Alex Williams
Alex Williams  —

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wix vs weebly comparisonWix and Weebly are very similar. Both drag-and-drop. Big marketing budgets. And trusted by many. Both are among the most popular website builders in the world. Yet, a closer look at the SEO for the two shows a stark difference in demand: according to this keyword planner result, Wix is six times more searched for on Google.

Wix’s Steady Rise in Popularity 🌄

The major website development players (WordPress, Joomla and Blogger) dominate the CMS industry: around 60%, 10% and 7.5% respectively.

In this context, small percentage increases are impressive. In January 2018, Wix’s global market-share was 0.3%. One year later, this increased by more than double 1%. And the beginning of 2020 saw Wix with a further one-third increase.

This is partly due to striking Super Bowl campaigns and such.

Wix HomepageThey’re a fun company, in many ways the People’s favourite: liked by small, independent creators and those interested in dabbling in web development for the first time.

By Comparison, Weebly’s Decline 🌒

Weebly holds its own with ease of use, however doesn’t have the tailored content that photographers, artists and musicians seek Wix out for.

Bloggers are more drawn to Weebly, those not not too fussed about design. And it can be tried for free. This underdog company should not be overlooked. In Wix vs Weebly, the latter still offers.

Table of Contents:


Wix vs. Weebly: Which Is Better?

Smaller businesses and personal-blogger types should be happy with these two, pro-level website builders.

Neither Weebly nor Wix, compared to WordPress, are great for SEO. Overall - for Wix vs. Weebly pricing/value - both have average SEO, with little to no migration options. (In Weebly’s case, none … and a 60-days limit for Wix).

Wix Website Templates

Also, with Wix, you can’t use a third-party host. You’ll want to look ahead and decide if you want to tie your content and domain to either one. Past a certain point, only text & images will be viable for migration. This would essentially be cutting and pasting. Not really migration.

The whole point of website builders like these is simplicity - so we’ll focus on the perks. Sure, you can’t move the stuff you create over somewhere else easily. But you can get a site up and live in mere minutes.

Make a decision.


Wix vs. Weebly: Pricing

You also need to think about what’s on offer. Websites with long loading times, lose conversions. So, storage limits come into play. 

For price comparison Wix vs Weebly reasons, we’ll get into the nitty-gritty. But we’re talking pennies… Our Weebly vs Wix review squad was caught off guard in a key starting-feature. A price comparison of Wix vs Weebly was decided by a tertiary factor.

Weebly lets you use an external host, which Wix doesn’t. In other words, you can shore up any speed issues, by grabbing another provider company - using their server capabilities, and relying on Weebly solely as the CMS. 

Weebly unlocks the most awesome free website builder options out there, if you want to keep budgeting as a priority. For something quick - some one-off event, or so on - where you expect lots of visitors, or enough, you could also get a more powerful, paid plan, while budgeting. Rely on Weebly for the design. Simple. And powerful. 

Weebly - Available Plans

Just like Wix, Weebly offers lots of unique plans. This is a bit of information to chew on. But, you can sort them into two groupings, which we’ve done:

  • ✅ Websites
  • ✅ Online stores

Even for the first option, there are lots of features relating to eCommerce and marketing.

Another surprise. While competitor Squarespace makes you pay for every plan, you can choose the Free Plan on Weebly (scroll further to see Wix’s). The Free Plan has a surprising arsenal of features (keep in mind, there is no phone support):

  • ☑️ Lead-gen forms
  • ☑️ SEO tools

You get eCommerce features on all levels of business tiers. But, this is only available on the website groupings if you opt for higher tiers: either Business or Pro... We’ll take a closer look:

For Websites 🖥️

In each case, the next-up tier contains every feature from the one before, with expanded options:


Free 🆓
  • Live Chat Support or Email Ticketing/Community Support
  • All of the themes available in Weebly Database
  • Lead Gen Forms
  • Branded Weebly Domain Name
  • 500 MB Disk Space
  • Search Engine Optimization

Free!
Professional 💹
  • Eliminate Advertisements
  • Add Custom Domain
  • Phone Assistance
  • Unmetered Storage
  • Analytics & Shopping Cart
  • Search Function (Site-Wide)
  • External Payments
  • Free Google Advertising Credits

£4.80/month
Biz Level 👔
  • Review Items Tool
  • Calculating Shipment Tool
  • Coupon & Gifting Card Options
  • Automated Tax Calculations
  • Product Database Inventories
  • eCom Analytics
  • Shipping Discount Tools
  • Automated Labeling for Shipping 

£10/month

Online Shops 📲

Voice level, assume that the same feature is included as the one before it. We have only noted what has been added for that pricing level. 


