Wix vs IONOS: What’s the Best Builder in 2024?

Wix vs IONOS: Final verdict

Wix and IONOS both offer comprehensive website building solutions, but they cater to different user needs and preferences.

• 
  Wix (Overall Grade: 8.5/10)
  
  excels in providing a user-friendly interface, extensive design functionalities, and robust AI capabilities. It is ideal for users who prioritize ease of use, creative control, and a wide range of templates. Wix also offers strong ecommerce features, making it suitable for small businesses and individuals looking to establish an online presence. When comparing Wix vs IONOS, Wix stands out for its superior customer support, security measures, and advanced marketing tools.
• 
  IONOS (Overall Grade: 6.9/10)
  
  offers a reliable and professional website building experience with a focus on customizable templates and advanced hosting services. It is well-suited for users who need a more traditional website builder with strong hosting capabilities. IONOS provides a range of ecommerce features and supports various payment processors, making it a viable option for businesses looking to manage an online store. However, when comparing Wix vs IONOS, IONOS falls short in terms of ease of use, AI capabilities, and overall user experience.

Which one is the best for ecommerce: Wix or IONOS?

Verdict

: Wix is better suited for small businesses and individuals due to its user-friendly interface and versatile payment options, while IONOS offers more advanced features for those looking to manage a scalable online store.

• 
  Wix
  
  : With a score of 8.0, Wix is ideal for small businesses and individuals. It offers an intuitive store builder, Wix Payments, and basic inventory tools. Its ecommerce features include multi-channel sales options, abandoned cart recovery, and basic analytics and SEO tools. However, its templates may require manual adjustments for mobile display, and it has limited options for in-depth customization using HTML or CSS.
• 
  IONOS
  
  : Scoring 7.1, IONOS is designed for users who need more advanced ecommerce features. It provides store management, marketing tools, payment and shipping options, and products and inventory management. IONOS supports a wide variety of third-party payment processors and offers extensive customization for product pages. It is a robust option for those looking to build and manage a scalable online store.

Which one is the best for informational and business websites?

Verdict

: Wix is the superior choice for creating informational and business websites, offering a more user-friendly interface and a wider range of design features compared to IONOS.

• 
  Wix
  
  : With a score of 8.3, Wix excels in providing a user-friendly platform with a variety of customizable templates and an intuitive drag-and-drop interface. It is ideal for users who prioritize ease of use and creative control. Wix’s extensive learning resources and multiple website editors further enhance its appeal for creating visually appealing and functional informational websites.
• 
  IONOS
  
  : Scoring 7.4, IONOS offers a solid platform with a wide range of customizable templates and reliable hosting services. While it provides a straightforward interface and various features for building professional websites, it lacks the extensive functionalities and user-friendliness of Wix. IONOS is a good option for users who need robust hosting and basic website building capabilities but may not require the advanced design features offered by Wix.

Wix vs IONOS: Detailed comparison

🏆

Winner: Wix.

With a score of 8.6, Wix offers more creative control and a wider array of design features compared to IONOS, which scored 7.2.

Wix stands out with its wide range of highly customizable templates suitable for various website types, not just ecommerce. It offers creative freedom in design, appealing to a diverse user base. While Wix doesn’t have a premium template marketplace, it has 3-rd party theme shops that allow you to get more sophisticated design choices.

Wix Themes

On the other hand, IONOS offers a wide variety of templates and designs for their website builder. With over 200 templates to choose from, users can find a design that suits their needs and preferences. The templates are categorized into different industries and styles, making it easy for users to find the perfect design for their website. Additionally, IONOS regularly updates their template library, ensuring that users have access to the latest design trends.

IONOS Themes

🏆 Winner: Wix

. With a score of 9.0, Wix is known for its exceptional user-friendliness, featuring an intuitive drag-and-drop interface and an Artificial Design Intelligence (ADI) tool for effortless website creation. IONOS, scoring 7.8, offers a straightforward and intuitive interface, but lacks the extensive functionalities of Wix. If ease of use is a priority, Wix is the clear winner in this category.

Learning Resources

🏆 Winner: Wix

. Both platforms offer solid learning resources, but Wix provides a larger collection of articles, video tutorials, and live chat support with a broader focus. IONOS offers guidance on setting up websites and utilizing custom layouts, but lacks the extensive community support that Wix provides.

Wix and IONOS both offer ecommerce capabilities, but they cater to different needs. Wix is more suited for individuals and small businesses, with its intuitive store builder and basic inventory tools. IONOS, on the other hand, is designed for users who want to build and manage an online store with more advanced features.

