We live in an era where building a functional website doesn’t require one to know how to code. Website builders such as Wix and Weebly have made it possible to create websites by simply dragging and dropping various items to create a web page. However, you will only get great results if you choose a website builder that suits the kind of website you want to build.
In this blog post, we will compare four website builders, including Wix, Shopify, Squarespace, and Weebly, to help you decide which to use. We will compare these platforms using some of the major factors you must consider while choosing a website builder. The comparison factor we will use include;
- Ease of use
- Templates
- Marketing and SEO tools
- eCommerce
- Pricing
- Customer support
Let’s get started with the comparison.
The top 4 Website builders
This comparison includes the currently 4 best options when it comes to building websites easily: Wix, Weebly, Shopify, and Squarespace. Each option has its own strengths and weaknesses of course, and the choice will as always depend on what you need to achieve. Here is a quick summary of our comparison.
1. Wix: the best overall website builder
Wix is the best website builder overall, except if you want to build an eCommerce shop. In that case, Shopify will be the best option. Wix is easy to use and has a lot of themes to find the perfect option for your website. Read the full review for Wix.
2. Shopify: the best website builder for online stores
Shopify aims at providing all the tools to build an online store. If this is your goal, then Shopify should be perfect for you. Read the full review for Shopify.
3. Weebly: a good alternative to Weebly
Weebly is less popular than Wix, but it is still a very good website builder that offers good pricing and a free plan to try it. Read the full review for Weebly.
4. Squarespace: another alternative
Squarespace is another alternative to Wix or Weebly. If for some reason you don’t want to use the previous solutions, Squarespace has a complete set of features. Read the full review for Squarespace.
Ease of use
When choosing a website builder, it is important to consider ease of use to avoid going with a builder with an extremely steep learning curve. Let’s find out which one of the four builders is the easiest to use.
Wix – eases of use
After getting used to the Wix page editor, creating a website using this platform is extremely easy. You can create pages using the drag and drop capabilities of Wix’s page editor. This editor allows editing every section of your web page without any limitations. Wix also has an AI-powered editor called Wix ADI that automatically generates a functional website with just a few inputs.
Weebly – ease of use
Unlike Wix, Weebly’s templates follow a standard structure meaning you can’t edit every section of the web page. Weebly chose this path because they wanted to make it possible to change templates without losing content even after publishing the site. The rigid structure of Weebly’s templates limits the design flexibility, which can be frustrating to developers who need control over what they can change in the templates.
Squarespace – ease of use
Squarespace also has an intuitive editor with drag and drop capabilities, making it possible to create a functional website without writing a single line of code. Its editor is also section-based, so you won’t have the flexibility you would get with Wix. When compared to Weebly, Squarespace’s editor is a little more flexible and less overwhelming.
Shopify – ease of use
Since Shopify is used to build more complex eCommerce sites than the rest of the tools, it is a little harder to use. Shopify’s templates also have a rigid structure, so you won’t have the flexibility to change every bit of the web pages like you would with Wix. Its page editor also lacks the drag and drop capabilities that the rest of the builders on this list have. But overall, Shopify’s page builder is pretty easy to use, considering the fact that it is used to create much more complex web pages.
Winner
Wix is the winner of this category, thanks to its intuitive and easy-to-use editor that you use to edit every section of your web pages. Squarespace comes in second place, followed by Weebly in the third. Shopify is the less user-friendly among the four.
Templates and design flexibility
Before choosing a website builder, it is important to consider the templates option and the flexibility of editing them. Let’s find out which of the four website builders comes out on top as far as templates and design flexibility are concerned.
Wix Templates and design flexibility
Wix has over 800 templates for creating different kinds of websites, including blogs, eCommerce, agencies, portfolios, events, and many more. These templates are also responsive, which ensures your website is optimized for both full-size computers and mobile devices. Wix’s editor also gives users the freedom to change every section of the web pages if they wish.
Weebly Templates and design flexibility
Weebly has around 50 templates that you can choose from while building your site. This limits the number of design options you will have compared to Wix. Weebly templates are responsive and well-optimized for mobile and desktop computers. Weebly’s templates also follow a more structured design, so users don’t have a lot of freedom to change every section of the web pages.
However, Weebly gives web developers the option to edit the HTML and CSS code of the templates, making it possible to edit and add features to the template to make it look more unique.
