Website builders vs. WordPress

Website Builders vs. WordPress: The key differences

When comparing website builders vs. WordPress, you can spot numerous differences.

While this might not seem necessary since you’ll have a website at the end of the day, what you choose could either have a positive or adverse effect on your business long term.

To help you learn what each entails and choose the best option, let’s go over and compare the advantages and disadvantages of website builders and WordPress.

1. Ease of use

With its drag and drop interface, a website builder provides a more straightforward approach to site-building. It’s a simple solution for novices and those who don’t know how to handle technical processes.

Beginners may find it overwhelming to use WordPress vs. website builders at first since it has a steep learning curve. However, after some tutorials and practice you’ll learn how to launch a WordPress website in no time. There are many resources on how to create a WordPress site for beginners that can walk you through the steps. And, the WordPress community is very active and helpful for beginners.

You need basic to advanced programming knowledge to use WordPress depending on the kind of website you want. Or, you can always get the added help of a developer.

But, WordPress can still be simple. How?

By installing a drag-and-drop website builder tool like StoreBuilder, an excellent tool for building an ecommerce website. It makes getting started with your website really simple. And if you decide you want more assistance, developers can help you too.

2. Cost

Several site builders are great low-cost solutions from the get-go. However, they may limit your website bandwidth, support, and some other essential features. More importantly, your website package pricing may start to rise as your business expands.

Since WordPress is free, you can choose your preferred web hosting provider. You’re free to consider your business needs before selecting a web host package — which has more price stability — for your WordPress website.

3. Website control

You don’t have absolute control over your website with website builders because they give you limited accessibility. For instance, you can’t access your website’s database or website code since you didn’t set it up.

However, self-hosted WordPress gives complete access to your website’s code and database. You have the permissions to adjust any WordPress site element till it looks the way you want.

4. Content rights

Website builders usually get to retain the rights to your content. After all, your content would live on the site builder’s hosting server, which you can’t access. Website builders own content rights not just the moment you build your site — it’s forever. This is a huge disadvantage for users of website builders.

In contrast, you fully own the content you publish on self-hosted WordPress.

5. Search Engine Optimization

Search engine optimization (SEO) is a downside of website builders compared to WordPress. While a website builder empowers you to quickly create an attractive website for your business, its SEO tools are only relevant for beginners.

A website builder’s SEO capacity is not as adequate as WordPress-supported SEO plugins. The code for most site builder-developed websites is not usually structured for enhanced SEO ranking.

WordPress gives you efficient ranking optimization, Google Analytics integration, and other advanced features and SEO plugin options — like Yoast SEO, so your website can rank better on search engines and drive more traffic.

6. Overall flexibility

While you can create stunning websites with WordPress and website builders, WordPress gives you more flexibility and customization options.

Website builders contain several easy-to-adjust templates. However, there’s a limit to customization for other areas. You may be limited to using the add-ons provided by your website builder.

On the other hand, WordPress offers advanced CSS and HTML code customization, plugin installations, several integration options, and functionality. You can customize a WordPress theme or build your landing pages from scratch, and even customize your WordPress dashboard to your liking. That is in addition to the thousands of WP themes — both free and premium.