Website platform selection determines long-term flexibility, scalability, and total ownership costs. Platforms range from hosted solutions like Wix offering simplicity to open-source systems like WordPress providing complete control. London businesses require platform choices aligned with growth ambitions, technical resources, budget constraints, and functional requirements ensuring websites support rather than constrain business evolution.
Website platforms provide infrastructure and tools for building, managing, and publishing websites. Platforms differ fundamentally in architecture, ownership models, customisation capabilities, and cost structures.
Hosted platforms like Wix and Squarespace provide all-in-one solutions managing servers, software, and updates. Users access platforms through monthly subscriptions trading control for convenience.
Self-hosted platforms like WordPress require separate hosting whilst providing complete ownership and unlimited customisation. Greater flexibility demands more technical involvement.
E-commerce platforms like Shopify specialise in online retail whilst content management systems serve broader website needs.
Platform selection impacts everything: design flexibility, performance potential, SEO capabilities, and migration complexity. Initial choices create long-term consequences.
Platform constraints limit business capabilities. Inappropriate platform choices restrict growth requiring expensive migrations or permanent compromises.
Hosted platform lock-in creates dependency. Content, design, and functionality remain trapped within proprietary systems complicating switches.
Customisation capabilities determine competitive differentiation. Generic templates limit uniqueness; flexible platforms enable distinctive brand experiences.
Performance varies dramatically across platforms. Speed impacts user experience, search rankings, and conversion rates regardless of content quality.
Total cost includes subscription fees, transaction charges, extensions, and migration costs. Platform economics change dramatically at scale.
Platform expertise availability affects maintenance and development. Popular platforms provide abundant talent; niche platforms limit options.
Evaluate platforms alongside WordPress development understanding open-source advantages.
WordPress and Wix represent fundamentally different philosophies. WordPress offers open-source flexibility; Wix provides hosted simplicity.
Ease of Use: Wix provides drag-and-drop simplicity requiring zero coding knowledge. WordPress requires learning curves understanding themes, plugins, and content management.
Design Flexibility: WordPress enables unlimited customisation through custom development. Wix constrains designs within template boundaries despite customisation tools.
Ownership: WordPress provides complete data ownership and export flexibility. Wix retains platform control limiting export capabilities.
Cost: Wix charges £17-£42 monthly including hosting. WordPress requires hosting (£8-£80 monthly) plus optional themes and plugins.
SEO: WordPress provides superior SEO through complete technical control and advanced plugins. Wix offers basic SEO features with platform limitations.
E-commerce: WordPress with WooCommerce scales unlimited. Wix e-commerce suits smaller catalogues with platform constraints.
Performance: WordPress achieves excellent speeds through optimisation. Wix provides reasonable performance with limited optimisation control.
Scalability: WordPress scales from small blogs to enterprise platforms. Wix scalability meets limits requiring platform switches.
London businesses prioritising long-term flexibility choose WordPress despite steeper learning curves.
WordPress and Squarespace compete for small-to-medium business websites balancing sophistication against simplicity.
Design Quality: Squarespace templates showcase exceptional aesthetic quality. WordPress templates vary wildly from poor to excellent.
User Experience: Squarespace provides polished, intuitive interfaces. WordPress feels technical requiring more learning.
Customisation: WordPress enables unlimited customisation beyond template constraints. Squarespace limits customisation to template-defined options.
Blogging: WordPress originated as blogging platform providing superior content management. Squarespace blogs work adequately with fewer advanced features.
Cost: Squarespace charges £10-£35 monthly. WordPress hosting costs £8-£80 monthly depending on requirements.
Integrations: WordPress offers thousands of plugins solving virtually any requirement. Squarespace provides curated integrations covering common needs.
Support: Squarespace includes customer support with subscriptions. WordPress relies on community forums, documentation, or paid support.
Portability: WordPress content exports completely. Squarespace exports remain limited complicating migrations.
Creative businesses value Squarespace aesthetics; growth-focused businesses choose WordPress flexibility.
WordPress with WooCommerce and Shopify dominate e-commerce platforms serving different business profiles.
E-commerce Focus: Shopify specialises exclusively in e-commerce providing optimised features. WordPress serves broader needs with WooCommerce extension.
Ease of Use: Shopify provides streamlined e-commerce setup. WooCommerce requires more configuration but offers greater flexibility.
Transaction Fees: Shopify charges 1.5-2% transaction fees unless using Shopify Payments. WooCommerce imposes no platform fees; only payment gateway charges apply.