Professional-Level 📊
  • Unmetered Storage
  • Analytics & Shopping Cart
  • Search Function (Site-Wide)
  • External Payments
  • Free Google Advertising Credits
  • Lead Gen Forms
  • 500 MB Disk Space
  • Free SSL

£4.80 a month
Biz-Level 💼
  • Review Items Tool
  • Calculating Shipment Tool
  • Coupon & Gifting Card Options
  • Automated Tax Calculations
  • Product Database Inventories
  • eCom Analytics
  • Item Badges
  • Automated Labeling for Shipping 

£10 a month
Biz + 🏦
  • Everything included in the previous three plans and more:
  • Free Credit for Email Marketing Purposes 
  • Calculate Shipments in Real-Time
  • Pop-Up Messages for Customers
  • Automated Email Cart Recovery Messaging

£15.40 a month

First Weebly Review Star Tip

On the professional-level plan, phone support and the shopping cart are on offer for the first time. Perhaps equally important is that you can get rid of the intrusive Weebly advertisements. Last but not least, upgrade from 500 MB disk space to an unlimited level.

With the pro-level plan, you also gained a custom domain name. We recommend this for businesses. Grab one from domain registrars online, or use Weebly. All plans offer a free SSL certificate.

Wix - Available Plans

When it comes to Wix, you might find their plans and pricing are not much different from Weebly. However, it seems Weebly offers more on a free plan.

Furthermore, Wix uses the same two-category setup as Weebly - and even uses the same namings: website or business & eCommerce. The first category has four tiers, while the second has three.

 Website  🖥️


Free Plan 🆓
  • Assigned URL
  • Wix ads on every page
  • Storage: Up to 500MB 
  • No eCommerce 
  • Customer Support

Free!
Combo 💼
  • 2GB Bandwidth
  • 3GB Storage
  • Remove Wix Ads
  • Free Domain for 1 Year
  • 30 Video Minutes

£4.40/month
Unlimited 💹
  • UNLIMITED Bandwidth
  • 10GB Storage
  • 1 Video Hour
  • Site Booster App
  • Visitor Analytics App

£6.60/month
VIP 🍸
  • 20GB Storage
  • 2 Video Hours
  • Professional Logo
  • Priority Response
  • VIP Support

£12.10/month

Business & eCommerce 📲


Business Basic 👔
  • UNLIMITED Bandwidth
  • 50GB Storage
  • 5 Video Hours
  • Google Analytics
  • Site Booster App - £60 Value
  • Visitor Analytics App - £60 Value

£8.70 a month
Business Unlimited 🏦
  • Everything you get with Business Basic Plan, and:
  • 35GB Storage
  • 10 Video Hours
  • Professional Logo - £50 Value
  • Social Media Logo files

£11.30 a month
Business VIP 🧧
  • Everything you get with Business Unlimited, and more:
  • 50GB Storage
  • Unlimited Video Hours
  • Priority Response
  • VIP Support

£13.30 a month

Wix Review Top Tip 🌟

Wix’s advertisements can be very annoying on the free plan.

It's a good idea to hop onto the first paid level, at least. Also, unless you are on an incredible budget, we don't particularly recommend its Free Plan in terms of performance. Those Free Plan issues are mostly due to the 500 MB limitation!


Wix vs. Weebly: SEO

Between the years 2013 and 2019, mobile traffic jumped 222 percent.

Google noticed that phone screens are more used - to browse - than desktop surfing. If your site is mobile ready, it will get a profound advantage in SEO. In  both cases, Wix and Weebly offer this.

