Looking to build a website for your business? Or perhaps a personal blog? Wix and Weebly are both great choices for either, but to figure out which one is better we have written an in-depth Wix vs Weebly review for you.
If you do not have the time to read the whole article, no worries, we have created a summary and table of contents so you can navigate the article better.
 |  | |
|---|---|---|
| Editor | Drag and drop editor that is very flexible. Unfortunately, it is a bit confusing at first. No coding knowledge required! | Drag and drop editor that is easier to use than Wix’s editor, but not as many options. No coding knowledge required! |
| Features | A lot of features available from out of the box. | Not as many features available as Wix and some features require installing third-party plugins, which may cost. |
| Pricing | Free plan available. Premium website builder plans start at $13 / month and e-commerce plans start at $23 / month. | Free plan available. Premium plans start at $6 / month. |
| Themes | Over 600 professionally designed themes available. | Over 60 professionally designed themes available. |
| Apps | Over 300 different apps available in 22 categories of which 100 are free. | Over 350 different apps available in 5 categories of which 50 are free. |
| Blogging | Offers blogging capability, but blog post manager open in a pop-up, which is not as convenient as Weebly’s interface. | Fully functional blogging feature, great blog post editor along with many different options. |
| E-commerce | More payment gateways available than Weebly. More flexible editor for creating an online store. | Less payment gateways than Wix. Otherwise great website builder for online stores. |
| Mobile responsiveness | All themes are mobile responsive. | All themes are mobile responsive. |
| Speed comparison | Great time to first byte and fully loaded speed. | Okay time to first byte and fully loaded speed. |
| Customer support | Available via phone and e-mail. Knowledge base with frequent questions. | Available via live-chat, phone and e-mail. Knowledge base with frequent questions. |
| Overall rating | 4.8 | 4.3 |
| Visit site | Visit site | |
Table of Contents
We have also created Weebly review and Wix review separately if you would like to read more about one or the other, check them out.
So how did we come to the conclusion that Wix is a bit better website builder?
Keep reading to find out.
Editor & Ease of use
- No coding knowledge required
- Drag and drop editor
- Very customizable
- A lot of free images to choose from for you website
- Can be a bit overwhelming at first
- Changing your website’s theme requires more work
- No coding knowledge required
- Drag and drop editor
- Simpler to use than Wix
- A lot of free images to choose from for you website
- Less features than Wix
- Less customizable than Wix
If you are a person that does not have any programming knowledge then both website builders are a great choice for you.
Both Wix and Weebly have a very easy to use drag and drop builders, which makes building websites amazingly simple.
Wix has a more flexible editor than Weebly. Using Wix’s editor you can drag and drop any element to literally any location that you want. Weebly uses a more structured layout that only allows you to add elements to locations that make sense.
While Wix’s editor allows you to be more flexible with your customization, it is also harder to be consistent with your designs across multiple devices. Weebly’s structured layout takes care of the consistency across different devices (mobile and desktop) for you.
Another benefit of Weebly‘s more structured layout is that you can easily switch between different themes, without breaking the functionality and over-all look of your website. That’s important to keep in mind in case you ever want to rebrand your website.
First, let’s start off with Wix.
Wix’s editor might look a bit confusing at first. But don’t worry after a couple of minutes you will feel right at home. From the menu on the right side, you can add new elements, customize the look of your website and manage blog posts or other data (such as images and blog posts) associated with your website.
Take a look at our video and see how easy it is to change the layout and text on your website.
If you select an element on your website with Wix’s editor then the menu on the right side becomes active. You can use that menu to further customize your elements – arrange their visibility order (if they overlap), customize their size (you can also do that by resizing the elements with your cursor), modify their alignment and so on.
The possibilities with Wix are literally endless, they have all the elements needed to create a beautiful and well-functioning website.
What about Weebly?
Let’s take a look at Weebly’s editor.
