WordPress or Wix comes down to who looks after the site and whether it may need to move. Wix includes hosting and software, but a Wix site only runs on Wix’s servers. WordPress is free software you can host anywhere, with updates to manage. Bigfoot Web Solutions, a WordPress developer in Melbourne, builds most of its sites on WordPress.
Both give a small business a website that Google can find and customers can contact you through. The differences show up after launch: who applies the updates, what the site can connect to, and what happens if you leave. In this article, WordPress means the free software from WordPress.org, running on hosting you choose. WordPress.com is a separate hosted service that works more like Wix.
What each platform looks after for you
Wix is a hosted website builder. One plan pays for the editor, the hosting and the software underneath, so there’s nothing to install or update, and you lay out pages by dragging blocks around Wix’s editor. Features come from Wix and the apps made for it, and a developer can add custom code through Wix’s Velo tools. All of it runs on Wix.
WordPress is an open source content management system (CMS), licensed under the GPL, which gives anyone the freedom to run it, study it, change it and pass it on. You pay a host to run it, choose a theme for the design, and add plugins for bookings, forms, payments and most other features. In return, the upkeep is yours. WordPress.com’s own comparison says site maintenance on self-hosted WordPress is more hands-on: the core software, the theme and every plugin need updating, by you or by someone you pay.
AI website builders don’t change the choice. Wix’s AI builder drafts a site from a short chat about your business, and Squarespace’s Blueprint AI drafts one from your answers to a few questions. The draft is still a Wix or Squarespace site, running on that company’s platform like any other.
Is WordPress better than Wix?
Neither is better for every business. The answer depends on how the site will be run and what it has to do.
Who will make the changes. Wix keeps every setting in one editor, made for an owner who updates the site themselves. On a WordPress site built with a page builder, changing text and images is just as quick. The difference is the work behind the pages: on WordPress, the hosting and updates are yours to manage or to pay someone for.
What the site has to connect to. A five-page site with a contact form works on either. The platforms part ways for a physio in Brunswick taking bookings through practice software, a supplier with a trade price list behind a login, or a builder whose enquiries go straight into a customer relationship management (CRM) system. Wix connects to what Wix and its apps support, plus custom code that still runs on Wix. WordPress’s open code lets a developer build the connection that doesn’t exist yet, and the result can run on any host.
How fast it loads on a phone. In the HTTP Archive’s 2025 Web Almanac, 74% of Wix sites passed Google’s Core Web Vitals on mobile, against 45% of WordPress sites. The report says those results reflect each site’s platform defaults, hosting, theme, plugins and page builder together. Wix sets most of those for you; on WordPress, whoever builds the site chooses them. So on WordPress, how fast your site loads depends on the developer you choose.
Wix suits an owner who wants to build and run a straightforward site themselves. WordPress suits a site that needs custom features, will keep growing, or has to be free to move.
Showing up on Google and in AI answers
Either platform can rank. Wix lets you set each page’s title tag and meta description, and add structured data, the code that describes a page to search engines, to its static pages, though not to dynamic ones. On WordPress, an SEO plugin handles titles, descriptions and structured data across the site, and a developer can change anything else in the code.
Google’s AI Overviews don’t ask for a particular platform either. Google’s guide to AI features and your website says a page needs to be indexed and eligible to show in Search with a snippet to appear as a source, with no additional technical requirements. A page on Wix or WordPress can meet that.
Where Squarespace fits
Squarespace works like Wix. One plan covers the hosting and the software, and a site starts from a designer template or from Blueprint AI. Its plan prices sit with the other do-it-yourself options in what website design costs in Melbourne.
Unlike Wix, Squarespace lets part of a site leave. It exports a file WordPress can import, holding standard pages, one blog with its posts, and text, image and gallery content. Store pages, other page types and the site’s style settings stay behind, so the design and any shop have to be rebuilt.
Moving a site to another host
A Wix site stays on Wix. Wix’s help centre says a site needs to be hosted and operated on Wix’s servers, because it’s built with Wix’s own technology. Under Wix’s terms the content you build belongs to you, so your words and photos can come with you, but the pages have to be rebuilt somewhere else. A domain bought through Wix can be transferred to another registrar once it’s more than 60 days old, and the Wix site is disconnected when it goes.
A WordPress site can move to any host that runs WordPress, with its files and database copied across, and WordPress.com’s support pages say any WordPress site can be migrated to or from WordPress.com, wherever it’s hosted. That only helps if the accounts are in your name. On a site Bigfoot Web Solutions builds, the domain, the hosting account, the site’s code and content, and the design files go into your name once the final invoice is paid. If your site already runs on WordPress, we work on sites other people built as a WordPress developer in Melbourne, with an audit first and a flat fee quoted before work starts.
WordPress or Wix comes down to who runs the site, what it has to connect to and whether it may need to move. Book a 30-minute call and Bigfoot Web Solutions will tell you which suits the site your business needs.