This is one of the most popular questions we answer with all of our clients. It's a tricky question, and it does take some research, but here's a quick and dirty rundown from your friendly, neighborhood design experts.
Pros: If your company is in the e-commerce space, this is a no-brainer! Shopify has the best e-commerce user experience by far. Their checkout process and plug-in marketplace alone would be worth using this platform.
Cons: The downside is that this platform is very rigid when it comes to design. If you want to change something design-wise, it can get complicated quickly and custom designs require a developer or some coding involved, which can get expensive quickly.
Pros: Wix is a great platform for people who don't have the budget for a fully custom site but want to be able to adjust their site easily. Wix is great for small businesses in any industry. It also has a basic animation editor and a friendly SEO wizard to help you rank on Google.
Cons: Wix has a complicated and limited responsive design. Adjusting things for mobile gets really complicated and items in the design often get chopped off in the mobile version. You have very little control over how your website is seen on other devices.
Pros: Webflow is a fully custom website builder and has a user friendly editor so that you can change anything at any time without any coding involved. This is by far the best option overall and is economical for mid-size businesses. It is very responsive for all device sizes and offers a lot of customization for different screens. It also has advanced animation so you can have a lot of fun with the design!
Cons: The learning curve to understand the Webflow editor is a lot tougher than the other options. So, you really do need to hire someone who knows Webflow to edit your website — it's not something you should expect to do on your own without any training.
Pros: Wordpress is great for blogs and big pieces of information. There's a large developer base who can help with Wordpress sites, and Wordpress has a huge plug-in marketplace. There are multiple editors you can install (Ie. Elementor) to edit your website easily without hiring any help.
Cons: Wordpress can get complicated and clunky quickly. You need to have a developer hired on a Wordpress site to maintain it otherwise the plug-ins will go out of date. Out of the other options it's also more of a legacy platform with minimal adjustments to the changing digital landscape.
Weighing the pros and cons of what platform you want to build your site is very important — you don't want to have to rebuild later because you don't love your platform!
We recommend Webflow for your website design needs. It has the best of both worlds where you can easily customize the text and photos while maintaining a unique and clever design. Chat with us more about your next website project on Webflow. Contact us at info@irisdesigncollaborative.com.
