Wix and Webflow are visual website building tools. Both are great solutions for creating websites but how do you know which one you should use? In this article, we’ll uncover the key differences between Webflow and Wix.
There are many ways to create a website and several tools and software to help along the way. Just about any of them will help you create a solid working website but some are better than others. WordPress, Squarespace, Wix, and Webflow are some of the top, most well-known website builder tools out there today. Let’s get started with the pros, cons, and who Wix is best suited for.
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Wix is a website building platform with over 800 designer-made templates. Their mission is to help you create your own professional web presence — exactly the way you want. Whether it’s your first time creating a website or you’re a long time expert, you’ll find the features and solutions you need to build a professional website with true creative freedom.
They provide a platform for over 180 million users in 190 countries. They’re continually innovating and developing new tools. Here are some of the tools available with most Wix plans:
With Wix, you can create a website today. With over 800 designer-made ready-to-use templates with pre-built layouts for various industries, you’ll find a design that meets your website goals.
Have complete design freedom with the Editor. Wix’s drag and drop technology lets you move things around your site wherever you would like. Every design element is customizable. Resize, change colors, rotate, and align elements to make it look just right. Then choose from 1000s of intuitive tools and built-in features to create a professional web presence.
Depending on which plan you use, you can get anywhere from 30 minutes to 10 hours (or unlimited under the Business VP plan) of video hosting to showcase and stream your videos online. Set up libraries and sell, rent, or offer subscriptions to your content. Start creating videos with Wix Video.
The Wix App Market is filled with over 300 popular web apps, powerful services, and amazing features to enhance your website and grow your business. Most of the apps are free to use, mobile-optimized, and can be added to your site in just a few clicks.
To find the right app, enter a search term, click Categories on the right to search for a specific type of app, or scroll down and click All Apps to start browsing.
Whether you choose an app created by Wix or one of the many third-party apps, they can help take your site to the next level. Customize the design of your apps to fit seamlessly into the look and feel of your site.
You can create and manage your website directly from the Wix mobile app. Build your website on the app in just a few steps, upload photos directly from your smartphone, customize the text, images, and pages. You can even build and manage your online store from the app. Manage your inventory, upload product images, take payments, add tracking numbers, and more.
Create a beautifully designed website in no time with Wix ADI (Artificial Design Intelligence). Just answer a few questions and you’ll get a fully designed site with content and images built-in. Make it your own by choosing a design theme and a custom color palette that fits the look you’re going for. You can always upload your own images and content to match your brand.
You can’t transfer content from one template to another. Once you choose a template and start adding your content, there’s no turning back unless you want to start over completely or transfer content manually. So choose your template wisely before you start to customize it.
One of the biggest drawbacks of Wix is the inability to easily export and transfer the content of your website. Most website platforms, including Squarespace and WordPress, offer a way for you to easily export your content if you ever want to switch to another platform. Wix doesn’t and this can potentially be a big problem if you’re designing for a growing business that eventually surpasses the capabilities of Wix. You’ll have to pay a lot of money and/or spend a lot of time manually transferring the written content, images, and video of your site. Just know that if you’re thinking about using Wix, make sure you’re in it for the long haul.
If you’re designing a large website with a complex structure, Wix isn’t the best solution. Add to the fact that you can’t export your content easily, Wix is ideal for individuals or small business owners.
With most website builder tools, connecting Google Analytics is free and usually easy to do. However, with Wix, you need a paid plan in order to access your analytics.
While a personal website starts at $14 per month, Wix pricing quickly increases depending on the features you need. Make sure you know exactly what features you need so you don’t overpay for a plan you’re not using. Pricing varies slightly for eCommerce plans.
Some website platforms, like Squarespace, are known for their templates as designed to be fully compatible and optimized for mobile. While Wix claims their templates are fully responsive, it’s not always the case. Occasionally there are some weird things that occur on a website when viewing on mobile which is bound to happen with most WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) editors.
While you do have the option to create interactions and animations, they are limited. For example, in Wix’s editor, you can adjust the hover and disabled states for a button. However, with a tool like Webflow, you have more flexibility and can apply these interactions to all design elements, not just buttons.
For more of an explanation of how this works, check out this video where Ran walks you through how he recreates the Flux website with the Wix Editor.
Now that you understand the pros and cons of Wix, who is the platform best suited for? If you need to create a portfolio website to show off your design work or the creative work of a client then Wix is an excellent solution. If you’re looking for a do-it-yourself solution and you just want to get a website up fast with little support and guidance, Wix is a good solution.
But if you’re looking to design a custom website to solve your client’s business goals and charge higher rates for your design work in the process, then you might want to learn more about what Webflow has to offer.
Here are a few reasons to use Webflow for creating your client’s website, including a few advantages over other tools like Wix, WordPress, and Squarespace.
There’s no longer a disconnect between visual design and coding. For years, the visual process of web design is often separate from the actual building of the site. As a web designer, you created wireframes, mock-up the UI, and handoff assets to a developer. Then you would have to deal with the back and forth communication, making sure the developer executes your design vision. But with Webflow, it doesn’t have to be a divided process. You can now design and build a website all within one tool.
Other website builder tools such as Wix can add unnecessary code to your website that will slow down your site speed. Webflow skips all that, so your site is powered by clean HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.
Check out the Flux Academy homepage as an example of some of the incredible animations you can create with Webflow. The web is meant to be an interactive experience. By adding thoughtful animations, the websites you design for your clients will stand out and wow their customers. You would need to have extensive knowledge of CSS and Javascript in order to recreate these animations but with Webflow, you can build them visually. Create rich animations, without thinking about code.
With Webflow you can easily preview and adjust layouts for a wide array of modern devices. Just click on any of the breakpoints to see adjust how your design transitions from desktop to tablet to mobile and so forth. Use Flexbox to solve common responsive web design problems with ease.
Webflow offers a simple on-page editing interface with a minimal dashboard UI, showing you only what you need.
Webflow gives you quick and easy access to all the on-page SEO settings you need. For CMS content, meta titles and descriptions are automatically created based on fields you create and define. All Webflow websites receive free SSL.
While Wix does offer customer support, Webflow also offers a host of support options and ways to learn the tool. For example, there’s Webflow University, the Webflow blog, forum, community, and most importantly a great customer support team to answer any questions you have. And of course, the Flux YouTube channel also offers helpful tutorials.
And of course, the number one reason to use Webflow is it’s the best solution for creating custom-designed websites from scratch. Take control of HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript in a completely visual canvas, let Webflow translate your design into clean, semantic code that’s ready to publish to the web.
If you need more convincing, check out this video where Ran shows you 5 inspiring website designs all made with Webflow.
After learning more about Webflow you may be convinced it’s the best solution for designing custom websites from scratch for your web design client and you want to give it a try. What’s next, where should you start?
Webflow offers a “free until you’re ready to launch” plan. You can get started with Webflow, play around with the tool, and learn how to build your first website on your own
We have hundreds of design tutorial videos and we publish fresh new videos weekly. We have a playlist just on Webflow Tutorials alone.
Check out this video where Ran walks you through how to get started with Webflow as a beginner.
If you’re committed, you want a mentor to walk you through the process, and you’re ready to get started then check out the Webflow Masterclass. It’s the only course that teaches you, from start to finish, how to develop highly customized websites using Webflow. Even if you’ve never used the tool, you’ll learn the basics as well as advanced animations and interactions. You’ll also be part of our private community including expert support, peer critiques, networking, and more.
