Web Development Choice : WIX or WORDPRESS ?

Nowadays, there’s a lot web builder / CMS that we can use to build an interactive website. This situation is very different 10 years ago, where we need to have some knowledge in HTML language to build our website from scratch ( at that time, we can enhanced our HTML skills on Myspace page!). That time, we need to pay website developer up to RM10,000 just to build static HTML website.

Now, the situation is much better and easier where there’s a lot of CMS (content management system) that built to manage our website easier ( we don’t need to update every page just to change footer text anymore ;p). So, today, we would like to share about comparison between the most popular CMS, WordPress, and its competitor, Wix. Which one is the best, WIX or WordPress development?

WordPress Platform

WordPress is Content Management System (CMS), which built by the community  using PHP languange to create an interactive website. For info, WordPress is not the only CMS for building website. Some of the famous CMS is including Joomla! and Drupal. The best thing about this CMS is we can download and install into the server for free. The question is, why Website Designer/Developer charge their clients for this free software? The truth is, they need to charge their clients to design the website, customize the core WordPress and upload the content to meet clients need and expectation. Furthermore, web designer/developer are the ones to ensure the quality of the website in terms of design, loading speed, search engine optimization (seo) and to make sure the website is mobile friendly. That’s why, most of website developer will only charge 1 time payment for website development and you dont need to pay to them monthly ( unless you need someone to maintain the website such as content creation and many more).

WordPress also is easy to maintain and can be done by the clients. At ICEINK, we will teach our clients on how to update their website by themselves. We also can manage the whole website, since in order to create WordPress website, we need to have the server and domain. So, we can create our business email, manage the database without relying so much on the third party. With WordPress, we can also create our own online shop where we can receive payment online (thanx for their best e-commerce plugin, WooCommerce) !

Wix.Com Platform

wix.com is website builder that also can be used to create an interactive website. Many people loves wix.com because it is easy to build a website, by drag and drop their info and picture into the website. However, not all people know that WordPress also have the same function by using WordPress Premium Template like Divi and Elementor and usually, this premium template is also included in web development cost. For wix.com, their cheapest package is USD4.50 per month (approximately RM19 per month) where you’ll get 500MB storage and 1GB bandwidth. This package is  sufficient for beginner to create their own website.

To be honest,  we had a chance to test this wix.com website builder. From our perspective, we love it and we recommend it for the beginner who want to create simple website. However, we are not recommend wix.com for advanced website since they don’t have much features where we can customize it like WordPress. For example, until now, we can’t integrate Malaysia payment gateway like Billplz and Senangpay. It’s true that this platform is supporting Paypal payment, but Paypal transaction charges is quite expensive (around 4%). Wix also don’t provide complex and advanced features where we can customize the features (by tweaking the source code) such as booking system and many more.

Our Suggestions and Choice

Well, to be honest, it depends on how big is your budget and what do you want. If you have small budget and prefer D.I.Y solution, you can use wix.com because it is easy to use. If you have big idea and need advanced features, we recommend WordPress. For info, 90% of our clients are using WordPress and they love it. But, WordPress also have their own disadvantages.

Originally, WordPress is built for blogging system. Hence, WordPress is not the best platform to build advanced web application such CRM system, accounting system and many more. For this purpose, you need to find expert web programmer which normally expert in PHP languange and know how to use Laravel Framework to build web application system. Besides, we also use another CMS like Joomla! and Drupal to build government portal which have hundreds of pages because it is more efficient and secure to handle bigger websites.