Wix Review: The Flash-based Builder for Creatives

We try Wix on for size

Wix's Flash-based builder includes an impressive array of artistic-looking templates. If you don't want to build your site from scratch, we're sure you'll find something here. Once you select a template, things really kick off as the editor opens to full screen (see screenshot). You're then free to edit the template's image, text and color until you have your website looking just right. Wix.com does a great job of guiding you through this process, and it's all plain sailing once you stick to your template's basic structure.

You can even do much of your image processing from within Wix, almost as if it had an integrated Photoshop feature.

But things get a little more complicated if you decide to make drastic changes to your template. You'll quickly move into complicated website territory as you work with a series of Pages and Mini Pages, nested in layers inside each other (a little like PowerPoint). This can make it increasingly difficult to keep an eye on the big-picture view of your website.

Our Wix.com rating in detail

Criterion	Rating	Comments
Ease of use		Simple pages can be created quickly. If you want to run a mobile website version and a blog, you’ll have to juggle three different editors, which can be quite tricky.
Choice and flexibility of design (templates)		Selection is vast and stylish. Existing templates can be customized and you can also create Facebook welcome pages, banners and a mobile-friendly website.
Advertisement- free	Yes	On the Combo plan
Languages		The editor is available in English and Spanish, but you can create multi-language versions of your website. See here for more details.
Features
- Top-level domain (e.g. .com or .net)	Yes, in the My Domain plan	The free version uses a very long domain name. If you prefer a nicer domain, then you'll have to pay for it. If you already have a domain, then you can point it to Wix.
- Depth of navigation		Essentially unlimited, by adding submenus to your home page. Creating sub-pages is relatively complicated.
- Widgets (small tools to add extra functionality)		This is where Wix comes into its own. Its image galleries, videos, animation and other widgets are unparalleled.
- Monetization	Yes	Using Google AdSense or other banner ads.
- e-Commerce		A basic store that offers a great way to showcase your products. Use PayPal or Google Checkout as payment options. Works only with the e-commerce package.
- Search-engine optimization (SEO)		Title, meta and description tags are all editable, but only once for the whole website. Deep links are also possible but have many limitations.
- Blog		The blog has to be edited in a separate editor. It can’t be integrated into the Flash website and therefore sits on an external site. To enable comments you need a Facebook account.
- Visitor statistics		No integrated tracking tool. No visitor stats included in the free plan, but the paid plan allows you to install Google Analytics. More info on how to do that.
- Contact form	Yes	Very simple, with only basic fields.
- Add HTML Code	Yes	Allows you to add external widgets and other tools.
- Storage space	500 MB	500 MB on the free plan, can be increased to 2.5 GB on paid plans. More details here.
- Forums	No
Support	Email, Phone (toll free), Forums and Wiki	The wiki is very helpful and includes lots of videos. We were also happy with Wix's email support.
Fun factor		Wix is a lot of fun – once everything is working OK. We found the editor was a bit slow or behaved strangely at times.
Overall rating		Wix is very addictive, and using it made us feel like "real" web designers (yippee!). But it is pricey, and its Flash format does not make it very search-engine friendly.

Conclusion:

Wix is the perfect website builder for artists, photographers, models or graphic designers who want one thing for their website: the wow factor. No other builder makes this as easy to achieve. Wix's committed support team was also a plus. They quickly resolved the few queries we couldn't find answers to on the wiki.

However, we probably wouldn't recommend Wix if your priority is to attract as many visitors as possible to your website. Search engines are notorious for not liking Flash-based websites.

It's great that Wix has come up with a solution for iPhone and iPad accessibility with their site builder for mobile websites. But keep in mind that this means an extra website for you to maintain.

The free version of Wix.com is adorned with advertisements. So if you prefer your site advertisement-free, or would like to use a more attractive domain, then you'll have to upgrade for US $9.90 – not exactly cheap.

> Click here to try Wix for free

Updates

11 Apr 2012 - Initial review of Wix' HTML5 website builder
22 Nov 2011 - We have tested Wix' server performance.
07 Nov 2011 - Wix adds a blog module
20 Jul 2011 - Website builder for mobile websites reviewed reviewed, new eCommerce features added
17 Mar 2011 - General update
12 Jan 2011 - General update: support has not been reviewed this time.

 

Last updated: 11 Apr 2012 | Robert Brandl