There are many technologies and platforms to develop a website. When a web developer makes a site, the first step is what technology or platform he needs to choose for the development process. To decide which is suitable for the website he will make, he must know the features and functionalities of the platforms, and the difference between them will make it clearer to choose a better one. Weebly vs WordPress tutorial is written to help the developers to make a suitable choice for them. Weebly and WordPress both are content management systems (CMS), custom platforms for web development.
Table of Contents
Weebly
Weebly is an online web development platform that is a drag and drops website builder tool. The developer does not require any technical skills or knowledge of programming to build a website with Weebly. Everything is built-in available in Weebly CMS. It was introduced in 2006, and the cofounders of the company were Dave Rusenko, Chris Fanini, and Dan Veltri.
WordPress
WordPress is an open-source and easy-to-use platform, which means you will have control over every aspect of your site. So you will have all the freedom and flexibility, but you need to have some technical skills like coding for some things. It was introduced in 2003, and the founder of WordPress is Matthew Charles Mullenweg.
Weebly vs WordPress
Weebly is a beginner-friendly platform for building personal or professional sites. When it comes to comparison, Weebly is much easier than WordPress. WordPress can accommodate a massive number of blogs and websites, but it demands more technically. Both platforms are different from each other in many aspects; which is better for your site is depends on the requirements or needs of your site.
Ease of Use:
Weebly comes with the things that a user needs to set up a fast website. Hosting is available in all plans of Weebly. A user can buy a domain directly from Weebly and install an SSL certificate with just one click. Setting up WordPress is more complex than setting up Weebly. It is because WordPress is an open-source CMS. A user needs to select a hosting provider and purchase a custom domain. If the hosting plan does not come with the SSL certificate, the user needs to get it.
Customization and Flexibility:
Weebly is less flexible than WordPress because it is a proprietary website builder. Therefore, it limits users’ and third-party developers’ access to the source code, inhibiting developers from creating third-party extensions and users from customizing their site. Since WordPress is open-source, users can edit any part of the WordPress source code. That means users have virtually complete control over your site — if the user has the required technical or coding skills or time to develop them. If the user does not, the user can also extend the site’s functionality by installing WordPress plugins. There are many premium and free plugins are available in WordPress.
Pricing:
Weebly offers a limited free version that users can use to create business websites, eCommerce websites, and blogs. It provides all of its basic features, including SSL certification, blogging, design tools, advanced site stats, and so on — but it will display ads and branding for Square (the company that acquired Weebly in 2018). Users also have to use a Weebly subdomain so your URL will look something like example.weebly.com. WordPress is free to download and easy to use, but users will have to pay for hosting and domain registration to launch their sites. On average, WordPress hosting ranges from $3 to $35 per month. Domain registration costs approximately $10 to $15 per year.
Ecommerce:
Weebly is an excellent option for shop owners on a budget. Its plans, including the free tier, come with basic eCommerce features, inventory management, coupons, including a shopping cart, gift cards, and an automatic tax calculator. The top-level comes with even more advanced features, including a shipping calculator, item reviews, shipping labels, and abandoned cart emails. Unfortunately, WordPress does not have built-in eCommerce features, but it does have a dedicated eCommerce plugin. After installing the WooCommerce plugin, you can create and customize an entire eCommerce site.
SEO:
With Weebly, users can create titles, meta descriptions, and custom URLs that help their posts and pages perform better in search results. Users can also use any of the mobile-optimized templates to build a responsive site. WordPress offers more features and tools for creating an SEO-friendly site. Like Weebly, WordPress enables users to customize their image alt-text, meta descriptions, headings, and custom URLs and choose a responsive theme to design their site.
Conclusion
In conclusion, we discussed the difference between two CMS platforms Weebly and WordPress. This discussion was held to help users or web developers to make a suitable choice for site development. Weebly vs WordPress, the comparison will make a clear image for developers to select one platform that fulfills the requirements or needs of the site.