Product Management: Shopify excels at inventory management and fulfilment. WooCommerce provides adequate product management with extension-based enhancements.
Customisation: WooCommerce enables unlimited customisation through development. Shopify customisation requires Liquid templating knowledge with platform constraints.
Cost: Shopify charges £25-£289 monthly plus transaction fees. WooCommerce free software requires hosting and potential extension purchases.
Scalability: Both scale to large catalogues; Shopify optimises for e-commerce scale whilst WooCommerce flexibility enables complex requirements.
Content Marketing: WordPress provides superior blogging and content capabilities. Shopify blogs work adequately prioritising commerce over content.
Dedicated e-commerce businesses choose Shopify; content-commerce hybrid businesses prefer WooCommerce.
Explore WordPress WooCommerce for comprehensive e-commerce guidance.
WordPress and Joomla both offer open-source content management serving different audiences and use cases.
Market Share: WordPress powers 43% of websites; Joomla serves under 2%. Community size affects extensions, themes, and support availability.
Ease of Use: WordPress provides gentler learning curves. Joomla requires more technical knowledge with steeper initial learning.
Flexibility: Both provide extensive flexibility; Joomla offers more granular user permission systems and multilingual capabilities built-in.
Extensions: WordPress offers 60,000+ plugins versus Joomla's 8,000+ extensions. Ecosystem size determines available solutions.
Development: WordPress uses simpler development approaches. Joomla requires more structured development patterns appealing to developers prioritising architecture.
Performance: Both achieve similar performance when properly optimised. Implementation quality matters more than platform selection.
Security: WordPress faces more attacks due to popularity but provides robust security through plugins and practices. Joomla security proves comparable with smaller attack surface.
WordPress dominates due to ecosystem size, community support, and ease of use. Joomla serves niches requiring complex permission structures.
WordPress and Drupal serve enterprise needs through different approaches balancing simplicity against architectural sophistication.
Complexity: Drupal requires significant technical expertise. WordPress remains accessible whilst scaling to enterprise requirements.
Customisation: Drupal provides architectural flexibility through modular systems. WordPress achieves similar results through plugins with less structural rigour.
Security: Drupal emphasises security through rigorous code review processes. WordPress security depends on proactive maintenance and security plugins.
Performance: Both achieve enterprise performance when properly architected. Drupal's architecture handles complex data structures efficiently.
Cost: WordPress development generally costs less due to abundant talent. Drupal specialists command premium rates reflecting specialised knowledge.
Content Workflows: Drupal excels at complex editorial workflows with granular permissions. WordPress workflow capabilities improve through plugins.
Multilingual: Drupal includes robust multilingual capabilities core. WordPress requires plugins for comprehensive multilingual support.
Government and large enterprise organisations favour Drupal's architecture. Most businesses find WordPress provides adequate enterprise capabilities at lower costs.
WordPress and custom-built solutions represent build-versus-buy decisions balancing speed and cost against ultimate flexibility.
Development Time: WordPress accelerates development through existing infrastructure. Custom builds require months developing basic functionality.
Cost: WordPress reduces initial costs significantly. Custom development costs £20,000-£100,000+ depending on complexity.
Maintenance: WordPress updates automatically or through simple processes. Custom applications require dedicated maintenance resources.
Flexibility: Custom builds provide unlimited flexibility without platform constraints. WordPress flexibility extends far but within CMS paradigms.
Security: WordPress security depends on updates and plugins. Custom applications require dedicated security expertise and auditing.
Talent Availability: WordPress developers abundant and affordable. Custom application developers cost more with potentially limited availability.
Scalability: Both scale appropriately when built correctly. WordPress scales further than commonly assumed.
Performance: Custom applications optimise precisely for specific needs. WordPress achieves excellent performance through WordPress speed optimisation.
Most businesses benefit from WordPress speed-to-market and ecosystem. Custom development suits unique requirements justifying significant investment.
Beyond major platforms, alternatives serve specific niches with distinct value propositions.
Ghost: Specialised publishing platform prioritising speed and simplicity. Ideal for bloggers and publishers avoiding WordPress complexity.
Webflow: Visual development platform combining design tools with hosting. Appeals to designers seeking code-free sophistication beyond template builders.
Craft CMS: Premium content management emphasising flexibility and developer experience. Serves agencies and enterprises valuing customisation and architecture.
October CMS: Laravel-based CMS appealing to PHP developers preferring modern frameworks over WordPress architecture.
Statamic: File-based CMS avoiding databases providing simplicity and portability. Suits smaller sites prioritising elegance over extensibility.
