Wix vs WordPress.com

One of these gets you online faster. The other lets you leave. That is the entire comparison, and which side wins depends on how long you expect the site to matter.

What you are actually buying

Wix is a closed product, and closed is not an insult here — it is why it works. Everything is designed to fit together, nothing has to be installed or updated, and answering a few questions produces a complete site with a domain attached and support on the phone at any hour. A reader with no experience gets further alone here than almost anywhere else.

WordPress.com is the managed form of software that a very large share of the web already runs. Themes, plugins and settings are more to learn, and the fastest route to a good-looking site still runs through choosing a theme well. In exchange, the content is genuinely portable: an export produces a file another WordPress installation reads directly, so leaving means moving rather than retyping.

Price runs the other way from what people expect. WordPress.com's entry plan is cheaper per month than Wix's, though its lowest advertised rate assumes billing every three years, and both include a domain for the first year.

What this really turns on

Ask how long the site has to last. A site supporting a business you intend to run for a decade is an asset, and an asset you cannot move is worth less than one you can. A site for a venture you are testing this year is not an asset, and portability is a cost you are paying for nothing.

Also ask honestly who will maintain it. WordPress rewards someone willing to learn its vocabulary and punishes someone who will not open it again for two years.

Which should you choose?

Choose Wix if you want to be online this week, you have nobody to ask for help, and the idea of a plugin screen fills you with dread. The lock-in is real and, for many small businesses, an acceptable trade for a site that exists and works.

Choose WordPress.com if the website is infrastructure for something you plan to keep — especially if it will accumulate writing, or if someone else may take it over later. The extra concepts cost you a weekend and buy you the right to leave.