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Entrepreneurs looking to build a website, online store or money-making blog have plenty of options, but not all are created equal. If you’re comparing Weebly vs. WordPress, you’ll find that both let you build feature-packed websites for all types of businesses. However, that’s where the similarities end. Weebly and WordPress are very different when it comes to ease of use and overall versatility. This guide highlights the features and drawbacks of each to help you find the best fit.
Weebly vs. WordPress: At a Glance
Weebly is a software-as-a-service (SaaS) website builder that delivers all-in-one simplicity—but don’t let Weebly’s beginner-friendly platform fool you. It can support all types of business websites including online stores, marketing blogs and service booking sites. Weebly offers a free plan and three paid plans and all support an online store.
WordPress is the most popular website platform in the world. Unlike Weebly’s self-hosted platform, WordPress is a free, open source system that you can host with your choice of providers. WordPress also delivers almost unmatched versatility. It supports everything from side-gig startups and personal blogs to e-commerce powerhouses, major news sites, educational portals and much more.
The key differences between Weebly and WordPress come down to ease of use, learning curve and overall versatility. Deciding which is right for you depends on what you need from a website and how much you’re willing to learn.
Weebly
Free Plan
Free plan includes online store
Design
Over 50 customizable themes
Free Plan
Free plan includes online store
Design
Over 50 customizable themes
Why We Picked It
With Weebly, you can create all sorts of modern, mobile-friendly websites, blogs and online stores. Weebly comes with more than 50 built-in free themes, which are easily customized using Weebly’s intuitive drag-and-drop page editor.
Looking to sell online? A full-featured online store is built into every Weebly plan and supports all types of physical and digital products, services and memberships. Plus, you can seamlessly connect online and in-person sales with point-of-sale (POS) systems powered by Square (which purchased Weebly in 2018) or Stripe.
Learn more: Read our Weebly review
Pros & Cons
- Competitively priced plans
- Switch website themes any time
- Powerful e-commerce features
- Limited payment processing options
- Square ads on lower-tier plans
- Phone support on top-tier plans only
WordPress
Growth Potential
Build all types of powerhouse websites
Design Options
Thousands of unique, customizable themes
Portability
Pick your hosting partner and move anytime
Growth Potential
Build all types of powerhouse websites
Design Options
Thousands of unique, customizable themes
Portability
Pick your hosting partner and move anytime
Why We Picked It
WordPress powers more websites, blogs and online stores worldwide than any other platform. This versatile system delivers endless design flexibility and functionality, all driven by a universe of WordPress themes and plugins. With hosting plans starting at about $4 per month, WordPress is also an extremely economical website solution.
WordPress’s unmatched versatility does come at a cost, and that’s ease of use. Building a WordPress website requires more moving parts and has a far greater learning curve than Weebly’s plug-and-play simplicity. Most WordPress hosting providers include security and data backups in basic plans, but you still need to update themes and plugins regularly to keep everything running smoothly.
Pros & Cons
- Grow any type of web-based business
- Best in class SEO tools
- Versatile, plugin-based platform
- Big learning curve
- Ongoing theme and plugin updates
- Potential plugin conflicts
Website Design
With more than 50 free plug-and-play themes, designing your Weebly website takes just minutes. You can customize site headers, footers, pages and blog posts using the intuitive drag-and-drop editor. Most themes are responsive, meaning they automatically resize page elements to fit mobile devices. You can also change your Weebly theme any time, however, customizations may not carry over to the new theme.
Most WordPress hosting services provide basic themes to help quick-start your website. Or, you can shop around for themes that fit your unique needs. There are thousands of free and paid WordPress themes to choose from. Plus, free drag-and-drop page builders such as Elementor, Divi and WPBakery make it easy to build a WordPress website from scratch.
Blogging
Weebly provides a tidy set of blogging tools that let you organize posts in categories and subcategories, plus you can add tags and turn comments on or off. Each post can be customized with the drag-and-drop editor and you can add elements such as videos, images, photo galleries, forms and sidebars to any post.
WordPress was developed with bloggers in mind and remains the world’s leading blog content system. WordPress blog posts support videos, photos, sliders, galleries, forms, calls-to-action, plus an array of monetization elements. It’s easy to turn WordPress blogs into money-makers with affiliate links and ads, thanks to plugin-driven affiliate product reviews, comparison tables and ad program widgets. You can also enable, disable and manage blog comments however you wish on WordPress.
E-Commerce Options
Weebly gives you a full-featured e-commerce store with unlimited product listings on all of its plans, including the free plan. If you’re looking for a completely free website, Weebly tops the list. However, you’ll need a paid plan to sell digital goods via download, plus paid Weebly apps to manage membership and subscription sales or offer online bookings for services.
You’ll need a WordPress e-commerce plugin to add an online store or other web-based sales features to a WordPress site. Some enable specific types of sales, such as Easy Digital Downloads, which is popular for selling e-books, music and digital art files on a WordPress website. Others, such as WooCommerce, Ecwid and BigCommerce, enable multichannel sales and deliver a feature-packed shopping experience.
Overall Costs
There are four Weebly pricing plans and you can save around 20% if paid annually:
- Free
- Personal for $9 per month
- Professional for $16 per month
- Performance for $29 per month
The two lower-tier plans run Square ads on your website and have storage limits. Higher plans drop the ads, give you unlimited storage, a free domain name, added sales features and priority phone support. Adding features such as SEO tools or membership sales via Weebly app can increase your costs.
WordPress is free content management software and you can pick your own hosting provider and plan. Prices and features vary, but top WordPress hosting services including GoDaddy, Hostinger and Nexcess generally offer economical startup plans ranging from $4 to $45 per month. Most plans include basic design themes, built-in security, backups and a domain name. Adding plugins can increase these costs, however, many offer free starter versions.
Bottom Line
If you want to quickly build a modern website, blog or online store and get on with your business, Weebly is the best fit. This platform takes care of all the technical housekeeping for you, so you can focus on sales. If you want the most flexible, versatile platform to build your online brand your way, and you’re okay with a learning curve and some website upkeep, WordPress is for you. No all-in-one website builder, including Weebly, can match WordPress in web-based business options and growth potential.
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