Are They Powerful Enough SEO Solutions? 💪🏼

For most of us, yes.

In a perfect world, we would all have thousands to spend on SEO. We all know how crucial SEO is for getting attention online, as well as conversions. But, the finer margins probably don’t play a big role for businesses that are just starting to grow. You simply do not have the infrastructure to warrant that level of detail.

wix seo checklist

Both Wix and Weebly can get you to industry-standard levels. Then, it’s up to you to implement the best practices into every piece of content you publish. Slowly but surely, you will get organic traffic. (There is some debate about organic traffic compared to WP, but we won’t get into that here.)

Best practices… 👇

Header Java Coding 🔳

Neat code = awesome SEO, and fast websites… Weebly has a few issues here. It uses many JS for the header sections. Unfortunately, this does not help its SEO scores.

Techie?

Have a look into the “Inspect Elements” tab of a Wix page, and you’ll see  lots of scrambled source-codes that an AI machine would have a hard time reading for leisure..

Meta Tags/Descriptions 🗂️

Weebly and Wix, alike, allow users to insert both SEO elements into each page/post. Just use the built-in editor.

Weebly - again - has one or few issues. It tends to duplicate, if you type descriptions inro both the settings tab AND page editor.

Best to avoid that.

Advanced SEO

The Wix vs Weebly review team wants to remind you that WordPress - and perhaps Squarespace - have more advanced options. We’d recommend our two review subjects for smaller businesses, here. With a great WordPress host, there’s not much they can’t do.

Alternatives

Squarespace or WordPress could offer better solutions, here. If you want to press ahead for the number one - or number two - spot on a high-traffic Google search keyword, then take time making a decision.


Wix vs. Weebly: eCommerce

ExComms 📈

In terms of Wix vs Weebly online store / apps features, both can perform the sorts of functions you would expect for all quality lead generation systems - capturing visitor information, for sales-funneling purposes. There are a range of tools you can use to obtain valuable pieces of data for email marketing campaigns.

Wix Ecommerce Website

Find every type of Lead Gen form you need, to power your newsletter and campaigns.

For each contact form, there are an array of customisation tools that let you individuate the layout and colors.

One cool feature - that the review team likes - is the ability to let your visitors upload files of various types. This can be particularly useful for customer support purposes. You can also use this to run competitions and contests, where your visitors show off some talent.

Carts 🛒

No doubt, you’ve been sucked into Amazon's expert use of advanced shopping cart layouts. And you probably weren't aware of how much this influenced your purchases.

Weebly Ecommerce Website

Highly-strategic shopping carts encourage fast transactions. Weebly and Wix have powerful, integrative carts that are customizable - to sync up with your theme layout.

None of this requires you to “learn how to code.” Every level of your cart can be adjusted, offering advanced functionalities. A wide range of payment processors are compatible with your shopping cart - from PayPal to Square, to Stripe.

Note: Weebly does not offer cryptocurrency payments… Wix has a slight edge, here, as it offers Bitcoin payments (but only not other cryptos).


Wix vs. Weebly Review: Features

We’ve organized Weebly’s most standout features - according to the plan level. Look out for:

Weebly vs. Wix: Site Speed

Any proper Wix vs Weebly review should measure speed performance – we did  at exactly that. Even though you’ll need great uptime to secure your visitors, speed seals the deal, encouraging them to stay on the page.

Google’s research states: pages that increase from 1-second-loading to 5-second-loading, increase the bounce rate by over 90%. Faster is always better.

Overall, Wix is strong in speed. But Weebly lets you connect ANY host to it, providing limitless up-side.

Weebly vs. Wix: Adding Videos 🧩

Both let you use royalty-free Images & Videos. Create slideshows - set them to transition at different speeds. Use arrangements to advertise your products.

Video can also be integrated, even in backgrounds. In both cases, search for royalty-free images/videos on the Wix/Weebly database.

Of course, going for paid options lets you access higher-quality stuff that can snatch visitor attention.

Simple Arrangement Tools 

This is like using a paintbrush. Everything you need to design is in the website builder screen. What you see is what you get.  The user interface is drag-and-drop, and you can preview live. No need to keep clicking around, to do edits.