At first glance, Weebly’s editor looks simpler. Adding and editing elements on your website is straight forward and easy. Every element that you would need on a regular informative, e-commerce or business website is available in the left menu. That includes contact forms, galleries, slide shows and even the option to add Google Adsense to your website.
In case there’s something that you would like to add to your website, that doesn’t exist on the menu yet, you can head over to the Weebly’s app store and install new apps to your website, which in turn allow you to add new elements. But more about that later in the “Apps & Plugins” section of this comparison.
Take a look at our video of Weebly’s editor to see it in action.
One of the downsides of using Weebly is the fact that it is not as customizable as Wix.
For example, you can use a different font for every text if you want on Wix (please don’t do that). But you cannot do that with Weebly, you can only change the font of “Paragraph Titles” and “Paragraph Texts” separately, but not on an element to element basis.
Features and Tools
- Slideshows & Galleries
- Contact forms
- Vector art (shapes, characters, logos)
- Video and music players
- Social media buttons & integration
- Google maps
- Payment handlers
- Pop-ups and slide-ins
- Over 23 categories of different elements available
- Some features require installing third-party applications
- Slideshows & Galleries
- Contact and Newsletter forms
- Video and music players
- Survey builder
- Social media icons
- Google maps
- Google Adsense
- Less features from “out of the box”
- Other features require installing additional apps, which might cost extra money
The clear winner for available tools and features out of the box is Wix.
Wix has every tool that you would ever need when building a website from simple galleries to complex slideshows and newsletter pop-ups to run your e-mail marketing campaigns.
Just take a look at all the features Wix has in the image below.
While Weebly has all the essential features available out of the box. Extra features require you to install an app. Some of the apps available on Weebly’s app store are free, while some might cost you extra money.
Pricing & Value for money
- Free plan available
- 4 different website plans available – starting from $13 / month
- 4 different e-commerce plans available starting from $23 / month
- Free plan available
- 3 different website plans starting from $6 / month
When it comes to choosing a website builder such as Wix vs Weebly, often the decision comes down to pricing and value for money.
In our opinion, both website builders (Wix and Weebly) are very affordable and fairly priced considering the number of features that they have and that they include hosting. If you created a custom made website then hosting alone could cost you more than the premium plans on Wix and Weebly.
With that said, let’s dive further into the plans they both offer.
Wix and Weebly both offer a free plan, which allows you to use most of the features available with their website builders. Both free plans are great for trying out their website builders without paying anything.
We certainly recommend trying out the free plan before upgrading to a premium plan.
Although free plans are a great way to try out the website builders, you probably do not want to launch a live website with free plans. The free plans offered by both Weebly and Wix show advertisements on your website (Wix shows banners and Weebly pop-ups) and some of the features are locked (such as accepting payments on your website).
Furthermore, you cannot use a custom domain with either website builder, unless you are on a premium plan. That means instead of using a domain like my-travel-blog.com or coffee-shop.com you are stuck with a domain that does not look as good or professional – coffeeshop.weebly.com or travelblog.wix.com.
After all, you probably want to consider getting a premium plan. Let’s take a look at all the plans that both Weebly and Wix have to offer and what do they include.
Save money on premium plans.
If you are in it for the long run, consider paying annually as both Weebly and Wix offer discounts for customers paying annually instead of month to month basis.
Wix’s Plans and Pricing
In this section, we will take a look at all the plans (both Website and E-commerce) that Wix has to offer and the features included in the plans.
Weebly’s Plans and Pricing
In this section, we will take a closer look at Weebly’s plans, their features, and pricing.
Overall, with the functionality of each website builder taken into account, we feel that again Wix is a clear winner here in terms of value for money.
Weebly, on the other hand, is more affordable with its cheaper plans.
