Wix vs Weebly | Which One Should You Use to Build Your Website?

Both Wix and Weebly are drag and drop website builders. This makes them super easy to use because you can just drag items around your page until you’re happy with how it looks. Not all drag and drop builders are created equal, though.

Wix is a pure drag and drop builder, meaning you can put anything anywhere on your web page. Weebly has more structure in its templates. This gives more consistency and makes it possible to switch templates, making your life easier if you change your mind later on. However, that does mean that Weebly is slightly more restrictive when it comes to your site’s visuals.

Why do users prefer Wix?

Overall, Wix’s drag and drop editor is easier to use than Weebly’s. It’s extremely simple to personalize your template, giving total beginners total flexibility.

“It [Wix] was all really good,” said one user during our testing. “The simplicity of it all, you literally drag and drop things off the menu into the webpage editor, and then moving them about and resizing them is pretty easy.”

“Probably the best part about Wix was that sheer speed of the process to set up a website,” said another.

If you want to see for yourself just how easy and quick Wix is to use, watch the video below:

However, Wix gives you so much choice that some of our users found it overwhelming to begin with. But they enjoyed the creative freedom and found it easy to navigate. The pure drag-and-drop design means you can edit your page easily in just a few clicks.

In contrast, Weebly’s more structured design makes editing a more rigid experience. 

“It’s like a more limited version of Wix,” said one user after building sites with both platforms. “It’s easier to use initially but I think it also hits a bit of a glass ceiling where Wix doesn’t.”

This might suit some people but most of our users found Weebly more difficult. It’s still aimed at beginners with no coding knowledge, it’s just much less intuitive.

“It’s quite good but there are better options,” said one user. “I prefer Wix and its flexibility.” 

“Moving text boxes isn’t very fluid, it’s too restrictive,” said another. 

So while Weebly is user friendly, it can’t compete with Wix in terms of flexibility or overall ease of use. People found features hard to locate or got frustrated trying to customize text boxes and images. It will depend on personal preference whether you’ll enjoy or feel restricted by the structure of Weebly’s templates.

Wix ADI

Both Wix and Weebly are easy to use, beginner friendly builders. But what if you don’t want to spend time customizing, dragging, dropping and designing your site?

If you’d rather have the design in someone else’s hands or just want your website up fast, choose Wix ADI. The ADI stands for Artificial Design Intelligence.

All you do is enter some information like the name of your website and what it’s for, and choose a design you like the look of. It’s okay if you don’t know all this information yet as you can fill that in later on. Wix ADI then uses what you’ve told it to create a site for you!

Of course, you can still change the design and layout if you want to. You can even move your website into Wix Editor if you decide you want to be more hands on. But you don’t need to. It’s all personalized and pretty much ready to go live.

Wix ADI gives you creative control and choice without the pressure of designing the page layout yourself. It’s quick, effortless, and looks great.

Verdict: Wix wins ease of use hands down. Weebly’s more restrictive templates take longer to get used to. Your choice depends on personal preference and – more importantly – confidence! But if you’re looking to get online easily and quickly, Wix is your top choice.

When it comes to Wix vs Weebly, most people want to know about price. Both Wix and Weebly offer a free plan, which you can stay on for as long as you like.

Wix has seven paid plans in total, ranging from $13 – $39 a month. Weebly has four paid plans ranging from $5 – $25 a month (billed annually). These plans cover basic features right up to advanced ecommerce functions.

You might be wondering why you should even look at what paid plans are on offer if both Wix and Weebly have free plans.

The great thing about free plans is you can try the builder out and actually get started on creating your website without the pressure of paying – well, anything! There’s also no pressure to upgrade as there’s no time limit on the free plan: you can stay on it a long as you want.

But we wouldn’t recommend staying on a free plan long term. For one, there will be features you can’t unlock unless you upgrade. Wix has more features available on its free plan than Weebly does. But there are still things you won’t be able to do, like accept payments online. These restrictions make it really hard to grow your website.

