Weebly vs WordPress – Top 5 Important Things You Must Know

You have a million dollar idea, and you need a website. You’ve played around on the Internet plenty, but you’ve never actually created anything. It’s now or never. There are plenty of ways to start with your website, but let’s look at two of the most popular ones. In our Weebly vs WordPress showdown, we’ll break it all down to figure out which path is the right one for you.

So which is it? Weebly or WordPress? Don’t fret over it. Let’s take a look.

Weebly vs WordPress: Overview

If you’ve never handled websites before, it can be intimidating to design one. Not everyone is a coding expert. You have to balance looking professional with your budget, and getting a state of the art website with just getting started.

WordPress vs Weebly: Ease Of Use

It’s not even a fair fight. Weebly is one of the most accessible website editors of all time. They use a drag and drop method to help get all the elements in place, and you could be up and running in as little as an hour. You won’t have to touch any code either.

WordPress has two different editors. One is free (and hosted by WordPress.com) The other is a WordPress editor you can self-host on your own domain name. Neither option is super beginner friendly. You may watch a lot of tutorials to figure out how to use the editor and all the plugins.

WordPress isn’t drag-and-drop. It depends on the design plugins and template you choose. Some are free, and others cost money, but you should consider carefully your template and how it relates to what you’re trying to do. At some point, you’re going to have to manipulate the code to take full advantage.

Winner: Weebly

Weebly vs WordPress: Flexibility

Here’s the huge trade-off. Yes, Weebly is drag and drop. Yes, you can get to work quickly. And yes, you can avoid having to do any coding. The result? A beautiful website that you can’t customize. Not really.

WordPress has a steeper learning curve, but you can get a lot closer to what your heart desires. You can build just about anything in a WordPress site.

Weebly isn’t open source. There are tools that you won’t have access to and cannot code to function differently. It’s also more challenging to integrate non-Weebly tools. You have the ease of a managed website, but you won’t be able to customize it as much as you like. If you aren’t interested in customization, and you have a very simple idea, Weebly may be all that you need.

WordPress is open source so you can integrate non-WordPress tools pretty easily. You can change things around and manipulate code on your own to get the results you want. The downside is you’re also the sole manager of the site. Having issues? You may not get the same type of support as Weebly.

Winner: WordPress

WordPress vs Weebly: Support

Here, the two are somewhat similar. Weebly gets a lot of its reputation from having support. That’s half the appeal. Someone else can handle your website and manage all the particulars. If you’ve got an issue, call them up, and someone can handle it.

WordPress has a community. Yes, there’s basic support, but the real info comes from a collection of people who use the website and who design themes and plugins. If you have an issue with one of the themes or plugins, you can contact the creator or someone in the community.

The downside is there are thousands of questions posted each day, so you may not get a response right away (or at all). Also, no one is obligated to help you. The chances of you finding an answer similar to what you need is really high, but you’ll have to be ok with not having your own questions answered right away.

Winner: Weebly or WordPress. Weebly if you want official support. WordPress if you like a thriving community

Weebly vs WordPress: Maintenance

Weebly’s system is simple. You don’t have a lot of control, but when there’s an update, things tend to keep on working. WordPress, on the other hand, requires a lot of maintenance to make sure everything continues to function.

WordPress components update separately. If the website has an update, some of your plugins may not work. You’ll have to get everything back on the same page separately. Working with WordPress means committing to the maintenance.

Winner: Weebly

WordPress vs Weebly: Price

Weebly offers pricing tiers based on one or two-year plans. Each tier provides more functionality and more elaborate benefits. Everything works together well, but you don’t have as much choice for what you’re getting.

WordPress components are all purchased separately. You pay monthly for hosting, and that price depends on the host. You pay for the theme, which also depends. You’ll have to factor in the cost of any plugins you decide to add. Some are free, but ones you pay for will likely have better results.

You’ll also have to factor in your time for setting things up. With Weebly, trying to do something that isn’t possible within their framework can waste a lot of your time. WordPress has more flexibility, but getting things to work can be difficult.

Winner: Weebly or WordPress

Weebly or WordPress? The Good And The Bad – Pros & Cons

Still not sure which way to go for your Weebly vs WordPress decision? Let’s break it all down.

Weebly

We recommend Weebly for simple ideas and landing pages where you don’t want to mess with code.

Pros:

• All in one, done for you package
• Drag and drop design
• Full support
• Minimal startup time

Cons:

• Not much flexibility
• Top tiers can be expensive

WordPress

We recommend using WordPress for building larger websites or creative designs. You may find yourself switching to self-hosting eventually if your audience grows beyond the server capability of Weebly, you may find yourself switching over anyway.

Pros:

• Complete flexibility
• Large user community
• Can utilize outside tools and plugins
• Better hosting capability for a large audience

Cons:

• Steep learning curve
• Lots of maintenance

Final Thoughts

So Weebly vs WordPress? Your choice will depend on how much flexibility you want and how quickly you need to be up and running. If you want a website done for you with minimal effort, Weebly is the way to go. If you need a lot more creative control, WordPress is your correct choice.