Choosing between Wix, Squarespace, Framer, Shopify and WordPress? First decide what your website needs to achieve, what it must do and who will keep it up to date.
Start with the brief
It’s easy to choose a platform before you’ve decided what the website needs to do. A friend recommends one, a template catches your eye and the monthly price looks reasonable.
The difficulty comes when you discover a requirement you hadn’t considered. Perhaps the site needs to take bookings, connect to your customer database or support a growing library of articles. A platform change at that point can mean paying to build parts of the site twice.
Before comparing editors and templates, answer these four questions.
What is the website’s main job?
Who is it for, and what should they do next? Send an enquiry, buy a product, book an appointment or return for useful advice?
A website built to attract project enquiries needs a different structure from an online shop with hundreds of products. Decide what success looks like before choosing the tools.
If you’re still working that out, start with a few honest answers in a website brief. Then give your homepage a clear job.
What does it need to do now and later?
Write a straightforward list of requirements. Payments, bookings, articles, multiple languages and connections to existing business tools are all worth considering.
Mark each one as essential or nice to have. Then look a year ahead. If you expect to start selling products or offer online bookings, include that in the brief now.
You don’t need to build every future feature at launch. You do need to understand whether the platform can support it, what it might cost and whether it relies on another service.
Who will look after it?
Think about who will update the website, how often and how comfortable they are with the editor. Ask to try the tasks you’ll actually do: changing a price, adding a case study or publishing an article.
Hosted services typically handle the underlying hosting and platform updates. With self-hosted WordPress, someone needs to take responsibility for hosting, software updates and backups. That might be you, your developer or a managed hosting provider.
Include the ongoing work in your decision. A flexible website is only useful if someone can keep it current.
What happens if you need to move?
Ask what you can take with you if your needs change. That includes your domain, written content, images, customer data and any functionality the business depends on.
Exporting content and moving a complete website are different things. A new platform may still require a new design, rebuilt integrations and redirects from old page addresses.
Wix explains its hosting and export restrictions, while Squarespace lists what its export tool includes. Check these details before committing. For self-hosted WordPress, confirm who controls the hosting account and can provide the files and database.
Then compare the platforms
With those answers in place, compare a shortlist against the same requirements. These are useful starting points rather than fixed rules.
- Online retail. Include Shopify in your shortlist and compare payment options, stock management and the full cost of running the shop.
- A marketing or portfolio website. Compare Framer, Squarespace, Wix and WordPress against your design, content and editing requirements.
- A growing publication or a site with several integrations. Consider WordPress alongside alternatives, allowing for the development and maintenance involved.
- A site you’ll manage yourself. Test the editor before deciding. Check which features are included and which need a higher plan or paid add-on.
A couple of common questions
Which platform is best for SEO? Check that it supports the basics you need, including editable page titles, useful page addresses, redirects and indexable content. The quality of your content, site structure and visitor experience also matters. A platform alone won’t bring in enquiries.
How long will the website take? Scope, content preparation, integrations and feedback all affect the schedule. Agree those before treating a platform’s promise of a quick launch as your project timeline.
Choose the tool that fits the job
This site runs on WordPress because it suits the way I want to publish and manage the content. Another business may need something different.
Sometimes the right answer is the platform you already have. Sometimes moving will make the website easier to manage or give it room to grow. Start with the brief, then choose the platform that meets it.
If you’re weighing up the options, tell me what your website needs to do. We’ll work out a sensible starting point together.