Wix ecommerce features:

• Intuitive store builder
• Wix Payments and various gateways
• Basic inventory tools
• Multi-channel sales options
• Abandoned cart recovery
• Basic analytics and SEO tools

IONOS ecommerce features:

• Store Management
• Marketing Tools
• Payment and Shipping options
• Products and Inventory management

Ecommerce themes & templates

Wix provides around 120 free templates for ecommerce. However, these templates are not fully responsive and may need manual adjustments for mobile display. Wix allows for flexible website design but has limited options for in-depth customization using HTML or CSS. For advanced users, Wix Velo offers more detailed customization possibilities.

IONOS offers a variety of eCommerce themes and templates designed to help businesses set up their online stores efficiently and effectively. Their online store builder is tailored to support a range of ecommerce needs, from selling on social media platforms to managing a scalable ecommerce website without any coding or design skills required.

Product page customization

Wix permits the inclusion of six options per item with a total of 1000 unique variations for products. However, the potential complexity of having customers choose six attributes for a single item is acknowledged, and it is recommended to consider splitting products with extensive options into different listings for a more user friendly experience.

Wix stands out for its ease of customization, allowing users to add features like ribbons, size charts, wishlists, and more. While Wix supports product videos in its themes, incorporating 3D models on Wix requires coding.

Ionos website builder provides users with the ability to extensively customize product pages. This includes the flexibility to adjust the design and layout, ensuring that product images, descriptions, and specifications are displayed according to individual preferences.

Additionally, Ionos allows for the setup and management of product options and variations, such as size and color, enabling customers to select their preferred version of a product.

Payment processing

Wix provides versatile payment options, generally around 2.9% + 30¢ per transaction, without additional commission fees. This makes Wix an attractive option for businesses using diverse payment processors. Wix Payments allows Wix users to manage transactions directly on their site, also supporting various payment methods and currencies.

IONOS supports a wide variety of third-party payment processors for its website builder, including PayPal, Stripe, and Square, without charging direct fees for payment processing. Users can choose from an extensive list of payment options to suit their business needs and customer preferences, enhancing the flexibility and security of online transactions.

The platform offers detailed guidance on integrating these payment methods into online stores, allowing for customization in terms of fees, order value thresholds, and geographical availability.

🏆

Winner: Wix

. Wix, with a score of 8.5, offers multiple editors catering to different user needs. Its standard editor is renowned for its drag-and-drop simplicity, allowing for extensive customization without needing to code. Additionally, Wix provides the ADI (Artificial Design Intelligence) editor, which creates a personalized website based on user responses to a few questions, and the Corvid by Wix editor, which allows for advanced web development with JavaScript and Wix APIs.

IONOS’s editor, scoring 7.8, provides an intuitive website builder equipped with AI assistance, designed for users to quickly create professional-looking websites without needing coding skills. This platform offers customizable templates, AI-generated content, and is optimized for mobile use, ensuring a responsive design across all devices. With features that cater to both basic and advanced website needs, including eCommerce capabilities, IONOS aims to simplify the web creation process.

Mobile editor/app

🏆

Winner: Wix

. Wix and IONOS both offer mobile editing capabilities, but they differ significantly in their approach. Wix has a dedicated mobile app with a user-friendly, drag-and-drop interface that excels in general website editing.

The app is particularly beginner-friendly, making it easy for users with no prior website building experience to make changes to their site. Wix receives a higher rating for its versatility in general website editing and a more beginner-friendly interface.

IONOS, on the other hand, does not have a dedicated mobile app. Instead, it offers limited editing capabilities on a mobile browser. While this allows for some level of on-the-go editing, it does not provide the same level of convenience and functionality as a dedicated app. Therefore, Wix is the clear winner in this category due to its superior mobile editing capabilities.

Overall Result

:

Wix wins

. Wix scores 8.1 in product testing options, while IONOS scores 6.5. Wix offers a free plan with basic features for an unlimited duration and occasionally offers opportunities to test premium features through promotions or limited-time trials. IONOS, on the other hand, does not offer a free or trial version, but allows testing of premium features during the 30-day refundable period.

Wix offers a higher value for money with a price score of 8.7 compared to IONOS’s 7.8.

Wix also offers enterprise plans starting at $500 per month, while IONOS does not have an enterprise plan.

🏆

Winner: IONOS

IONOS edges out Wix with a higher hosting quality score, offering a diverse range of hosting services including shared, VPS, dedicated, and WordPress hosting, with features like daily backups, and unlimited traffic. It also boasts a 99.99% uptime guarantee and data centers in both the EU and USA.

Wix, on the other hand, offers multi-cloud infrastructure hosting with a 99.95% uptime and data centers in 10 global locations. However, it lacks an uptime guarantee and its lower tier plans come with significant storage and bandwidth limitations.

🏆 Winner: Wix

Both Wix and IONOS prioritize website performance and page speed, but Wix has a slightly higher Website Speed Optimization score.