Alternatives serve specific needs but lack WordPress's ecosystem size, community support, and extension availability. Niche advantages rarely offset ecosystem disadvantages.
WordPress suits businesses prioritising flexibility, growth potential, and long-term value despite steeper initial learning curves.
Choose WordPress when:
Choose alternatives when:
Platform decisions create long-term consequences. WordPress provides optimal balance between capability and accessibility for most London businesses.
WordPress.com and WordPress.org share names but differ fundamentally in capabilities, ownership, and flexibility.
WordPress.com provides hosted platform with managed infrastructure. Free plans include WordPress.com branding and subdomain URLs. Paid plans remove restrictions progressively but remain within platform constraints. Limited plugin access and no theme uploads until expensive plans.
WordPress.org provides free open-source software requiring separate hosting. Complete control over themes, plugins, and customisation without restrictions. One-time setup complexity trades for unlimited ongoing flexibility.
Key Differences:
Business websites choose WordPress.org for flexibility despite requiring hosting setup.
Platform migrations move websites from current platforms to WordPress preserving content whilst gaining WordPress capabilities.
Migration Complexity:
Migration Process:
Professional migrations minimise disruption and SEO impact. DIY migrations risk content loss, broken URLs, and ranking drops.
Is WordPress better than Wix for SEO?
Yes, WordPress provides superior SEO capabilities through complete technical control, advanced plugins like Yoast or Rank Math, custom schema markup, and performance optimisation. Wix offers basic SEO features adequate for low-competition keywords but imposes platform limitations restricting advanced strategies. WordPress flexibility enables comprehensive SEO addressing competitive London markets. Custom development, WordPress speed optimisation, and technical control create SEO advantages impossible on Wix.
Can I switch from Wix to WordPress later?
Yes, though migration complexity and limitations exist. Wix restricts content exports to basic posts without design, functionality, or complete media. WordPress migration requires manual content transfer, complete redesign, and functionality rebuilding. Unlike WordPress-to-WordPress migrations maintaining designs and features, Wix migrations essentially start fresh. Consider long-term platform needs initially avoiding costly migrations. WordPress's open architecture enables easier future migrations if needed.
Which platform is cheapest for business websites?
Initial costs favour hosted platforms like Wix (£17 monthly) or Squarespace (£10 monthly) including hosting and basic features. However, WordPress total cost often proves lower long-term. WordPress hosting costs £8-£50 monthly with one-time theme/plugin purchases versus perpetual subscriptions. At scale, WordPress costs significantly less avoiding per-transaction fees and forced tier upgrades. Consider 3-5 year total cost including growth requirements rather than initial setup costs.
Do professional designers use WordPress or website builders?
Professional web designers predominantly use WordPress for client projects requiring flexibility, customisation, and long-term value. Website builders serve DIY markets or designers prioritising rapid deployment over optimal results. WordPress enables custom designs matching brand requirements precisely whilst website builders constrain creativity within template limitations. London's professional web design agencies like London Web Design use WordPress delivering bespoke solutions impossible on builder platforms.
Is WordPress difficult to learn for beginners?
WordPress requires moderate learning covering themes, plugins, and content management. Initial setup and basic editing prove accessible within days; advanced customisation requires weeks or months. Modern block editor simplifies content creation significantly. Compared to custom development, WordPress dramatically reduces technical barriers. Compared to Wix, WordPress requires more initial learning trading simplicity for long-term capability. Most business users master WordPress basics quickly whilst partnering with developers for advanced requirements.
Can WordPress handle enterprise-level websites?
Yes, WordPress scales to enterprise requirements when properly architected. Major publishers, universities, and corporations run WordPress at massive scale. Enterprise success requires experienced developers, robust hosting infrastructure, and appropriate caching strategies. WordPress performance and scalability depend on implementation quality not platform limitations. Enterprise WordPress proves significantly more cost-effective than custom platforms whilst maintaining flexibility through extensive ecosystem.
Should I use WordPress for my online shop?
WordPress with WooCommerce proves excellent for online shops prioritising content marketing, SEO, and customisation alongside e-commerce. Dedicated e-commerce businesses might prefer Shopify's specialised features. WooCommerce provides no transaction fees, unlimited products, and complete customisation. Shopify offers streamlined e-commerce setup with subscription and transaction costs. Consider hybrid content-commerce needs versus pure retail focus. Most UK businesses benefit from WordPress WooCommerce flexibility.
Related Platform Comparison Topics:
Written by the Strategy Team at London Web Design, with over 12 years of experience advising London businesses on platform selection and WordPress migration.
