogs. Let’s take a look at which one does it better.

Blogging with Wix

Wix allows you to easily add a blog section to your website. It has all the basic blogging features you’ll commonly use. For example, categories and tags, photos and videos, archives, etc.

Blogging with Wix

Comments on Wix blogs are slow and not as easy to manage as WordPress. Many users end up installing third-party commenting systems like Facebook or Disqus both of them require users to create accounts.

It also lacks several features like backdating posts, creating private posts, and more.

The writing interface for blog posts is not the same as the Wix website builder. Instead, it uses a plain text editor which is very limited in terms of formatting options.

Blogging with WordPress

WordPress started out as a blogging platform and evolved into a full-blown website builder. Today it powers nearly 40% of all websites.

It has all the blogging features you’ll need like a native commenting system and all other advanced features that are missing from Wix.

Editing blog posts in WordPress

It comes with the powerful Gutenberg block editor which allows you to create beautiful layouts for your blog posts.

Most importantly, you can extend your blog using plugins and add any feature that you can think of.

Conclusion

WordPress totally outshines Wix as a blogging platform. Wix blogs are too basic and lack several important features. If you are thinking about starting a blog, then Wix doesn’t even come close to WordPress.

6. Wix vs WordPress Ecommerce Comparison

Selling things online is another important feature that most beginners look for. Let’s see how WordPress and Wix compare in eCommerce.

Wix:

Wix offers eCommerce with their paid plans. This means users with the free plan cannot run their eCommerce store on Wix without upgrading to a paid plan.

Wix eCommerce

With the Wix Stores, you can accept payments using their own native payments system or use third-party apps to connect different payment gateways including PayPal, Authorize.net, and more.

If you choose to use Wix Payments, then they charge 2.9% of the transaction amount + 0.30 USD for the US region. As you sell more products, this processing fee becomes a substantial amount.

There are a few third-party apps that you can use to help promote your store and sell things online. The overall features of the eCommerce platform are limited too.

WordPress:

WordPress makes it super easy to create your online store using WooCommerce, which is the most popular eCommerce platform in the world.

WooCommerce

There are also plenty of other eCommerce plugins available for WordPress that you can use to sell physical or digital goods, services, events, subscriptions, and more.

WordPress is also the best platform to sell digital subscriptions using MemberPress. It allows you to sell online courses, pay per view content, and membership plans for your online community.

Most eCommerce plugins for WordPress even have their own dedicated themes and add-on plugins. See our list of best WooCommerce themes for some excellent examples.

Conclusion:

If you want to build a proper online store and be ready for growth, then WordPress + WooCommerce offers much more flexibility, freedom, and choices when compared to Wix.

7. Data Portability Options in Wix vs WordPress

Data portability allows you the freedom to move your content away when you need it. Let’s take a look at how Wix and WordPress help you move your content and use it elsewhere.

Data portability options in Wix

Wix comes with very limited options to move your content to another platform. You can only export your blog posts in XML format. You’ll have to manually download your pages, images, videos, and other content.

According to Wix documentation, all your content is hosted exclusively on Wix’s servers and cannot be exported elsewhere.

This makes it a bit difficult to move your content to another platform if needed. However, you can still transfer a Wix site. See our article, on how to switch from Wix to WordPress for more details.

Data portability options in WordPress

WordPress is a proper content management system and makes it extremely easy to export your content. It comes with a one-click exporter that allows you to download your content in XML format.

Exporting your WordPress site

Since it is a self-hosted platform, you can also create complete WordPress backups, download your media files, and even manually export your WordPress database.

You can then easily move your WordPress site to a new host if you are not satisfied with your current WordPress hosting company.

Conclusion:

WordPress is a lot better when it comes to downloading and moving your data. Wix, on the other hand, makes it quite difficult to move your content away.

Final Verdict: Wix vs WordPress – Which One is Better?

WordPress is far superior to Wix as a web publishing platform for any kind of website. While Wix offers an easy-to-use website builder, you can accomplish a lot more with WordPress over the long run.

See our guide on how to make a website using WordPress for step by step instructions.

Frequently Asked Questions – Wix vs WordPress

Do you still have a few questions? Here are some of the most commonly asked questions users asked us when deciding between Wix vs WordPress.

