There are so many considerations when starting and crafting your brand. One of the most important is your website design and where you host it. With what seems like a thousand different ways to do it, how do you know you’re building it right? We’re going to take a look at three of the largest competitors in the content management system (CMS) space and show you why choosing to work with a web designer is a great move, but why one CMS stands above the rest when starting and hosting your website.

Wix

In many ways, Wix isn’t a content management system at all. Wix functions as a website builder that is primarily design driven. While this is great for the intent of building a website, that’s where the benefit ends. Once you choose a theme and hit publish, you’re stuck with that theme for the duration of your time on Wix website. Want to refresh your brand and start over again? You’ll have to tear it all down and start completely from scratch. Wix pricing is straightforward but can be pricey for business sites. The other con with Wix is that once your site is made, you’re stuck with Wix and can’t migrate your data elsewhere. There are benefits to using Wix though, namely that if you’re building your website on your own, you can do so and it’s easy to get started.

Pros:
Easy to use
Website Builder
Drag and drop

Cons:
Can’t change theme when published
Very little configurability
Doesn’t scale well
Stuck with Wix and can’t download your data

Squarespace

If you’re design oriented or a creative, squarespace might work well for you. Out of the box, this provider has the best design templates but still remains limited in their configurability after you publish. That said, there’s a bit of a learning curve with Squarespace. It does take a bit longer to get set up and you’re confined to their simple tools. Great for the design oriented, great for those who need simple solutions. Squarespace pricing is also straightforward, but can be pricey for the sake that it isn’t configurable. Also pricey considering that your site will be made for squarespace and squarespace only. You won’t be able to download your data and move it elsewhere should you need to. What if you scale your business and you’re stuck with a simple solution that doesn’t grow with you?

Pros:
Design oriented
Website builder
Somewhat easy to use

Cons:
Difficult to learn
Limited on growth when you scale up
Stuck with Squarespace and can’t download your data

WordPress

We’ve talked about some big competitors in this space. But WordPress is still king. With over 40% of market share in this space they remain the biggest out there. WordPress might not have the most beautiful templates out of the box, and might require a bit more coding knowledge to get going, but that’s why you hired an expert web designer to begin with. WordPress works well because it does scale, you get unlimited customization, access to a wealth of third party wordpress plugins (think woocommerce (which is HUGE)) to augment your site. All of the cons here are covered because you’ve hired an expert to take care of the setup for you. The payoff is you then have a website design that grows with you and evolves with your business as you build it.

Pros:
Unlimited customizability
Access to thousands of third party plugins
Trusted by over 60% of the web
Your data is yours! You can download it and move it elsewhere if you need to.

Cons:
Difficult to set up
You might need to know HTML/CSS/PHP for advanced features and configuration

You might be reading this because you’re ready to launch your website and are weighing your options. Since you’re hiring a web designer, WordPress is the way to go. You get the benefits of having options, with where you host your wordpress website, with the configuration of your site, with what plugins you’d like to use, and with having a platform that scales with you as you grow your business. It’s no wonder over 60% of the web is powered by WordPress.