The other main drawback of a free plan is you will have adverts on your website. Whether it’s a Wix banner or a Weebly pop-up, adverts look unprofessional and ruin your carefully built website. Plus, you can’t connect a custom domain. So instead of a personalized website address like www.my-amazing-website.com it will have the builders name in, like: www.my-wix-website/wixsite.com.

These are just things to be aware of before you choose Wix or Weebly. It’s always worth looking at the paid plans first. So when you do decide to upgrade you’re not stuck with expensive premiums. Luckily, neither Wix or Weebly are pricey – read on to see how they compare.

Is it worth paying for a Wix premium plan?

Wix’s premium plans offer you seven different packages. The higher the plan, the more features and support you receive:

The listed prices in the image above are based on annual plans. If you choose to pay on a month-to-month basis, the prices per month are higher.

Wix has three Business plans ranging from $20 – $35 a month: Business Basic, Business Unlimited, and Business Pro. All of these plans have ecommerce features so you can accept online payments and run an online store. There are four website plans ranging from $11 – $29 a month: Combo, Unlimited, Pro, and VIP.

If you sign up for a one-year or two-year plan, you can save from 25% to 43% per year, depending on which package you select:

*This price reflects the Business Basic plan which is the cheapest of the three ecommerce premium plans.

So what do you actually get for your money? The best value plan is the $22 a month Pro plan. It’s designed for small businesses who need help with their branding, providing a free, professionally designed logo, and advanced marketing tools.

If you want to sell through your website, start out on the Business Basic plan at $23 a month. This allows you to accept online payments, gives you unlimited bandwidth and 20GB storage, removes Wix adverts, and includes apps like Google Analytics and Site Booster to help your site succeed, and more.

You can read more about Wix’s value for money and how to choose the best plan for you in our Wix Pricing Review.

Why is Weebly cheaper than Wix?

With Weebly, you’ve got four premium plans starting from $5 per month for their Connect Plan to $38 per month for their Business Plus Plan (paid annually).

The price range drops quite significantly to $5 per month – $38 per month, if you subscribe to a two-year plan (click here for detailed analysis of Weebly pricing plans).

Here is a table that will show you Weebly’s pricing range depending on whether you sign up to their six-months, one-year or two-year plans:

Like Wix, Weebly covers simple website building all the way through to ecommerce. So whether you’re starting a portfolio or setting up an online store, they’ve got something for you.

The cheapest plan to sell through is the $18 a month Pro Plan. You can sell up to 25 products on this plan. This also removes Weebly adverts from your website, gives you unlimited storage, and lets you connect a custom domain.

If you want video backgrounds, password protection, or HD video and audio, you’ll again need the Pro Plan is your cheapest option at $12 a month (billed annually). It’s also the cheapest plan to unlock phone support.

Verdict:  It’s a close call! Wix’s free plan includes more features than Weebly’s, but Wix’s premium plan are more expensive. Overall, Weebly wins this one.

You want your website to look good. But a winning template goes far beyond just how your website appears on the page. Does it work on mobile devices? Can you switch your template after you’ve published your website? How many are there to choose from? And how much can you customize them to really make them your own?

Why does Wix have ten times as many templates as Weebly?

Wix has over 500 professionally designed templates for you to choose from. You can search for your industry, from blogs to online stores. There are even blank templates where you can start from scratch, so there really is something for everyone.

All Wix’s templates are fully mobile responsive. This is really important and means you don’t need to worry about missing out on visits from all those mobile users!

Weebly also has high quality templates. It has a smaller range than Wix, with just over 50 designs. Each stylish template is fully mobile responsive and professionally-designed, although perhaps less sleek than Wix’s themes.

Like Wix, Weebly has industry specific themes from event websites to business and portfolio pages. Unfortunately you can’t search for your chosen industry. But with a smaller range of templates to browse through this is a minor frustration.

Choose carefully – Did you know you can’t change templates with Wix?

Choosing the right template for your website is an important decision. And it can be hard, especially when you’re spoilt for choice!

Both Wix and Weebly allow you to preview your template first. But, only Weebly allows you to change your template after you’ve published your website. With Wix, if you change your template once your website is live, you will have to start again from scratch. This is the major drawback to Wix, and is worth thinking about when making your choice.