1. Which one is cheaper Wix vs WordPress?

Wix has free plans with their own branded domain name and advertisements. Their paid plans allow you to remove the branding and use your own domain name and they start at $4.50 per month with very limited storage and features. Your costs increase if you want to upgrade to more feature rich plans.

On the other hand, WordPress just needs hosting and domain name. For instance, you can get started with Bluehost for $2.75 per month with a free domain name and SSL certificate. Considering that it also gives you flexibility to add any feature you want to your website, WordPress becomes a lot cheaper in the long run.

2. Can I transfer my domain away from Wix?

Yes, you can transfer your domain away from Wix. However, Wix makes it a bit difficult to transfer your website files and content. For more details, see our article on how to transfer a website from Wix to WordPress.

3. What are Pros and Cons of using Wix?

For a quick comparison, here are some of the advantages and disadvantages of using Wix over WordPress.

Pros:

  • You don’t need to install software or manage updates on Wix
  • It offers a simpler and easy to use interface to edit websites
  • Wix is a hosted solution so you don’t need to worry about backups and security

Cons:

  • Wix is more expensive than WordPress in the long run
  • It is very limited in terms of functionality when compared to WordPress
  • It has fewer design choices and third-party integrations
  • The eCommerce and business features are no where close to what other platforms like Shopify and WooCommerce offer

4. Which platform offers more storage and bandwidth?

Most WordPress hosting companies offer unlimited storage and bandwidth. Compared to Wix, which limits the storage space based on the plan you choose. For instance, their basic plan gives users just 500 MB storage, 1 GB bandwidth, and no video hours.

5. Which one is better for SEO Wix vs WordPress

WordPress is better for SEO as you can use SEO plugins and tools, which you can use to do things like adding open graph meta tags, advanced XML sitemaps, On-site SEO analysis, and more.

We recommend using All in One SEO (AIOSEO) plugin to improve your WordPress ranking.

Wix offers some search engine optimization features built into their platform. This allows you to perform basic SEO for your website.

We hope this article helped you compare Wix vs WordPress and learn their pros and cons. You may also want to see our article on easy to start online business ideas and how to increase your website traffic without spending too much money.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

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Squarespace vs WordPress – Which Is Better? (Pros and Cons)

Are you looking for a Squarespace vs WordPress comparison to figure out which one is better?

Squarespace and WordPress are two popular website builders that allow you to easily make a website without coding.

In this article, we will compare Squarespace vs. WordPress with the list of pros and cons for each platform. Hopefully, it will help you decide which one is better for your needs.

Comparing Squarespace vs WordPress

Note: This comparison is between Squarespace vs self-hosted WordPress (not WordPress.com). See the difference between self-hosted WordPress vs WordPress.com.

Since we want to create the most detailed WordPress vs Squarespace comparison, we have broken down the article into multiple in-depth sections.

We will look at each section and see which platform offers the most benefit to a beginner-level user.

Ready? Let’s get started.

Ease of Use and The Learning Curve

Most business owners and beginner-level users are not familiar with HTML, CSS, and other code-related things.

They want a website builder that is beginner friendly and helps them make a website without hiring a developer.

Let’s see how both WordPress and Squarespace stack up in this category.

WordPress

WordPress is the top choice among users who want to start a blog or small business owners building a DIY website.

WordPress is the best website builder on the market. More than 43% of all websites on the internet use WordPress

While WordPress is fairly intuitive and easy to use, there is a slight learning curve.

Beginners will need to familiarize themselves with WordPress terminology and concepts such as the difference between posts vs pages, categories vs tags, and understanding themes and plugins.

The default WordPress content editor is fairly easy to use.

It comes with blocks to add common content elements to your pages so that you can build beautiful layouts with media-rich content.

WordPress block editor

Despite the slight learning curve, in our experience, most users quickly adapt to WordPress.

Need an even more flexible way to create pages?

WordPress gives you access to drag-and-drop page builder plugins like SeedProd. This allows you to create your own custom designs from scratch without writing code.

SeedProd a popular WordPress page builder plugin

Squarespace

Unlike WordPress, Squarespace does not come with a lot of choices.

This lack of choice makes it very simple and user-friendly. Even absolute beginners can quickly write content and publish it.

Squarespace editor

Squarespace also uses a block editor similar to WordPress. Adding images, videos, and audio files is simpler than WordPress.

There are plenty of content blocks, and each block has multiple layout control choices.

Squarespace lets you customize your templates and pages using a visual editor.

