Wix Overview: A Comprehensive Look at the Website Builder
Wix has established itself as a leading player in the website building industry, offering a wide range of site templates and a user-friendly site editor. The platform also provides excellent server performance, including an above-average uptime guarantee of 99.99%, along with robust security features that protect both your site and your account. These features have earned Wix recognition as a top website builder.
Founded in 2006, Wix is a major name in the code-free website creation industry. But how does it perform when tested? I created a website to evaluate its ease of use, server performance, customer service, and value. Wix impressed me with its beginner-friendly tools, great server performance, and solid customer service. However, the high cost and limited storage of the lowest-tier plan may not make it the best choice for those on a tight budget.
Wix Plans and Pricing: An In-Depth Breakdown
Wix uses cloud hosting, storing site data across multiple interconnected servers instead of a single physical web server. This approach offers several advantages over traditional hosting types like shared hosting:
- Redundancy: If one server goes down, visitors can still access your site through another server, ensuring near-continuous uptime. Wix guarantees 99.99% uptime.
- Scalability: Cloud hosting grows with your site by pulling resources from more servers as needed. This means you won’t need to switch to more complex hosting like VPS hosting as your site expands. Wix also offers unlimited bandwidth on all paid plans.
- Better International Site Speed: Cloud hosting networks use servers in various geographic locations, allowing users to retrieve data from the closest server, which often results in faster site speed.
All Wix plans are fully managed, meaning Wix handles all server maintenance, including updates to the website builder. Additionally, Wix provides a full set of security tools, such as SSL certification, DDoS protection, and a custom firewall. Every plan includes a free domain for the first year.
Here’s a detailed breakdown of the four Wix plans:
For e-commerce businesses, it’s worth noting that Wix charges a transaction fee of 2.9% plus 0.30 USD on all transactions from US-based credit cards. These fees come directly out of your customers’ purchases, so you’ll want to adjust your prices accordingly. There is no Wix plan without these transaction fees.
Wix also offers a free plan, which has strict limitations. For more information, you can explore our list of the best free website builders.
Wix Templates: Something for Everyone
Wix offers over 900 site templates across categories like fashion, health, and electronics. There are also specialized templates for blogs, e-commerce stores, and professional portfolios. Most of these templates are visually appealing, with a good balance of images, text, and interactive elements like buttons. While there are a few less impressive options, the variety ensures you’ll find something you like.
The key is to choose a template you’ll enjoy working with long-term, as switching templates later on is a cumbersome process. If you decide to change your template, you’ll need to create a new site with the desired template and manually transfer data from your old site. This can be avoided by selecting an evergreen template and utilizing Wix’s customization tools effectively.
Wix AI Site Generator: A Mixed Experience
The Wix AI site generator has two phases. First, you tell a bot about your website’s title and purpose. Based on this, the bot personalizes your site dashboard with a custom to-do list tailored to the functionality you need. Next, click on “Design your site” and select “Build with AI.” Wix will then generate a website with images and custom text. While the process is quick, the result was underwhelming—an ugly site with an irrelevant and poorly placed header image.
The blog images and sample text were relevant to my proposed marketing business, but the overall design wasn’t as attractive as many of the premade templates. Regenerating the site produced similar results. Compared to the elegant website I built with the Squarespace AI generator, the Wix AI generator fell short. I recommend using one of Wix’s many elegant templates instead of the AI generator to avoid potential moral and legal issues associated with generative AI.
Wix Ease of Use: A Strong Point
I tested Wix for ease of use in three areas: the purchase process, account/site management, and website creation.
Purchase Process:
Creating an account and setting up your site dashboard is required before purchasing a plan. Unlike Squarespace, Wix allows you to skip most steps to reach your dashboard quickly. The “Upgrade now” button is visible but could be more prominent.
Account and Site Management:
Logging into Wix takes you to the site dashboard, where you can see a customized website creation to-do list. Everything is clearly labeled and easy to navigate. You can access account and billing settings by clicking on the person icon in the top right corner.
Website Creation:
The guided site creation process makes it easy to choose a template, select components to auto-install (like a blog), and start editing your site. My only complaint is that Wix doesn’t explicitly state you’ll be stuck with your theme forever. The site editor itself is remarkably simple, with labels to help understand menu icons. You can drag and drop elements or replace placeholder content with your own.
Wix Performance: Strong Server Performance
I built a test site with Wix and evaluated its server performance over a week, focusing on uptime and site speed.
Uptime:
Wix offers a 99.99% uptime guarantee, meaning your site should experience no more than two minutes of downtime per week. During my testing, my site experienced no downtime, suggesting Wix might exceed its promise.
Site Speed:
I used WebPageTest to measure my site’s speed over five days, running tests for both desktop and mobile devices in various countries. My results showed:
- Average mobile site speed: 3.06 seconds
- Average desktop site speed: 1.70 seconds
- Overall average site speed: 2.38 seconds
These results put Wix ahead of Squarespace but behind Shopify, mainly due to its mediocre mobile speed. However, Wix makes it easy to improve mobile site speed by optimizing your layout with the mobile site editor.
Wix Security: Comprehensive Protocols
Wix employs a variety of security protocols and tools to keep your data safe:
- SSL Certification: Encrypts data sent to and from your website.
- Firewall Protection: Keeps out malicious traffic while allowing regular web traffic.
- DDoS Protection: Prevents your site from being flooded with malicious traffic.
- Two-Factor Authentication: Adds an extra layer of security for your account.
- 24/7 Security Monitoring: Employees at the Wix Security Operations Center monitor traffic and eliminate threats.
These measures are comparable to those offered by other popular website builders like Squarespace and Shopify, earning Wix a 10/10 security ranking.
Wix Customer Support: Slightly Above Average
Wix offers customer support through live chat, a knowledge base, and a callback service. The knowledge base is comprehensive and easy to navigate, though video tutorials are limited. Live chat initially directs users to an AI chat, but you can request to speak to a person if needed. While the initial responses were helpful, the process of connecting to a human representative was frustrating. Phone support is fast and helpful once you get through to a representative.
Wix Value: A Mixed Bag
Wix provides average pricing, with the most affordable plan costing only $1 more per month than Squarespace and significantly less than Shopify. However, it doesn’t offer e-commerce features on its most affordable plan, requiring you to purchase the Core plan for basic e-commerce functionality. Wix also provides low storage space compared to competitors like Squarespace and Shopify.
Wix vs. Traditional Web Hosts
Traditional web hosting companies like Hostinger offer website builders at lower costs, with more storage and better long-term savings. For example, Hostinger’s website builder starts at $3 a month, offering more storage and email hosting than Wix.
Final Verdict: Is Wix Right for You?
After testing, Wix ranks highly in ease of use (9/10) and security (10/10), but lower in value (6/10). It’s a strong option for those who prioritize ease of use and security, but may not be the best choice for those on a tight budget or needing e-commerce features. For a more affordable alternative with similar performance, consider Hostinger’s website builder.