Which gives you more customization freedom?

One of the most important things about choosing a website builder is how customizable and high quality its themes are. Choosing a template you can’t edit would be like buying a canvas and being unable to paint on it!

Both Wix and Weebly have high quality designs. But how much can you really make them your own? The answer is, lots! We’ve already mentioned how flexible Wix’s templates are. The pure drag and drop design means you can change whatever you want, wherever you want.

Weebly’s templates, on the other hand, create a more structured editing experience. For some, this is a relief! Others find it limiting, but either way you can still create a website that’s totally personalized and unique to you.

If you really want to break the mould, you can even adjust your template’s code. With Weebly, you can get full access to your site’s backend code via the Weebly Code Editor — this is great for adding custom features, fine-tuning the visuals, or fixing formatting anomalies.

This is 100% optional: if you can’t code, you can still use Weebly! But if you do have coding knowledge, you can put it to good use to expand your website.

You can’t code with Wix like you can with Weebly. To get under the hood of a Wix site, you have to enable Wix Corvid, which allows you to create custom content and functions across your website. This can be building databases, or making your website more interactive.

With more guidance and step by step video tutorials, Wix Corvid is more beginner friendly than Weebly’s actual coding. But, it is not the same as embedding HTML code directly into your web page as you do with Weebly’s editor.

Verdict: Weebly wins design flexibility. Weebly wins for its option to switch templates once your website is live. Wix is more customizable, and has a wider range of templates. But not being able to change your Wix template makes Weebly the winner.

It’s all very well having a website that looks stunning. But it can’t just look good. It needs to work hard for you.

Both Wix and Weebly have loads of built-in features and, as a result, they score equally well in this area. What’s more, both the builders regularly improve and update their features — Wix pushes out updates almost every month so you can be sure you’re getting the latest version.

Customization Tools

As well as the standard editing tools that come with the drag and drop design, Weebly has a range of customization tools, including:

• Video backgrounds
• Custom headers
• Full width image and color backgrounds
• Create surveys, contact forms, RSVP lists, and more

So you can use these features to make your site as unique as you like! These tools come in useful no matter the purpose of your website. They’re designed to make your site stand out and engage visitors.

Wix also has video backgrounds and intuitive customization tools. Other features include:

• Unlimited fonts
• Scroll effects
• Media galleries for images, videos and text
• Add maps, testimonials, contact forms, and more

These tools should draw attention to your content and add to your user’s experience. Wix’s website builder tools are more advanced than Weebly’s.

Both Wix and Weebly have up to date and advanced editing tools to make building, editing and updating your website as enjoyable as possible.

Weebly has more of an ecommerce focus than Wix, but both builders have tools and features to support online stores. Weebly’s recent updates have all been strengthening this ecommerce capability. Some of these features and updates include:

• Order online, pickup in store
• Track coupon stats and performance
• Fully integrated shopping cart
• Secure checkout
• Track and manage your inventory
• Sell physical and digital products and services

These features not only make your life as a business owner easier, they also make shopping on your website easier and more enjoyable for your customers — making it more likely that they’ll buy something from your site.

A good customer experience also means that they’re more likely to recommend your site to friends, and even return themselves. Weebly also has a range of third-party ecommerce apps, in case the feature you’re after isn’t baked-in to the platform.

While Wix does have an ecommerce function, it involves more third-party apps than Weebly to get it off the ground. 

That’s not to say that you can’t build an online store with Wix — it’ll just involve a bit more effort to get a really good one. Still, here are some of the ecommerce features that come built-in to your Wix site:

• High quality product galleries
• Secure checkout
• Global tax and shipping
• Coupons and discounts
• Multiple payment options: 0% transaction fee
• Manage orders and track your inventory

As you can see, Wix provides all the basic features to support a successful online store. But for a more sophisticated or powerful ecommerce website, you will need to make use of in-built and/or third party apps.

Verdict: Weebly wins ecommerce. Wix might be fine for some, but Weebly’s recent improvements in the ecommerce field make it the clear winner. You’ll get a better online store, and find making it a helluva lot easier too.

