Wix is a popular cloud-based website development platform launched in 2006.

It provides users with easy drag-and-drop tools.

It has hundreds of professional designer-made templates for building websites and online stores.

With over 180 million users globally, Wix has established itself as one of the leading DIY websites and e-commerce solutions.

There are many advantages to using Wix.

The platform is very user-friendly, even for those with no coding experience.

Wix sites have great customizability, allowing you full control over design and content.

Wix also provides strong built-in SEO features.

They help websites rank well in search engines.

But, there are some downsides too.

Wix has bandwidth and storage limits on free and basic plans.

There are also some constraints around advanced customizability.

Integration might be more difficult compared to self-hosted solutions.

Advantages

1) Ease of Use

One of the biggest advantages of Wix is how easy it is to use, even for beginners with no web design experience.

Wix utilizes an intuitive drag-and-drop interface.

That makes building a website visual and straightforward.

Users don’t need to know any coding to create a site on Wix.

Wix provides hundreds of professionally designed templates to choose from.

They span various industries and aesthetics.

Users simply select a template that fits their needs.

After that, they customize it by dragging and dropping elements.

For instance, images, text boxes, buttons, and others. The template structure handles much of the foundational website design work.

Everything in the Wix editor is visual, and what you see is what you get.

Moving elements around the page is as simple as clicking and dragging them.

Changing colors, fonts, sizes, and other design elements can be done with a few clicks.

The editor makes it easy to create exactly the look you want. You don't need design expertise.

Wix offers an intuitive drag-and-drop editor. The beautifully designed templates are a major advantage.

Anyone can create a website without learning complicated web design skills.

Wix simplifies website building for beginners.

2) Customizability

Wix stands out for its exceptional customizability options compared to other website builders.

Users have complete control to customize the design of their website.

Wix offers a wide variety of flexible layout options to choose from.

You can select different templates, colors, fonts, and more.

You can design your site exactly how you envision it.

It’s easy to tweak every element on the page.

Experienced users can also add their own custom CSS code.

This gives advanced design capabilities.

It also allows nearly endless possibilities to change the site’s appearance.

You can change spacing, sizes, borders, animations, and any other styling aspects through CSS.

Wix provides unmatched customizability through its intuitive drag-and-drop editor.

It has an extensive selection of design assets and integration of custom code.

Users with all levels of experience can create a website that looks unique to their brand.

The flexibility empowers you to turn your vision into reality.

3) SEO

Wix offers several built-in SEO tools to help optimize your site.

When creating pages and posts, you can easily insert relevant meta descriptions and titles.

Wix will even provide recommended text to help search engines understand your content.

You also have full control over alt text for images.

Adding descriptive alt text helps search engines categorize images.

It determines when they show up for relevant searches.

Wix makes it simple to go through your media library and fill in alt text across your entire site.

The Wix SEO Wiz tool provides recommendations to improve your site’s search performance.

It analyzes your content, structure, social impact, and more.

Action items help to optimize title tags, meta descriptions, alt text, keyword usage, and site speed.

Implementing these suggestions can significantly boost your search rankings.

Wix sites also come SEO-optimized out of the box.

The platform is built using semantic HTML and structured data markup.

URLs are optimized for search crawlers.

All of this makes it easier for search engines to index and understand your content.

Wix provides all the necessary tools and features to optimize your site for relevant search engine results.

With a few tweaks and best practices, you can achieve great SEO results.

Regardless of your background in search engine optimization.

4) Cost

Wix offers both free and paid plans.

The free basic plan allows you to create a site with limited features and storage.

This plan is a great way to get started building a simple website for free.

But to access more advanced features like e-commerce, additional storage space, unlimited bandwidth, and premium support, you’ll need to upgrade to a paid plan.

Paid plans range from $14 – $49 per month.

The main paid plans are:

– Connect Domain: $14/month – Connect your own custom domain name

– Unlimited: $18/month – Unlimited pages, storage, and bandwidth

– Pro: $23/month – Advanced design and marketing tools

– VIP: $49/month – Priority VIP support

Wix also charges transaction fees if you sell products through your site.

The fee is 3.5% + $0.20 per transaction.

So, the free Wix plan is great for basic websites.

But you’ll likely need to upgrade for extra features and bandwidth as your site grows.

The paid plans provide more customization, storage, and support.

Factor in the monthly fees plus potential transaction fees when budgeting for a Wix site.

5) Storage and Bandwidth

One downside of Wix’s free plan is the limited storage and bandwidth allotted.

The free plan includes 500MB of storage and 1GB of bandwidth per month.