Squarespace Templates and design flexibility
Squarespace has around 110 responsive templates that are split among 15 categories of websites. These templates also follow a more structured design but with a little more flexibility to change things when compared to Weebly. If you are an advanced user, Squarespace also gives you access to the source code of the templates, so you can make changes to it if you wish to.
Shopify Templates and design flexibility
Shopify has over 100 themes that you can use to build your eCommerce site. Around 8 of these themes are free. Shopify themes are also well-built and mobile responsive, meaning they will automatically rearrange content to fit the small screens of mobile devices and tablets. You will use Shopify’s page editor to customize the templates and make them unique from the other sites that used a similar template.
Winner
Wix wins this category thanks to its massive templates library and design flexibility. Shopify and Squarespace follow in second and third place, respectively. Weebly comes in last because its templates library is so limiting, which could force most people to use the same themes.
Marketing and SEO tools
The main reason you are building a website is to be able to reach your target customers and possibly sell them your products or services. That is why it is very important to choose a website builder with all the necessary marketing and SEO tools that you will use to promote your website. Let’s look at the marketing and SEO tools that each of these platforms comes with.
Wix marketing and SEO tools
- Email marketing capabilities: Wix has built-in email marketing tools that can be used to create and share beautiful emails with your target audience.
- Social tools: Wix also has tools that will make it easier to promote your business on social media platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and many more.
- Personalized SEO plan: Wix will suggest SEO strategies that you can use to improve your website’s visibility in search engines such as Google and Bing.
- Visitor Analytics: This tool will enable you to monitor your site’s traffic and the behavior of site visitors.
- Sign-up forms: Wix also allows users to create sign-up forms that will make it easier for your site visitors to subscribe to your mailing list.
Weebly marketing and SEO tools
- Weebly Promote: With Weebly promote, you can create, personalize, send, and schedule emails for the different contacts in your mail list. Weebly Promote also enables optimized outreaches where an email is automatically sent to a given contact based on their behavior on your site.
- Intuitive Coupon builder: You can also create coupons with discounts for some of your products to promote sales.
- Google integrations: Weebly integrates with Google tools, including the Google search console and Google AdWords keyword planner that will enable you to improve your site’s SEO performance.
Squarespace marketing and SEO tools
- Social media integration: Squarespace integrates most of the popular social media platforms. This enables syncing information such as your product catalog between your website and social media catalogs.
- Email marketing: This platform also has useful tools that you can use to create well-optimized email marketing campaigns. Such tools include email templates, an email editor, and campaign analytics.
- Marketing analytics: This feature enables you to get real-time feedback regarding the performance of your campaigns.
- Image SEO: This allows you to optimize all images on your site to further improve its SEO performance.
- Other SEO tools include page title formatting, blogging, and automatic site maps.
Shopify marketing and SEO features
- Shopify email: This feature allows users to easily create emails using already made email templates.
- Google Smart Shopping: This feature enables users to set a daily budget and let Google’s technology run strategic campaigns on their behalf.
- Facebook Ads: Shopify has built-in and third-party tools that you can use to create the right audience for your Facebook Ads.
- Marketing dashboard reports: This feature allows you to track your campaign performance across all channels, from start to finish.
- Blog: You can integrate a blog into your Shopify website to help improve its visibility in search engines.
- SEO tool: You can use Shopify’s built-in SEO tools to edit title tags, meta descriptions, and product details to optimize them for search engines.
Winner
Shopify is the winner for marketing and SEO tools. This is mainly because it is primarily built for eCommerce sites, so these features are prioritized. Wix comes in second, followed by Squarespace in third place. Weebly is the least performer in this category.
eCommerce tools
If you are building a website with an intention to sell, it is best to choose a website builder with the most eCommerce tools. Let’s find out the eCommerce tools that each of these platforms offers.
Wix eCommerce
Wix has several built-in tools to make it easy to build your eCommerce website. Such tools include; storefront & ecommerce websites, cart & checkout, product management, store management, payments integration, store analytics, ecommerce apps, and the Wix owner app.
Weebly eCommerce
Weebly also has several features that facilitate the creation and management of an eCommerce website. Some of these features include store pages, shopping carts, inventory tracking and management, filtered product search, and the integration of payment options.
Squarespace eCommerce
Some of the built-in eCommerce features in Squarespace include product management, inventory management, order management, customer accounts for faster checkout, Point of sale, digital gift cards, sales analytics, integration of multiple payment and shipping options, etc.