Themes
- Over 600 themes available
- Large number of categories to sort themes by
- Themes can be highly modified using Wix’s editor
- In order to change your website’s theme you have to start over
- No support for custom coding
- Over 60 themes available covering most common industries
- Theme categories include Online Stores, Business, Portfolio, Personal, Event, Blog and Other
- You can easily change your website’s theme at any point
- Less themes available than on Wix
- Less flexibility when customizing themes due to Weebly’s structural approach
A good looking theme is a must for any website, whether it is an online store, personal blog or an informative website about business. I would go even as far as to say that whether your website looks good or not, can make or break your business.
However, before choosing a theme, there are some important things you have to find out about the theme first.
Is the theme mobile responsive?
According to Broadbandsearch.net, over 52% of traffic nowadays is from mobile devices. Can you imagine if your website does not properly work on mobile? That could mean 52% fewer visitors and potential customers. Even Google has confirmed that its search engine ranking considers mobile usability as a ranking factor.
You have to make sure that your theme is properly mobile responsive.
Fortunately, every single one of Wix’s and Weebly’s templates is mobile responsive, so you cannot go wrong with either of them.
How much can you customize the theme to make it suit you or your business?
No one wants to have a website that looks exactly like your competitor’s. You want to be better than them, right?
This is where Wix really shines. Wix Editor’s options for customizability are unparalleled and when using Wix you can be sure that no one has a website as beautiful as yours. Wix even offers a completely blank theme if you already have a vision for your website.
Weebly’s editor is great as well for people that like a more structured approach – Wix’s editor can be a bit overwhelming at first because it has so many options. Some people find Weebly to be a bit limiting, others love it because it really simplifies creating the layout of your website with its suggestions.
In case you do know some basic HTML and CSS, you can make use of Weebly’s coding editor to get around the limitations that Weebly’s builder puts on you. However, this is not required at all and the coding editor is meant for advanced users that want to fine-tune their website.
Wix does not allow you to directly modify the underlying theme using a coding editor as Weebly does. But you can create custom elements and add custom functionality to your page using Wix Code. If you do not have any previous programming or coding experience at all then Wix Code might be easier to get started with than Weebly’s actual programming, but if you do know HTML and/or CSS then Weebly is the way to go.
Can you easily change the theme if you wish to do so in the future?
This is the biggest downside of using Wix – you simply cannot change your theme easily. Wix does not allow changing themes, so you have to start over, from scratch.
However, Weebly allows to change the theme of your website and makes it rather simple.
This is something you seriously have to consider when choosing a website builder. If you are okay with knowing that changing the theme requires you to start over then Wix is a great overall website builder.
Wix – Themes and Categories
Wix has over 600 professionally designed themes available. All of their themes are mobile responsive, modern and truly beautiful looking.
Wix categorizes themes to make finding the right theme easier for you. Wix has the following categories available on its theme browser:
- Business ( sub-categories include Consulting, Services, Technology, Advertising, Automotive, Real Estate, Finance, Law and Animals)
- Online Store (sub-categories include Fashion, Jewelry, Arts, Home, Beauty, Food, Sports, Electronics, Kids, Books, Animals)
- Photography (sub-categories include Events, Commercial, Travel)
- Video
- Music (sub-categories include Solo Artist, Band, DJ, Music Industry, Music Promotion)
- Design (sub-categories include Designer, Agency, Portfolio)
- Restaurants & Food (sub-categories include Catering, Restaurant, Cafe, Bar, Food & Drinks)
- Travel & Tourism (sub-categories include Hotels, Apartments)
- Events (sub-categories include Weddings, Holidays, Conferences, Event Productions, Venues)
- Portfolio & CV (sub-categories include Portfolios, Resumes, Personal)
- Blog (sub-categories include Fashion, Lifestyle, Art, Business)
- Health & Wellness (sub-categories include Health, Wellness, Sports, Fitness)
- Beauty & Hair (sub-categories include Hair, Makeup & Cosmetics)
- Fashion & Style (sub-categories include Fashion, Accessories)
- Community & Education (sub-categories include Community, Education, Religion)
- Creative Arts (sub-categories include Performing Arts, Literary Arts, Visual Arts)
- Landing Pages (sub-categories include Coming Soon, Promotional Page)
In case you could not find a suitable theme, or if you would like to start creating your own theme, you can also choose from a variety of blank templates that have the structure set in place, but no images or texts.