Building a great-looking site is one thing, but getting people to actually use it is quite another. Fortunately, Wix and Weebly both have powerful built-in marketing tools which can help you create email campaigns and build up customer loyalty.

Weebly Promote allows you to build and integrate email campaigns directly with your website. This means that you can build email lists, create custom emails with drag and drop, track your email stats, and more. Sending out good emails to your users can be a great way to attract repeat business.

Wix Shoutout, on the other hand, lets you easily send out emails or even share via social media. Shoutout’s email campaigns come with customizable, professional templates and also allow you to track engagement metrics and integrate contact forms. All told, Wix Shoutout makes email marketing smart and stress-free.

Verdict: Almost too close to call, but Wix might just shade it. The extra social media functions give it a slight edge over Weebly but, again, we don’t think this is a deal-breaking issue.

When you’re looking at what features each builder has to offer, it’s a good idea to look at apps too. Apps can fill gaps the in-built features don’t cover and give more power to your website.

Weebly has an impressive range of apps. The Weebly App Center has over 300 apps for you to choose from. Of those, over 50 of them are free! New apps are being added all the time, and you can even submit your own ideas for new apps.

Luckily, Weebly isn’t boasting quantity over quality. You can read user reviews and see star ratings for each app while you browse. You can search via category or type in what you’re looking for. Whether you want to add a Facebook Like button, or an FAQ section, Weebly’s App Center has got you covered.

Wix also has a large choice of apps. The Wix App Market has over 200 apps, ranging from ecommerce like Wix Stores to adding social features like Facebook Comments. The Wix apps are all well-developed and have a high functionality to add to your website.

For example, the Wix Bookings app allows you to take bookings online, sync your calendars, send reminder emails, offer group sessions, set up a Member Login area, and more. A lot of the apps are free, and most of them have both free and paid versions, which expands your choice. Like Weebly, you can search and browse the Wix App Market to find what you’re looking for, and view ratings and reviews for each app.

Verdict: It’s a draw! Weebly has a wider range of apps to choose from, but both builders offer an impressive number of high quality apps. Regular updates and a mix of free and premium apps means whichever you choose is a winner here.

Once you’ve got your website customized and decked out with all the features, apps, and extras you could want, you need people to see it! That’s where SEO comes in. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization and is what helps your website rank in search engines.

Without SEO, you won’t make it to the top of the Google results page. So it’s super important for helping your website succeed. SEO might seem a bit of a mystery, but that’s okay. Your website builder will help you boost your website up through those rankings.

Both Wix and Weebly have all the standard in-built SEO features like meta titles and alt tags.  Weebly has great SEO prompts and is one of the best for supporting you where it can. It has an Ultimate SEO Guide which walks you through SEO step by step.

This guide covers all the basics you need to get started, including an SEO checklist to follow while you set up your website. It then walks you through keyword research, into more advanced actions to grow your website. Finally, you can learn about tracking to measure and apply successful techniques.

You can find articles on SEO in the Weebly Blog, with helpful links to other articles and guides. You have a great choice of apps and plugins too, like Traffic Booster, and more.

Wix also has very strong SEO guidance to help you maximize your website’s online presence. The main resource is an app called Wix SEO Wiz. First, you can search for what you want to learn about and browse through the different categories to find helpful guides, tips, and articles.

Then activate SEO Wiz. This creates a step by step plan for you to follow and boost your place in search results. You enter the name of your site, whether you’re a physical or purely online brand, and enter five keywords. You’re then given a personalized SEO plan.

Like Weebly, Wix also has extensive articles and SEO guides in its help and support and blog. Plus it automatically has in-built tools like meta tags and optimized headings to give your site a head start. If you want to build on this, there are other apps like Site Booster, as well as Google Analytics, and Google Search Console which will help boost your website.

Verdict: It’s a draw! When choosing between Wix or Weebly, you don’t need to worry about SEO. Both are working hard to get your website noticed. Wix boast they have the best SEO, but Weebly has great help resources and apps too.