However, you are limited to the options available in the customizer, since it is a controlled environment.

Conclusion

Squarespace fares a little better than WordPress out of the box in terms of ease of use for absolute beginners. However, its limited features might not be ideal for all business owners.

On the other hand, WordPress users will get a lot of options right from the beginning, which might be confusing at first, but it is a lot more flexible in the long run.

Winner: Tie

Costs of Using Squarespace vs WordPress

Knowing how much each platform cost is important in making a business decision.

Let’s look at how much Squarespace costs vs. how much WordPress costs.

WordPress

WordPress itself is free. You are free to download, use, and build upon WordPress. It is open-source software with a GPL license which gives you all the freedom and control.

In order to build your website with WordPress, you will need to register a domain and signup for a web hosting account.

Depending on your needs, you can choose a shared hosting plan, VPS hosting, or even managed WordPress hosting.

Shared hosting plans work for most personal and small business websites.

See our guide on how to choose the best WordPress hosting.

The cost of web hosting and domain name vary depending on your hosting provider. You are in charge of how many resources you need for your website and how much you will pay for it.

For instance, you can start with Bluehost. They are offering WPBeginner users 60% off and a free domain name with SSL certificate.

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If you can spend a little more, you can upgrade to SiteGround.

One of the reasons for WordPress’ popularity is that the overall cost of building your website with WordPress is very low.

Apart from that, you can change your hosting plan as your site grows. This means you will only pay for the resources you use, so it’s easier to control the cost of your website.

We have a detailed article on the cost of building a WordPress website and how to keep it under budget.

Squarespace

The personal plan for Squarespace starts from $16 per month (billed annually) or $23 month to month. That’s a little more than a shared hosting plan for WordPress.

Squarespace pricing

However, unlike a shared WordPress hosting service, this Squarespace plan comes with limited features.

You can only add only two contributors to your site, and you cannot sell products.

Whereas you can start an online store with WordPress for less than that.

Squarespace business plan starts from $23 per month (billed annually) or $33 month to month.

It includes eCommerce support, but they charge a 3% fee on each transaction. This is separate from the fee charged by your payment processor.

The business plan comes with unlimited contributors, pages, and additional advanced features.

They also have separate plans for online stores starting from $27 per month with no additional transaction fee.

Conclusion

As an open-source platform, WordPress beats Squarespace with flexible pricing plans available from a variety of web hosting providers. Squarespace pricing is higher than WordPress and with less flexibility.

The cost depends on how many resources you use, and you get access to all WordPress features right out of the box.

Winner: WordPress

Design and Templates

WordPress and Squarespace come with ready-made templates and design tools to make it easy for you to create a custom website.

Let’s see which offers you more choices and tools to create well-designed websites.

WordPress

WordPress offers access to thousands of free and premium themes (website templates). These templates are highly customizable, allowing you to use your website logo, colors, upload your own images, and more.

Many WordPress themes come with multiple layout choices, a drag-and-drop editor, sliders, photo galleries, and tons of other features.

No matter what kind of web design you need, you will find hundreds of professionally designed templates for the job.

WordPress themes

Many beginners find this abundance of choices a bit overwhelming. Here are some of our expert picks of the best WordPress themes for different kinds of websites.

For more on this topic, see our article on how to choose the best WordPress theme for your website.

Alternatively, you can also start with the SeedProd. It is a drag-and-drop WordPress website builder that allows you to design a custom WordPress theme from scratch without coding.

Squarespace

Squarespace offers ready-made website templates neatly organized into different categories.

There are Squarespace templates for all popular website categories, with professional designs that look good on all devices.

You can easily select a template for your Squarespace website and modify it using the built-in customizer.

Squarespace templates

However, this is a big area where Squarespace seriously falls behind.

The number of pre-made templates is very limited, and your design options are also limited to the set of features available in the Squarespace customizer.

Themes come with a limited number of layout choices with each template. You can still tweak colors, fonts, website logos, and other things, but these templates are not as customizable as WordPress themes.

Conclusion

WordPress comes out as a clear winner in terms of design choices, customization options, and flexibility. Squarespace offers great-looking templates, but they are limited in numbers and are not very flexible.

Winner: WordPress

Extensions and Integrations

All website builders come with a collection of built-in features. As your website grows, you would want to add more features and connect your site to work with third-party tools and services.

