The Best Option: Webflow vs WordPress vs SquareSpace vs Wix

It's the year 2022, and if you are a business by now, you should have a website, or you are in grave danger of becoming irrelevant. Whether you are building one for the first time or redesigning one, many platforms are out there. The four leading platforms that many web designers and businesses use are Webflow, WordPress, SquareSpace, and Wix. So which one is the best? Read on to find out!

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‍Webflow‍

Webflow is a no-code visual website builder. It's a SaaS tool with a CMS/hosting platform. Its editor was designed for professional designers to build professional, custom websites visually. Without knowing much CSS and JavaScript, you can create beautiful and complex interactions such as smooth rotations or parallax effects.

Did you know that all Webflow sites receive free TLS, which stands for Transport Layer Security, a protocol for providing communications security over a computer network? Webflow gives you complete control to edit the website at multiple breakpoints. It allows you to preview the site and make adjustments at each breakpoint; you can completely remake a website if you want.

If you're going to set up an eCommerce store, you can integrate the site with external services such as Zapier, MailChimp, ShipStation, etc. In Webflow, you'll have access to all the available tools and sections so you can add different elements and styles and have the ability to position them efficiently.

While Webflow does seem to have a learning curve, but as long as you know what a class, div, or container is, you won't find it challenging to work with this platform. It won't take you long to understand its CMS either.

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Pros:

• No Code
• Clean Code
• Complete control 
• Create thoughtful animations and interactions
• Design responsively with ease (with preview in multiple breakpoints) 
• User-friendly CMS
• Guaranteed uptime of 99.9% (higher than any other website builder)
• SEO is already good out of the box (they also have ways to make it even better)
• Extra support (access to Webflow University, community, forum, and excellent customer support team) 
• Complete control of in design customization
  

Cons:

• Bit of a learning curve (if you have never had web development experience) 
• More complex

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‍WordPress

‍WordPress is a free open source content management system (CMS) that has been around since 2003. Anyone can download it and use it as a website, and it's a self-hosted platform, so you can choose any hosting provider and install the software.

Most of the website's default information has already been filled out to showcase your products and services upon choosing your template. It's also the best for writing blogs, which was why the company started in the first place.

Because it's open-source, users can customize PHP and HTML code on the site. It allows you to modify any template and export your old HTML site to WordPress. It also has plugins to set the functionality to anything you need. If you want to create an eCommerce site, there's a plugin for that. It's also the most popular web design platform globally, making up about a third of all websites today.

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Pros: 

• Low cost (starts at $4)
• Easy to add new content
• A trusted name in the industry
• Good for blogging
  

Cons:

• Open-source (can be susceptible to harm and is difficult to learn)
• Messy code (slower website speed which could lead to crashes → results in low Google ranking)
• Updates constantly
• Tricky to use outside of blogging (WooCommerce can be tough to customize and use without a developer)
• Must use a theme (If you don't want the customized theme, you need to know how to code or work with a WordPress developer to build the theme from scratch) 
• Too many plugins (which could lead to crashing)
• Plugins may not be updated, leading to white screen issues‍‍

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‍SquareSpace‍

SquareSpace is another excellent place for designing websites. It's an all-in-one website builder and is ideal for creating professional websites. It has some of the best quality designs and features in the market. It is a section-based website editor, and its templates are mobile-friendly and cater to specific businesses. It has around 40 templates that are super modern and visually stunning.

SquareSpace has pre-configured blogs, online stores, music, and photography sites. It has excellent blogging features that are not as good as WordPress but better than Wix. However, many power bloggers and affiliate marketing brands pick SquareSpace over WordPress.

It's also great for eCommerce and selling digital products like music, subscriptions, photography, or artwork. You can also integrate third-party platforms for marketing and shipping, such as Mailchimp and ShipStation. Its plans start at $12/month, and SquareSpace offers a 14-day free trial, so you can try it out risk-free.

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Pros:

• Visually stunning and professional templates
• Mobile-friendly 
• Get support like live chat (instant response)
• Great for blogging
• Generous page limits (can support up to 1000 pages)
• Caters to specific businesses 
• It has a lot of eCommerce features
  

Cons:

• Capability for only one sub-navigation menu (not suitable for larger websites that require deep menu hierarchy)
• Usability of the editor (too many clicks are required to perform simple website editing tasks, and there is no autosave feature for when you make changes)
• Slow page load speed (resulting in lower Google ranking)
• Limitations around where you can move specific items on a page‍‍

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‍Wix‍

Wix is another big player in web design with nearly 200 million users. It's a drag-and-drop builder for creating small websites. They have more than 800 free templates available that are customizable and offer customers their web hosting and domain names.