Wix literally has theme available for everything and there are so many to choose from – if you like having options Wix is the way to go.
Weebly – Themes and Categories
Weebly has 10 times less themes available than Wix, a bit over 60 themes in total. Similarly to Wix, all of Weebly’s themes are professionally designed and mobile-optimized to make sure you can make most of your mobile traffic.
Weebly has fewer categories available than Wix as well. Weebly has categorized its themes in the following categories:
- Online Store
- Business
- Portfolio
- Personal
- Event
- Blog
- Other (themes suitable for any type of website)
While Weebly has fewer themes available than Wix, it makes finding the perfect theme a bit easier.
Overall, there is no clear winner for this category. It all comes down to your taste and what you are looking for. I recommend taking a look at both Weebly and Wix to see what themes they have available. If you know basic HTML & CSS or being able to change the theme of your website is a must then Weebly is a better option for you. If you are looking for an editor with more flexibility and a larger variety of themes then Wix is a better choice.
Apps & Plugins
- Over 300 different apps available in 22 categories
- Over 100 free apps available to expand the functionality of your website
- Both in-house and third-party apps available
- Some apps cost money on a monthly basis
- Over 350 apps available in 5 categories
- Over 50 free apps available to expand the functionality of your website
- You can make recommendations for new apps
- Some apps cost money on a monthly basis
Do you want to add tables and tabs to your website? Or do you want to start drop-shipping t-shirts or other products?
No problem! Both Wix and Weebly have apps available to help you with that.
Weebly has over 350 apps (over 50 of them are free) available on its App Center. You can filter apps by their category, popularity, cost, and ratings. There is an app available for everything.
For example on Weebly’s App Center, there is an app called Paid Members, which allows you to create subscription-based membership areas or Printful, which allows you to create clothing and home accessories with your own designs and sell them without having to take care of inventory or shipping!
As for Wix, it certainly does not lack in the apps department either. Wix has a total of over 300 apps (with 100 free apps) available on the Wix App Market.
Similarly to Weebly, Wix also has an app for subscription-based membership areas and Printful for drop-shipping custom-designed clothing and home accessories.
Overall, both website builders have a lot of apps available with both free and premium plans. In our opinion, this category is a draw between Wix and Weebly. The only thing that gives Wix a slight advantage is the fact that their App Market is a bit easier to navigate with more categories available to sort by.
Suitability for Blogging
- Out of the box support for blogging
- Highly customizable options for layout and design
- Custom post URL, titles and description for search engines
- Scheduled publishing
- Post editor is not the greatest – limited number of elements can be included in a post
- Out of the box support for blogging
- Better post editor than Wix, you can use all the same elements as on your regular page
- Custom post URL, titles and description for search engines
- Scheduled publishing
- Posts page is not as highly customizable as Wix’s
Wix and Weebly both offer blogging capabilities out of the box. Everything you need to start a fully functional blog is included even in the free plans for both website builders.
However, there are some notable differences between the two website builders. Let’s review them together.
Blogging on Wix
Blogging is another section where Wix shines again with its flexibility. The amount of options you have to customize the layout and things to show on your posts is literally amazing. You can configure which of these to show on your posts feed: publish date, estimated reading time, views counter, comments counter and likes counter.
As for the post feed layouts, Wix offers 5 different layouts with an additionally configurable number of posts to show to your visitors. In addition to all that, you can, of course, configure the style of your titles, descriptions and texts.
The only thing that feels a bit out of the place, and uncomfortable, is Wix’s post editor. In order to create a new post or modify an already existing post, you have to open the Post Manager, which opens as a pop-up.
In the Post Manager, you can change the author of the post, write an excerpt, add cover images, categories and custom titles, descriptions for search engines. Wix even shows you how your website will look in Google’s search results, which is another amazing feature in my opinion.