Let’s see how WordPress and Squarespace perform in this regard.

WordPress

The real power of WordPress comes from its massive ecosystem of plugins. These plugins are like apps for your WordPress site that you can install to add new features or change the default behavior of your site.

There are currently more than 60,000+ free WordPress plugins listed in WordPress.org plugin directory alone. There are also thousands of premium WordPress plugins available from third-party websites.

Free WordPress plugins

If you can think of a feature, there is a good chance that you’ll easily find a WordPress plugin that does it.

WordPress plugins are so robust that many of them are full-fledged platforms with their own add-on plugins and a thriving community built around them.

We have a list of the essential WordPress plugins that every website should have.

Then you have specialized plugins to create ecommerce websites, build membership communities, sell online courses, and more.

To learn more, see our article on how to choose the best WordPress plugin.

Because WordPress is the most popular website builder, most third-party services and tools have their own WordPress plugins which integrate their services to a WordPress website.

WordPress also has integrations available for all popular social media platforms.

All top email marketing services, SEO tools, live chat software, and lead generation tools offer seamless integration with WordPress.

Squarespace

Squarespace comes nowhere close to WordPress when it comes to extensibility and integrations.

They do offer a very limited set of extensions and integrations. However, unlike WordPress, Squarespace doesn’t have powerful APIs that developers can build upon.

Squarespace extensions

The available integrations are often limited in functionality and you cannot use them as freely on Squarespace as you can do on WordPress.

For eCommerce, you can use their built-in platform, but you cannot extend it in any way.

Squarespace lacks the functionality to allow custom websites you might need for your online business idea.

Conclusion

WordPress is the clear winner with an incredible ecosystem of thousands of plugins and integrations at your fingertips.

Squarespace, on the other hand, has very few integrations and many of them are very limited.

Winner: WordPress

E-commerce Comparison – Squarespace vs WordPress

Are you building an online store? Let’s compare the eCommerce functionality of WordPress vs. Squarespace.

WordPress

WordPress allows you to integrate and use any payment processor or platform.

Many WordPress plugins allow you to easily accept online payments using credit cards via Stripe, PayPal, Google Checkout, 2Checkout, Payoneer, Skrill, and even Bitcoin.

Selling products in WordPress with WooCommerce

WordPress has plenty of eCommerce plugins that can turn your website into an online store within minutes.

The world’s most popular eCommerce platform, WooCommerce, is a WordPress plugin.

WooCommerce comes with its own ecosystem of WooCommerce add-ons and thousands of WooComemrce ready themes.

There is no limit on how many products you add to your website, how you display them, or how you sell them.

You can run your own affiliate program and use all the tricks to grow your sales without any restrictions.

Squarespace

Ecommerce features are quite limited on Squarespace. You can only use Stripe and PayPal for payment processing, both of which are only available in select countries.

There is no other payment system available, which restricts your ability to accept payments from a larger global audience.

For a growing business, starting with such limitations is not a great idea.

Ecommerce in Squarespace

Apart from that, you can only sell products in Business or Commerce plans. Due to transaction fees, Squarespace users need to upgrade to an eCommerce plan to save on that.

Let’s say you want to sell only one product, you will still have to pay for the Business plan, and the yearly costs of hosting a site with just one product to sell will be way higher than a shared hosting plan or VPS for WordPress.

As for third-party services, there are very few external services that you can integrate with your Squarespace site.

This affects how you promote your website and the things you can do to make more sales and grow your business.

Conclusion

WordPress is way ahead of Squarespace when it comes to running an eCommerce website. The limitations of Squarespace can affect the growth of an online business.

The neat part about WordPress is that you can also use it alongside Shopify. See our comparison of Shopify vs WooCommerce.

Winner: WordPress

Data Portability

When signing a business agreement, you always have safety clauses such as, if you’re not happy, then you can leave without any hassle.

This concept extends to online businesses as well, and it is called data portability.

If you’re not happy with the platform, then you should be able to take all your work and move it somewhere else.

Let’s look at how WordPress and Squarespace compare in data portability and the freedom to switch.

WordPress

WordPress comes with built-in tools to easily export all your data.

Not just your content and images, but you can also back up your themes, plugins, and the entire database. See our list of the best WordPress backup solutions.

Exporting data in WordPress

You can then easily move this content to any other Content Management System you want. You can store your content anywhere else and change web hosts at any time you want.