Shopify eCommerce
Shopify is an eCommerce website builder, so it should not come as a surprise that it has plenty of features geared toward eCommerce. Some of these features include product management, Shopify point of sale, gift cards, online sales channels, fraud analysis, order management, discount codes, and many more.
Winner
Shopify is the clear winner for this category. It has all the core features you need to build a successful eCommerce website.
Pricing
These platforms offer different pricing plans that you need to look at before choosing which one to use for your site. Below are the pricing plans that each platform offers.
Wix pricing
Website plans
- Connect Domain at €6.60/month ($4.5/month): 1GB bandwidth and 500MB storage space. It also comes with 24/7 customer support.
- Combo at €12/month ($8.5/month): 2GB bandwidth and 3GB of storage space, plus 24/7 customer support.
- Unlimited at €20.40/month ($12.5/month): Unlimited bandwidth and 10GB storage, plus 24/7 customer support.
- VIP at €34.80/month ($24.5/month): Unlimited bandwidth and 35GB storage, plus 24/7priority customer support.
Business/eCommerce plans
- Basic Business at €24/month ($17/month): Unlimited bandwidth and 20GB of storage, plus 24/7 customer support.
- Business Unlimited at €36/month ($25/month): Unlimited bandwidth and 35GB of storage space, plus 24/7 customer support.
- Business VIP at €52.80/month ($35/month): Unlimited bandwidth and 50GB storage space, plus priority customer support.
Weebly pricing
Websites
- Free: Unlimited bandwidth, 500MB storage, a domain name with Weebly branding, and customer support via email, chat, and community forum.
- Connect at €5/month ($6/month) for a yearly payment: Unlimited bandwidth, 500MB storage, connect custom domain name, and customer support via email, chat, and community forum.
- Pro at €10/month ($12/month) for a yearly payment: Unlimited bandwidth, unlimited storage, free domain name, Google Ads credit, and customer support via email, chat, community forum, and phone.
- Business at €20/month ($26/month) for a yearly payment: Unlimited bandwidth, unlimited storage, free domain name, Google Ads credit, more eCommerce features, and customer support via email, chat, community forum, and phone.
Online stores
- Pro at €10/month ($12/month) for a yearly payment: Unlimited bandwidth, unlimited storage, free domain name, Google Ads credit, and customer support via email, chat, community forum, and phone
- Business at €10/month ($26/month) for a yearly payment: Unlimited bandwidth, unlimited storage, free domain name, Google Ads credit, more eCommerce features, and customer support via email, chat, community forum, and phone
- Business plus at €30/month ($38/month) for a yearly payment: Unlimited bandwidth, unlimited storage, free domain name, Google Ads credit, email marketing credit, advanced eCommerce features, and customer support via email, chat, community forum, and phone
Squarespace pricing
- Personal at €11/month ($14/month): This plan comes with unlimited bandwidth, free custom domain, 30 mins video storage, up to 2 users, and 24/7 customer support
- Business at €17/month ($23/month): This plan comes will all Personal plan features, plus unlimited users, marketing features, basic Commerce features, 3% transaction fees, and advanced analytics.
- Basic commerce at €24/month ($27/month): With this plan, you will get all the Business plan features, plus 0% transaction fees and more eCommerce features.
- Advanced commerce at €36/month ($49/month): This plan has all the Basic eCommerce plan features, plus more advanced eCommerce features such as sell subscriptions, advanced shipping, and the advanced discounts feature.
Shopify Pricing
- Basic at €27/month ($29/month): All the basics for starting an eCommerce website and up to 2 users and 4 inventory locations.
- Shopify at €79/month ($79/month): All you need to grow your eCommerce site with up to 5 users and 5 inventory locations.
- Advanced at €289/month ($299/month): Has all the advanced features for scaling up your business with up to 15 users and 8 inventory locations.
Weebly wins this category because it has a free plan. Its stater plan is also cheaper than the cheapest plans that Shopify and Squarespace offer. Wix is the runner-up in this category, followed by Squarespace. Shopify has the least favorable pricing plans among the four.
Final thoughts
We have covered most of the important information you need to choose a website builder. So, you can choose from any of the four depending on the features you care about the most. But overall, Wix is the most versatile and user-friendly amongst the four website builders we have covered in this guide. However, each platform has its strengths and weaknesses that you need to closely look at before choosing which one to use for your website project.
The best website builder overall.
The best online store builder.
The first alternative to Wix.