However, the number of different elements you can add to a post is a bit limited out of the box. You can only add paragraphs, videos, images, separators and HTML code if you know how to write HTML.
Blogging on Weebly
If you get used to the Weebly editor’s interface then you will feel right at home when creating a blog as well. I really like that Weebly uses the same interface for both managing your website and blog. This way you will only have to learn one interface and when you get used to it, you will be a lot more productive.
I think it is great that Weebly lets you use all the elements on blog posts that you can also use when creating other pages on your site. Furthermore, Weebly lets you see live-preview of how your post is going to look to your visitors, which is a great feature in my opinion.
Under the “Post Options”, you can change the following settings:
- Publish date – immediately or in the future
- Comments – Open / Closed / Require Approval
- Category
- Secret draft URL – so you can share the post with your friends to get feedback before publishing it
- SEO Post Title & Description – for search engine optimization
Overall, I really like the approach Weebly has taken with their post editor as it feels very similar to their Website Editor and that is a great thing. They have also gone out of their way to make everything as simple as possible.
The only downside to Weebly’s Blogging platform is that I could not find a way to customize the layout of the blog’s homepage or post list.
Overall, we think that both Wix and Weebly are great choices for blogging, but Weebly’s user interface for blog posting is a bit simpler and fits better with the overall user experience of Weebly.
Again if you like having more flexibility with your blog, then go with Wix, otherwise, Weebly is a great choice.
Thus, Weebly takes this one by a slight margin.
Suitability for E-commerce
- Supports creating a store out of the box
- Over 21 payment gateways available including PayPal, Stripe and Square
- Requires installing more third-party plugins to get the store off the ground
- Supports creating a store out of the box
- Stripe, PayPal, Square and Apple / Google Pay integrations available
- Weebly’s team has a heavy focus on making their e-commerce side better
- Store designing is not as flexible as with Wix
Both website builders, Wix and Weebly, have e-commerce capabilities included. Weebly is known to be more “online store” oriented than Wix, but that does not necessarily mean that Wix is not as good as Weebly when creating an online store.
Creating an online store with Wix
Setting up an online store with Wix is simple as it can be. Wix offers you the ability to sell both physical and digital products in your store. Along with major payment gateways such as Paypal, Stripe, and Square, you can accept a total of over 21 payment gateways.
Wix has the following features for their e-commerce solution:
- Customer accounts – better conversion rates for repeat buyers
- Import/export product catalog
- Accept payments from multiple payment gateways without any commission fee
- Sell both digital and physical products
- Gift cards
- Abandoned shopping cart e-mails
- Global tax and shipping
- Manage orders and track your store’s inventory
- … and as always a great editor for designing your store
Creating an online store with Weebly
Weebly has been recently acquired by Square (payment provider), which indicates that the might be focusing on the e-commerce side of their website builder even more heavily.
Weebly’s e-commerce solution includes the following features:
- Accept payments through multiple payment gateways such as Paypal, Stripe (for credit card payments) and Square
- Inventory management
- Gift Cards and Coupon codes
- Automatic tax and shipping calculator
- Advanced e-commerce statistics for analyzing your customers
- Pop-up notifications to promote sales for example
- Sell both physical and digital products
- Store pick-up as a delivery method
It is a close call between the down when it comes to e-commerce solutions. I think Wix has a slight edge here with the ability to add more payment gateways and flexible editor for designing your online store.
Mobile responsiveness
With mobile traffic being over 52% overall traffic on the internet, it is more important than ever that your website is fully mobile optimized. Furthermore, Google has announced that one of the ranking factors on its search engine is the mobile usability of a website.
If your website supports mobile users and your competitor’s website does not, then you will have an edge over them in terms of search engine ranking.
Fortunately, both Wix and Weebly have optimized all of their themes for mobile users, so you will not have any issues with either of them.