We’ve all been there. One slip of the finger and you’ve deleted half your website, or turned everything a terrible shade of green. But if you’ve got a backup of your site saved, you can restore it and breathe a massive sigh of relief. If not, will you have to spend hours on the phone to help and support trying to get your website back to its former glory?

Wix allows you to save unlimited versions of your website. This means you can restore your entire website anytime you want (or need) to! They get full marks for this, as you could restore your website weeks after you made a mistake. Just remember to save copies of your website when you’ve updated it and are happy with your changes!

Weebly is a little more restrictive. You can undo changes straight away, but if you close the editor or hit publish, it’s bad news – that green color is there to stay. You can’t undo changes once you’ve exited the editor or published/updated your website. You’ll have to go back and manually correct them.

If the worst happens and you accidentally delete your website or any of your pages, it’s not the end of the world. You just have to email Weebly and then wait for them to restore the lost pages for you.

While this is a solution, it’s not as instant as Wix’s ability to immediately restore your site. If you’re running your business online or rely on your website for your income, this waiting around on Weebly could have a big impact.

Verdict: Wix wins for backup and restore options. Its immediate solution beats Weebly’s slower and potentially more stressful option. Quickly restoring your website to its former glory in just a couple of clicks beats waiting for someone else to do it for you.

Being able or not able to export your website from either Wix or Weebly can potentially be an important consideration for you.

Weebly actually allows you to export your website and import it into a different host if you want.  This is really a nice feature as if you decide to leave Weebly for whatever reason, or if Weebly one day shuts down, you can always move your website away from Weebly and have it hosted somewhere else.

Wix does not have an export function.  Even though we can understand that there are a lot of Wix features that only functions within their hosting environment, it’s always best to have a solid backup plan, as you can never tell what the future brings.

If you spend the time to build out and improve a website, you want to have the option to take the website with you. With Wix, it’s hard not to feel like a hostage to that platform.

Verdict: Weebly wins! Weebly allows you to export your site by downloading to a zip file. So you can move your website to another host if you want to. You don’t have this option with Wix, meaning you can’t move away from this platform.

As you can see in the full review of Wix, the help feature and community support for Wix is one of the best parts of this website builder.

For each Wix element that you use to build your website, they have a separate “question mark” there so when you click on it, it will show you specific help instructions that are directly related to the element you are using.

It’s nice how you don’t have to spend time and dig into their support center to find related help (but it’s there if you need it). Wix is the only website builder to offer this kind of on-page help while you’re editing your website.

Weebly, on the other hand, does not have this feature.  You will have to go to its support center, type in what you need help on, and search there.

Once again, on the surface, it looks like Wix’s help functions are much more helpful.

While this appears to be true, the reason why Wix’s help functions are so much more comprehensive is that their product is more complex.  As mentioned above, Wix gives you the option to make all sorts of personalization to its elements. So with more bells and whistles, naturally they need more support.

Wix offers you phone and email support across all their plans from Monday to Thursday 5am-5pm, whereas Weebly offers phone support only for the Pro, Business and Performance plans. But, you can choose from email and live chat support, or phone them Monday to Friday 6am to 6pm, and at weekends from 8am to 5pm.

Wix has a really helpful and in-depth knowledge base. There’s a search bar which you can use to find specific queries, or browse through categories like ‘Getting Started’, ‘Domains’, and more. These all link to numerous help articles, guides, and tips. You can also use the Wix Blog, or Wix’s social media for more help and support resources.

Compared to Wix, Weebly’s help center is slightly less developed but still very helpful. It’s laid out in a similar style with a search bar and browsing categories.

As well as its phone, email, live chat support, and help center, Weebly also has a forum and social support, so there’s something for everyone.

If you subscribe to Wix’s VIP plan, they have a separate, dedicated VIP priority phone support team where you have access to one-on-one personal support from their team (more on the pricing of the VIP plan below).

Verdict: Wix wins help and support. While Weebly covers more bases with its live chat option, phone support is only on highly paid plans. Wix’s knowledge base is more detailed and its on-page support is invaluable, especially for beginners.