Squarespace

Just like everything else, the export feature on Squarespace is also very limited.

You can only export certain parts of your content in an XML file. This includes your pages, galleries, and one blog page with all its posts.

Your product pages, album pages, text, audio, and video blocks will not be exported.

Conclusion

The content you create on your site is yours, and you should have the freedom and tools so that you can move it elsewhere.

WordPress again beats Squarespace with easy-to-manage tools to export your entire site.

Winner: WordPress

Languages and Internationalization

We live in a global world and many businesses cater to a multilingual audience in different geographical locations.

Let’s see how Squarespace and WordPress handle languages, multi-lingual content, and geographical locations.

Multilingual support

WordPress

WordPress is fully translated into dozens of languages. Users on a WordPress site can choose their own language from their profile settings.

Most WordPress themes are translation-ready and all popular WordPress plugins are also translated into many languages.

You can build a WordPress website in any language you want. You can even translate WordPress yourself if your language is not yet available.

WordPress does not come with multi-lingual functionality out of the box. However, there are excellent plugins to create multilingual websites that are SEO-friendly and incredibly feature-rich.

Squarespace

The Squarespace platform is fully translated into six languages (English, German, French, Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese). It also partially supports a few more languages.

You can change your site language and choose a different timezone / country.

You can only use currencies supported by Stripe or PayPal for your store products.

You can create multilingual pages by basically duplicating your pages. You will have to manually create a site structure or different sites for each language (You will be billed for each site separately).

Alternatively, you can pay for Weglot, a third-party service to manage translations. Pricing for Weglot starts at $9.99 per month for one language.

Conclusion

WordPress is way ahead in terms of languages and localization options. Squarespace again comes out as very limited and not suitable for creating multilingual websites.

Winner: WordPress

Summarizing Squarespace vs WordPress Comparison

WordPress is a far superior platform to Squarespace when it comes to building a website. Our CMS market share report shows that WordPress powers over 43% of all websites while Squarespace is only used by 2.1% of websites.

Here is a quick breakdown of pros and cons of both platforms.

Pros of using Squarespace

  • Easier to use for small websites
  • Polished user experience
  • Hassle-free website setup
  • Customer support via Twitter, Live Chat, and email support.

Cons of using Squarespace

  • Costs higher than a website on shared hosting
  • Limited design choices
  • Limited set of features
  • Limitations put you at disadvantage in growing your business

Pros of using WordPress

  • Easy to use with a slight learning curve
  • Incredibly flexible to create any kind of website
  • Massive collection of themes and plugins
  • Truly powerful eCommerce platform
  • Can be started at a very low cost
  • Community support via online forums

Cons of using WordPress

Weighing the pros and cons, we can confidently say that WordPress is a better platform to start a website.

The freedom to grow your website as you see fit is important for all businesses.

You should not trade that for any cost. WordPress provides this freedom at a much lower cost than all other platforms.

Frequently Asked Questions about Squarespace vs WordPress

Following are some of the most commonly asked questions about Squarespace vs WordPress.

1. Is WordPress better than Squarespace?

Yes, WordPress is better than Squarespace because it gives you more freedom and flexibility to build any kind of website.

Squarespace is easy to use but it offers a free limited set of features and flexibility. It is comparable to platforms like Wix or Weebly which are also fully hosted site builders with similar limitations.

2. Is WordPress better for SEO than Squarespace?

Yes, WordPress is better for SEO (Search Engine Optimization) than Squarespace. With WordPress you can use SEO plugins like All in One SEO for WordPress, which allows you to add powerful sitemaps, schema markup, meta title and descriptions, and more.

With Squarespace, you are limited to the SEO functionality baked into the platform and cannot extend it.

3. How can I move my site from Squarespace to WordPress?

Squarespace offers limited export options but you can still switch from Squarespace to WordPress. See our tutorial on how to easily move from Squarespace to WordPress for step-by-step instructions.

4. Squarespace vs WordPress which one is better for bloggers?

WordPress is the better platform for bloggers. It started out as a blogging platform and still has the best blogging tools than any other site builder on the market.

We hope this article offered you a side-by-side comparison of WordPress vs Squarespace. You may also want to see our complete WordPress review for a detailed overview of the platform.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post Squarespace vs WordPress – Which Is Better? (Pros and Cons) first appeared on WPBeginner.