Speed comparision
- Average time to first byte: 0.219 sec
- Average time for fully loaded website: 6.963 sec
- Average time to first byte: 0.452 sec
- Average time for fully loaded website: 8.265 sec
As we all know, website speed is an important factor for both visitors that do not want to wait around for the site to load and Google. Google has announced that page speed is a ranking factor and having a faster website will benefit your search engine rankings.
If you are using either, Wix or Weebly, you also get hosting provided by them, which is why it is important to find out, which website builder has better servers and is able to provide better website loading speed.
To test the website speed of both website builders we took two websites created using them and used various webpage speed testers available. Here are the results for the test:
| Wix | Weebly | |
| Webpage size | 9.5 MB | 9.2 MB |
| Webpagetest – Time to first byte | 0.185 sec | 0.405 sec |
| Webpagetest – Fully loaded | 8.127 sec | 10.231 sec |
| GTMetrix – Time to first byte | 0.263 sec | 0.5 sec |
| GTMetrix – Fully loaded | 5.8 sec | 6.3 sec |
The clear winner for website speed is Wix. However, in the end, it all comes down to how many videos and images you have on your website.
Help & Customer support
- Phone support for every plan
- Very in-depth knowledge base
- Helpful tooltips with common problems and their solutions in the editor
- No live chat support available
- E-mail support
- Live chat
- Phone support
- Help center with articles and guides
- Phone support only available for more expensive plans
If you are ever stuck with something on either platform, then you do not need to worry. Both, Weebly and Wix, are huge companies with great support staff ready to assist at all times.
Wix relies heavily on its knowledge base and FAQ section, in the hopes that customers can find the answer him or herself. Their overall customer support is great and very helpful.
Weebly takes a point here, as it has live chat available, which makes it really convenient to contact the support in case you need help quickly.
Wix vs Weebly Review Conclusion
The conclusion for our Wix vs Weebly review is that both website builders are excellent and terrific choices. If you prefer flexibility over simplicity then Wix is the way to go. If you are a person that wants creating a website to be as easy as possible then go with Weebly.
However, you cannot go wrong with picking either of them. Here’s a summary of all their strengths and weaknesses again.
| | | |
|---|---|---|
| Editor | Drag and drop editor that is very flexible. Unfortunately, it is a bit confusing at first. No coding knowledge required! | Drag and drop editor that is easier to use than Wix’s editor, but not as many options. No coding knowledge required! |
| Features | A lot of features available from out of the box. | Not as many features available as Wix and some features require installing third-party plugins, which may cost. |
| Pricing | Free plan available. Premium website builder plans start at $13 / month and e-commerce plans start at $23 / month. | Free plan available. Premium plans start at $6 / month. |
| Themes | Over 600 professionally designed themes available. | Over 60 professionally designed themes available. |
| Apps | Over 300 different apps available in 22 categories of which 100 are free. | Over 350 different apps available in 5 categories of which 50 are free. |
| Blogging | Offers blogging capability, but blog post manager open in a pop-up, which is not as convenient as Weebly’s interface. | Fully functional blogging feature, great blog post editor along with many different options. |
| E-commerce | More payment gateways available than Weebly. More flexible editor for creating an online store. | Less payment gateways than Wix. Otherwise great website builder for online stores. |
| Mobile responsiveness | All themes are mobile responsive. | All themes are mobile responsive. |
| Speed comparison | Great time to first byte and fully loaded speed. | Okay time to first byte and fully loaded speed. |
| Customer support | Available via phone and e-mail. Knowledge base with frequent questions. | Available via live-chat, phone and e-mail. Knowledge base with frequent questions. |
| Overall rating | 4.8 | 4.3 |
| Visit site | Visit site | |
If neither Weebly or Wix suits you, then head over to our top 10 best website builders comparison, where you can find all the best website builders currently available.
Did you try Weebly or Wix?
If so, let us know in the comments if you liked using them and what wasn’t so great about using them.
1 Comment
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