Wix, home, webwave - these names very often come up in industry articles in the context of extremely modern, user-friendly and cost-effective solutions that allow you to create your dream website almost effortlessly. If this sounds too glamorous and idyllic for you, it is probably because there is a lot of untruth in it. But rest assured, this article will not serve me as a public outpouring of grievances, but as an attempt to fairly identify the pros and cons of such creators.
Freedom of creation
If it's WE ourselves who want to create our site, actually wizards are unrivaled in this field - almost unlimited possibilities for arranging, rotating, scaling or combining elements give a gigantic scope for showing off, especially for those with an artistic flair. In the case of websites, freedom of action is mainly enjoyed by those familiar with design languages. Even WordPress, known for its user-friendliness, requires "looking into the code" or compromises in some situations. Unfortunately, more advanced visual elements like animations or custom text formatting will be beyond the reach of a wizard user. In the case of WordPress, we often get such features from the title of the site template, and even if we don't, we can optionally look for a plugin that will give us such options.
Site infrastructure
However, a website must "hang somewhere" - for this there is a server that stores the site files and takes care of "serving" our site visitors. In the case of page builders, server space is allocated to us "in a package" with the use of wizard services. A huge plus of such a solution is the unification of payments - paying for the site we also pay for its domain and space on the server, unfortunately this is reflected in the fact that we do not have any influence on the parameters of the server - of course, the provider will make every effort to make our site work as efficiently as possible, but in the case of any technical problems we are dependent on the technical department without any possibility of our own intervention. In the case of our own site, we decide ourselves what server the files are stored on and we have access to it, which in certain cases may mean that we will solve the problem ourselves. In a situation where it will be a problem on the server side, we can expect an immediate response and up-to-date information on the progress of the work.
More features - hidden costs?
Most wizards have a modular business model - based on a subscription calculated on the basis of the functionalities operating within the site. I encountered a case in which a client with a site on a popular wizard had to simultaneously pay a subscription for the site and the store, which was an integral part of the site - the store, although integrated with the client's site (although I admit contractually), was de facto a separate tool, the cost of which also depended, for example, on the payment methods or providers added to it. WordPress is much clearer in this regard - the software itself is free, as is the launch of the store on the site. The user de facto pays for what he chooses - hosting services (server) and a website template (there are free templates available in circulation, usually containing only the bare minimum of functions, but also very complex ones prepared for a specific industry, oscillating around 400 PLN). Due to the gigantic repository, it's hard to come up with a functionality that WordPress can't handle, or someone didn't code beforehand, in most cases plugins are free, specialized ones come down to a one-time license fee).
Convenience of creation and operation
In the case of both Wizards and WordPress, a whole staff of specialists works on the development and user experience, although the approach of the two "camps" to this issue is somewhat different. Page builders often follow the pattern of graphic applications, offering a principle of operation very close to environments such as Photoshop. This is very convenient for a user completely new to the web environment, but can be incredibly cumbersome for designers - every option must be set manually, recurring elements on the page must be styled separately, and because of the need to add more complex features by hand, additional effects can be a pain in the neck. What outclasses WordPress, however, is the time it takes to create a site from scratch - from starting the registration process, choosing a template and changing the text layer to "mine" I created a site via wix in 15 minutes. Using WordPress, I would first have to choose a hosting and server, pay for it, download WordPress, create an FTP account and database for it, install WordPress, the template I wanted and only change the text layer of the site. Assuming optimistically that none of these operations would require outside help, even for an advanced WordPress user this could amount to about an hour of work.
Additional issues - promotion, positioning, increasing reach
As mentioned earlier, website builders often prioritize the issue of site promotion over the ability to easily manage its content, nevertheless, you have to give them credit for the fact that the most basic tools like site traffic analysis, audience targeting prompts or even google ads campaign support are almost standard. Thanks to the rich descriptions of the functions on such platforms, a user with basic knowledge and savvy can set up a simple marketing campaign or analyze the basic parameters of the site himself. The words basic and simple are key here - much greater possibilities are offered by WordPress or, looking more broadly, a site created not through a wizard. Greater capabilities, of course, means a lot more work and time required to learn on your own the meanderings of creating good campaigns or advanced SEO, or, if you prefer, the additional cost of running a campaign by professionals. A separate issue is also the quality of the code - it is an open secret that page builders, in order to reflect the vision of the site as closely as possible to the pixel, are ready to create gigantic blocks of code. As a result, a user designing a relatively simple site may receive gigantic files of site code that cannot be optimized in any way. The situation is similar with graphics - as a test, I put a graphic with a resolution of 7000 x 5500px on a test page and the tool did not pay attention to this procedure in any way. With several such images, the site could run extremely slow, and the user would be stuck with the problem without knowing what was going on. WordPress itself takes basic care of the quality of the code, additionally offering a number of tools to optimize and minimize it, as it does with graphics.
What do I recommend?
Depending on your needs, preferences and budget. Page generators are definitely a good option for users unfamiliar with website design and all the accompanying nomenclature - wizards are easy to use and do not require a lot of work to fully configure while offering very basic methods of promotion. However, you should keep in mind the aforementioned subscription fee, which, when compared with the unit cost of creating a site by a creative agency, may seem extremely attractive, but after calculating the cost of maintaining the site for a longer period of time, it may priceily outweigh the one-time fee for the site.
In almost every other case, I recommend WordPress - the software itself is free, as are most of the plugins that extend functionality. The cost of the site is really the purchase or creation of a suitable template and "labor". The exception is external integrations like a courier contract, which require us to have individual contracts with external parties. WordPress, due to its flexibility, fits perfectly the needs of individuals, small businesses and enterprises, offering websites in the range of PLN 1,000 and up, depending on the scope of functionality.