This is quite minimal and restrictive for most websites.

Even a simple website with some images and pages will likely exceed this storage limit quickly.

The bandwidth allowance of 1GB also gets used up fast if you have any significant traffic to your site.

Most websites require at least a few GB of bandwidth per month.

You can exceed the storage or bandwidth limits on the free plan.

But that means your website will become unavailable until the next month starts.

To get more resources, you have to upgrade to a paid plan.

Their combined plan gives you 3GB of storage and 2GB of bandwidth for $14 per month.

The unlimited plan provides unlimited storage and bandwidth for $27 per month.

So hosting on Wix can get expensive if you need more storage or bandwidth, which most websites do.

The free plan is very limited in this regard.

6) Support

Wix offers several support options for users.

Wix has an extensive knowledge base that provides helpful articles and tutorials.

A how-to guide on using the builder and customizing your site.

The knowledge base covers everything from getting started to e-commerce to marketing your site.

It’s a valuable resource for troubleshooting issues or learning new skills.

7) Customer Service

Wix also provides customer support via email and live chat.

Support reps are available 24/7 to answer questions and provide help.

Many users report quick response times and satisfactory resolutions from the customer service team.

They can help with technical issues, account questions, and other service needs.

8) User Forums

In addition to official support channels, Wix hosts active user forums.

The community forums enable users to get peer advice and discuss best practices.

Experienced Wix users often chime in to help newcomers get oriented.

The forums have sections dedicated to different site types, third-party apps, and more.

They provide another avenue for troubleshooting site issues or finding solutions.

9) App Market

Wix offers an expansive app market with hundreds of apps.

They allow users to add extra functionality to their sites.

The app market has apps for e-commerce, blogs, portfolios, bookings, newsletters, social media, and more.

Some notable apps include:

– Wix Blog: Adds a full-featured blog to your site.

This is helpful if you want to run a blog alongside your regular website content.

– Wix Bookings: Allows you to take appointments, class bookings, and reservations through your site.

Useful for businesses that take bookings.

– Wix Restaurants: For restaurants that want online menus, reservations, and food ordering on their site.

– Wix Music: For musicians to add a music player, sell songs, promote events, and more.

– Wix Stores: Adds complete e-commerce functionality for users who want to sell products through their site.

The major downside of the app market is that many advanced apps and features need to be paid for.

The free basic apps may not provide all the functionality that some users want.

So, there can be limitations unless you’re willing to pay extra for premium apps.

Overall, though, the app market does add a lot of useful extra features that can turn a basic Wix site into a more powerful and dynamic website.

It’s a major advantage that Wix gives users easy access to these add-ons right from their dashboard.

Disadvantages

While Wix offers many advantages, it also has some drawbacks to consider.

1) Less Design Freedom Compared to Coding from Scratch

One of the main limitations of Wix is that there is less design freedom compared to building a website completely from scratch with code.

The templates and drag-and-drop editor provide convenience but also constraints.

Those with advanced design skills may feel held back by the Wix interface.

It can be challenging to achieve complex or highly customized designs. There are ways to add custom CSS.

However, extensive design modifications may be difficult on the Wix platform.

2) Can’t Extensively Customize Backend.

The backend and technical aspects of a Wix site are constrained to what Wix provides.

For example, developers do not have full control over the database or server-side code.

Wix offers many built-in features.

But if you want to maximize flexibility and control over technical elements, you will notice limitations.

Extensive backend customization is not possible.

Designers, developers, and advanced users requiring a high degree of control and customization have limitations.

Wix may feel restrictive compared to building a custom site from the ground up.

The tradeoff for Wix’s ease of use is less flexibility for customization.

Especially on the design and technical front.

Conclusion

In summary, some of the main pros of using Wix are that it has an easy drag-and-drop site builder.

It has lots of customization options and built-in SEO features.

It has a relatively low cost for basic plans.

Some of the main cons are the storage and bandwidth limits on free plans.

Lack of support for some advanced site functionality and potential SEO challenges.

Wix is best suited for small businesses, artists, musicians, photographers, bloggers, and other individuals.

It is suitable for people who want an easy way to build a professional-looking website without coding.

The customizable templates make it easy for anyone to create an attractive site.

Wix is less ideal for large or complex sites that require advanced functionality.

For instance, forums, custom databases, member sites, and similar.

The free plans also have significant limits.

Wix works better for sites prepared to upgrade to a paid plan.

For most basic brochure-style sites, Wix provides an unbeatable combination of ease of use and modern design.

However, more advanced web developers may prefer open-source CMS platforms with more flexibility and control.