WordPress vs Wix, Squarespace and Shopify: which should you choose?

“Should I use WordPress or Wix?” is one of the questions I get asked most, usually by someone who’s been told one is brilliant and the other is rubbish. The honest answer is that each has its place. They differ most in how much control you get over SEO, how easy they are to look after, what they really cost to run and, the one people forget, who actually owns your website. This resource compares WordPress, Wix, Squarespace and Shopify side by side, so you can pick the right one for your business rather than the one someone happened to recommend.

How do WordPress, Wix, Squarespace and Shopify compare?

Here’s the short version, before I go into each point. It’s my view from building and fixing sites on all four, not a sales chart, and your own needs might tip the balance.

What’s the difference between WordPress and a website builder?

WordPress is free software you install on your own hosting. Wix, Squarespace and Shopify are services you rent, where the software, hosting and support all come in one monthly plan. That one difference explains most of the others. With WordPress you can change almost anything, and you’re responsible for keeping it updated. With a builder, the company looks after the technical side, and you work within the limits they set.

One thing that confuses people is that there are two WordPresses. WordPress.org is the free software you put on your own hosting, and it’s what I mean throughout this resource. WordPress.com is a paid hosted service built on it, which works more like a website builder. When someone says WordPress is great for SEO, they almost always mean the first one.

Which website platform is best for SEO?

WordPress gives you the most control, but all four can rank. The days of Wix being invisible to Google are long gone. Every one of these platforms now lets you set page titles, descriptions, headings and image alt text, and all of them produce a sitemap. For a small local business with a handful of pages, the platform matters far less than the content on it and the quality of your Google Business Profile.

Where WordPress pulls ahead is the detail. You can control the exact address of every page, add whatever schema markup you need, fine-tune page speed and fix things the builders simply don’t let you near. That matters more as a site grows, or when you’re competing in a busy market like solicitors or trades in Liverpool. Google’s own SEO starter guide applies whichever platform you choose, and my on-page SEO basics covers the parts you can do yourself on any of them.

Which is easiest to look after?

Wix and Squarespace, if you’re doing it all yourself. You drag things where you want them, the updates happen in the background and there’s nothing to break. WordPress takes a little more learning, and it needs regular updates to WordPress itself, the theme and the plugins. Leave those for a year and you’re inviting security problems.

That said, once a WordPress site is built well, changing text and photos is straightforward. The updates are the part most owners would rather not think about, which is why most of my clients have me handle them through website management. If you’ll be doing every bit of it yourself and you’re not technical at all, a builder may suit you better.

What does each website platform really cost to run?

Less difference than people think, once you add everything up. WordPress itself is free, but you pay for hosting, a domain and sometimes a premium theme or plugin. Wix and Squarespace bundle hosting into a monthly plan, but the cheaper plans often leave out things a business needs, and extras from their app stores add up. Shopify has a monthly plan too, plus app subscriptions and, depending on how you take payments, transaction fees on each sale.

Check the current prices on each platform’s own site, because they change often. Then compare what you’d actually need, not the headline price. For context, managed WordPress hosting with me starts from £15 a month on a dedicated UK server with hourly backups, as explained on my website hosting page.

Who owns your website on each platform?

With WordPress, you do. The files and the database are yours, and you can move them to any host you like. With Wix, Squarespace and Shopify, your words and images are yours, but the website itself only works on their platform. If you leave, you can take your content and your domain with you, but the design and layout stay behind, and the site has to be rebuilt somewhere else.

That doesn’t make the builders bad. It just means choosing one is a longer commitment than it looks. Whichever platform you go with, make sure the domain name is registered in your name, not your designer’s. That’s the one thing I’d never compromise on, and it’s covered in questions to ask a web design company.

When is Wix or Squarespace the right choice?

When you need a simple site quickly, you’ll be doing it yourself and you don’t expect it to grow much. A sole trader who needs a smart page with their services, a few photos and a contact form can do very well on either. Squarespace tends to suit businesses where the look matters most, like photographers and designers. Wix gives a bit more freedom over layout. For a site that just needs to exist and look tidy, both are fine choices, and I’d rather see a well kept Wix site than a neglected WordPress one.

When is Shopify the right choice?

When selling products online is the main point of the site. Shopify is built around taking payments, managing stock and handling delivery, and it does those things very well with very little setup. WordPress can run a shop too, using WooCommerce, and it gives you more control, but it takes more work to set up and look after. For a service business with no products, Shopify is the wrong tool. For a shop, it’s often the right one. My guide on Shopify SEO covers how to get a Shopify store found.

Can you move from Wix or Squarespace to WordPress?

Yes, but it’s a rebuild, not a copy and paste. The content comes across, the design gets rebuilt, and the most important part is redirecting every old page address to its new one so you keep your Google rankings. Skip the redirects and you can lose rankings you spent years building. Google explains the process in its guide to moving a site with URL changes, and my website redesign SEO checklist walks through it in plain English.

For what it’s worth, I build on WordPress because it gives me full control over the SEO, the client owns everything, and it can grow with the business. But I’ll always tell you if your current site is fine where it is. Moving platform costs time and money, and it’s only worth it when the old one is genuinely holding you back.

Questions people ask me

Keep reading

Whichever platform you choose, why your website must work on a phone and website usability: why easy beats clever matter more than the software underneath. If you’re planning a new site, my web design page explains how I build them with SEO in from day one.

Hi, I’m Pete

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