WordPress vs. 3 of the Top Website Builders

You have a lot of options when it comes to creating a website. You can code it all yourself and have the freedom to make exactly what you desire. Or you can use a website builder that helps you get your site up and running with themes, templates and infrastructure. WordPress is one of the largest content management systems on the web today, with a 60 percent market share, according to W3Techs. But how does it compare to three of the other top website builders? Let's take a look…

1. Wix

WordPress and Wix could not be more different when it comes to user experience and knowledge. WordPress is an open-source platform with seemingly endless plugins and customization options that require you to have time and coding knowledge to create the website you want. In comparison, Wix is a what-you-see-is-what-you-get platform that allows you to drag and drop text and images right where you want them with much fewer customization points.

Wix works well if you're a beginner who doesn't have a lot of time to dig through themes and plugins to optimize your site, but WordPress is a great option if you're looking to develop a specific and unique look to your site.

2. Squarespace

Squarespace has a lot of similarities to Wix in that has a drag-and-drop editor and a minimal learning curve. However, depending on your usage and needs, Squarespace can be very limiting. It does not have many templates to choose from and only a few ways to customize the look of your page, so don't expect to have your creativity shine. It also is limiting on your payment plans with tight restrictions on the number of pages you can have on your site, how many users you can add, and how many products you can sell. This is very different from WordPress' open-source freedom.

Once again, Squarespace is a great place to start your website journey and learn what you need from a webpage, but WordPress provides you with a lot more options in just about every area.

3. Shopify

Unlike WordPress, which has a wide variety of uses, Shopify is solely an e-commerce platform. Shopify is a great option for businesses because it is hosted and offers plugins, apps and templates all through one system. Because there are fewer third parties involved in the platform, it tends to be more secure and less buggy, which is important when you're asking customers to provide you with personal and financial information. However, if you're looking to do more than sell products or services, such as creating a robust business blog, WordPress provides you with more options, templates and services.

Conclusion

WordPress is a robust platform that helps a lot of users develop their business websites — and clearly they're doing something right with such a large share of the market. But there are other options out there that may be better suited to your needs, especially if you don't have a lot of time to code or customize your site. These other free website builder are just three great examples of easy-to-use systems for business websites, blogs and e-commerce solutions.