Wix is considered the place for small businesses, online stores, photographers, and artists because it's very beginner and user-friendly, and business owners can design their site and get it running in a short period of time. Its design interface features a visually impressive website layout already created for you, and you can add whatever you like, such as photo galleries, navigation bars, and other elements.

They have an app market with hundreds of apps, such as a newsletter tool, live chat software, and online booking widget that can be integrated into your website. It also features a smart assistant that can help design your website by generating images, creating a contact form, and picking a suitable design for you.

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Pros:

• Allows for a lot of freedom and customization
• Ease of use (great for beginners)
• Has lots of features (like Live Chat, Takeout Orders, and Ticketing & RSVP)
• Can add animations
• Automatic site backup
• Artificial Design Intelligence (has smart assistant)
  

Cons:

• Difficult to edit features (i.e., restaurant menu)
• Not fully responsive
• Slow mobile loading speed
• Templates cannot be changed easily

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Take a look at the chart below to compare all of these platforms side-by-side:

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The Best Option: Webflow‍

All of the website builders we mentioned are great depending on the specific goal you are trying to achieve. It's no wonder why they have the reputation that they have. They have their particular strengths in certain areas, and some are known for their distinct features. However, after doing a deep dive and analyzing the website builders and their characteristics, Webflow comes out on top.

While WordPress is the most popular as they manage 30% of the web, this does not mean they are the best for you as the owner of the site. WordPress is declining as Webflow and other web development tools climb and take up the market share.

WordPress is open-source because they have too many plugins - 57,000 in total! When creating a professional WordPress website, many developers have to install these plugins to make their website function how they want. Sometimes these plugins clash which causes a website not to function correctly.

Plugins that were once safe and used for years can become dysfunctional. Some people have discovered malware in their websites because of hackers. Therefore, you should be tech-savvy when you install the plugins and make sure to check the recent reviews of the plugin before you install it on your website because people can tell you if it's been hacked or not.

In addition, there are other complications with it being open-source such as setting the website itself up. You'd have to go through the complicated process of purchasing a domain and hosting it on a server but since Webflow, SquareSpace and Wix are close-sourced, everything's been taken care of already.

When you look at SquareSpace, they have many eCommerce features and the most remarkable visual designs. However, it's limiting because you can't move an element anywhere on a page, and there's no drag and drop functionality as you see in Wix. Since you can't move elements around, it's challenging to switch positions of elements. If you try to change the location of an element, it often results in an annoying mess.

SquareSpace's interface also requires too many clicks before performing a simple website editing task. Also, if you right-click, it won't give you editing features found in other website builders.

Wix is great for beginners because its drag and drop feature is user-friendly and offers many features, but it will be a hassle for businesses in the long run because at a certain point it becomes limiting, especially for professional designers.

First of all, you have limited design control. When you're designing a website, you should be designing one that's responsive on desktops, laptops, iPads, iPhones, and other devices. Generally, designers create a website on their desktop or laptop, and when you shrink the website's viewport width in Wix (change the breakpoints), the words and elements go off the page.

It's not very responsive at all, and you would have to go into every page and edit each of them to fix this issue. Web responsiveness is critical because many people use mobile devices nowadays, and 50% of conversions are completed on mobile. If you're not designing a website optimized for mobile, it will negatively impact your performance as well as your Google ranking.

If you're using Wix to design a website for a client, you need to create a Wix account for them, and they're going to have to learn Wix themselves or you have to teach them. Even with most of the heavy lifting tasks being done for you with an easy drag-and-drop system, the end results of the website will not look professional.

Wix, however, is a great place to start if you are a small business owner who wants to design a website quickly. There is a catch, though, because quick websites don't mean it's great-looking and professional, and the appearance of your website and your business infrastructure will affect your branding.

While there's a more significant learning curve in Webflow, and people say you have to know some computer programming, all you have to know is what a div, container, or class is. Trust us; there's no computer programming at all! Webflow offers web designers or website owners complete control because you can edit the site at any breakpoint, and its CMS features are next level! Since elements use classes and IDs, you can change one of the elements, which will apply to all. It's also more straightforward than Wix.

Webflow is the perfect web design tool as building a website in Webflow will take your business to the next level! Webflow websites are clean, professional, and very responsive. With Dynamic Embeds, you can easily integrate products from your Shopify account to the Webflow website with an embedded Shopify widget. Therefore, you can create a custom eCommerce store without needing a prebuilt Shopify template.

Once you create a Shopify account, you need to create a Collection and embed the products with the Shopify code. If you want a beautiful lead generation machine, look no further than Mac Digital! We are ready to create a fantastic Webflow website for you with super-fast load times to generate more leads for your business.

We will make your futuristic lead generation machine in the new web era: Web 3.0, seamlessly migrate your site to Webflow, and optimize SEO to boost your sales! We will save you time and energy so that you can focus on the things that make your business great!