Hover over what you want to edit. An adjustable text box will pop up. No coding needed. Just make edits intuitively and freely. Even the background allows editing. Click on the background image and play with the options.

To add the media elements, like videos, text, images, & buttons, head to the left-hand Element's section.

weebly video homescreen

Have a look at this Weebly video homescreen.

You should quickly see how an entrepreneur or artist could get good mileage from easy video integrations… Case studies, testimonials, product videos.

Buyers like to see what and who they are buying from. This increases sales. Create instant connections with your audience. Let them look into your eyes - as you speak.

The Weebly vs Wix review team see this awesome feature as crucial for business-people who need to advertise themselves. Also, sell subscription products.

Weebly vs. Wix: Storage

For both Free Plans, you’re offered 500 MB - tops.

However… Wix falls behind. For £2.20 /month, Weebly unlocks its storage limits - giving you unlimited storage. 

With Wix, the 500 MB limit remains on the next plan up from free. Get the Connect Domain Plan and you’ll have the same 500MB Storage limit, for £2.20 /month!

Hop onto the Combo Plan and you’ll see it sextuple to 3GB Storage. There are other important benefits, like removing Wix ads. The next level up is 10 GB… It is worth noting that Weebly ads also remain until the third tier, at £4.80 /month.

You’re expected to deal with tight limitations, on both plans, at lower price tiers.

Wix vs. Weebly: For Designers

For artists, Wix has a broader range of successful applications. Hop over to the Design section of our Wix review, for examples. Here, we’ll show you one for Weebly, that we think is successful.

Weebly Example: Japhletba 🖼️

Weebly Japhletba Website

As you can see, this is an example of a pretty simple website - though it is not visible in this screenshot, there’s an animated introduction screen.

There are many unique little touches that make Weebly impressive. Add a store, to sell your products. You also have the option to embed videos on any page, including in backgrounds.

TOC Caveats for Weebly 📝

Weebly operates with tight terms & conditions, concerning what you can put online. These are surprisingly strict. For example, you cannot use nudity. We’re not sure if this includes artistic works. Of course, copyrighted content is also forbidden.

If you are suspected of things like “hate speech,” scamming, or spam SEO, your website will get taken down. This is something to keep in mind. You still own your content. You have all the rights to move it around and publish it how you like.

As with Wix, Weebly does not offer any migration services (Wix for only 60 days). So, know that what you build and design, will just be on their platforms.


Weebly vs. Wix: Is Wix or Weebly Easier to Use?

So Close It’s A Draw ⛱️

For some, Weebly is the simplest website builder ever. It’s a hard argument to dismiss. Website Builders with the drag-and-drop functionality, let you point-and-click - drag and scroll - i.e. directly play around with bits of on-screen data pieces.

It’s the key to intuitive design-creation. You can point-and-click anywhere and wherever. No need to mentally connect configuration boxes with on-screen manipulations. Everything is clear.

Create visually-unique arrangements by using the mouse, rather than having blocks of info restricted to certain grids (like Squarespace). There are some trade-offs. Especially with Weebly, it may be hard to make things look uber-professional.

The Wix vs Weebly review team does not recommend either for burgeoning professionals. And, Wix may be the preference for small businesses who want to look as professional as possible.

Smaller, individuated brand?

OK - then Weebly should do. It lets you design unique sites. Overall, with either, it really doesn't get easier.


Weebly vs. Wix: Do We Have A Winner?

Wix Takes the Title Belt 🥋

Compared to either Squarespace or Wix, Weebly falls short in terms of end-product: the look and functionality. 

Unlike Squarespace, it uses a drag-and-drop site builder (but not end-product). This puts it on par with Wix, in terms of efficiency and speed. This is ideal for personal brands and  smaller businesses on a budget who need to get an online business idea out there, quickly. 

We weren’t blown away by Weebly’s templates - at least not in terms of what a bigger or more competitive business might want. See the Design section for more. Wix hits the middle-ground between time/money cost and performance 🏝️. Slap something quickly. Choose from lots of beautiful templates.

Let us know how you got on with this guide!