Wix has significantly focused on enhancing website performance and page speed, integrating tools like the Site Speed dashboard with Google PageSpeed Insights to provide a holistic view of website performance metrics. Emphasizing media optimization, code simplification, content distribution networks, lazy load techniques, and mobile-first designs, Wix’s infrastructure includes globally distributed CDNs, improving content delivery.

Wix saw a 25% increase in sites with good CWV scores over a year. Real-world performance analysis of Wix websites showed a wide range of page speed scores from 34/100 to 98/100, averaging 81.9/100, with the Largest Contentful Paint an important metric for website loading, ranged from 0.8 seconds to 3.5 seconds, with an average of 1.6 seconds.

IONOS, on the other hand, focuses on HTML, CSS, and JavaScript optimization, image and multimedia optimization, caching, and WordPress optimization. It also uses a CDN for faster content delivery. IONOS places a strong emphasis on Core Web Vitals, focusing on improving the Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), First Input Delay (FID), and Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS). However, both the load times and PageSpeed scores for IONOS vary widely, depending on the optimization and the user’s location.

🏆 Winner: Wix.

Wix scores 8.2, offering over 500 apps in its App Market, covering a wide range of functionalities. These apps provide flexibility in pricing with options for free, paid, and one-time payment apps. Wix’s plugins and integrations extend its functionality across various domains, including advanced ecommerce tools, SEO optimization, social media integration, email marketing, website analytics, appointment scheduling, customer support, enhanced media galleries, blogging features, custom forms and surveys, diverse payment processing options, website localization, improved security measures, and the addition of custom widgets.

Wix’s top integrations include Google Analytics, Mailchimp, social media platforms, Wix Stores, Wix Bookings, Wix SEO Wiz, Wix Blog, Wix Forms, PayPal, Wix Chat, Wix Events, Zapier, Wix Video, Wix Music, and Google Ads.

IONOS, with a score of 6.5, offers over 100 plugins, which are user-friendly and can be easily installed and managed through the IONOS dashboard. These plugins can enhance the functionality of the website by adding features such as ecommerce capabilities, social media integration, SEO optimization, and contact forms. Additionally, users can also find plugins for customizing the design and layout of their website, adding galleries or sliders, and integrating third-party tools and services.

The IONOS Website Builder allows for straightforward integration of various web apps into your website, enhancing its functionality and user engagement. You can integrate applications such as social media buttons for platforms like Facebook and Twitter, and even include Google Maps for directions, directly within the MyWebsite Creator.

Wix Applications

🏆

Overall Winner: Wix

. Wix stands out for its advanced integration for selling directly on social platforms and sophisticated ad campaign management. IONOS, on the other hand, offers a robust email marketing platform and supports direct sales on Facebook and Instagram.

🏆 Winner: Wix

. In the Wix vs IONOS comparison, Wix takes the lead with a customer support score of 8.2. Wix offers a variety of support channels, including 24/7 live chat in multiple languages, phone support during business hours, and a large community forum. This ensures that users have access to assistance whenever they need it, making it a reliable choice for customer support.

IONOS, with a customer support score of 7.3, provides 24/7 support through phone lines, ensuring users can get help at any time. However, it lacks the live chat option that Wix offers, which can be a significant drawback for users who prefer instant messaging support. Additionally, IONOS does not offer enterprise-level support, which may be a limitation for larger businesses looking for more tailored assistance.

🏆

Winner: Wix

. Wix’s security measures are comprehensive, with secure servers, encryption, and compliance with privacy regulations. It also uses built-in SSL certificates for encryption and authentication, and a Web Application Firewall to defend against common web attacks. Regular updates and two-factor authentication contribute to overall site protection.

IONOS also provides robust data storage and protection measures, including HiDrive Cloud Storage and secure email solutions. It offers guidance on staying updated with security patches, conducting backups, securing logins, and implementing HTTPS and SSL certificates. However, its security score is slightly lower than Wix’s, making Wix the winner in this category.

🏆 Winner: Wix

. Wix’s AI capabilities, particularly through its Artificial Design Intelligence (ADI)
system, are highly user-friendly and innovative. It excels in offering personalized website design suggestions, content
optimization, and streamlined site setup processes. Wix’s AI also assists in providing SEO recommendations and
layout adjustments based on user behavior.

IONOS, with a score of 7.2, utilizes AI mainly to enhance the website design and content creation process. Its AI features focus on
personalized design recommendations, automatic content generation, and SEO optimization. While
IONOS’s AI is powerful, it is more design and content-centric compared to Wix’s design-focused AI.

🏆 Winner: Wix

. Wix and IONOS offer different user management capabilities.

• Wix allows unlimited editors regardless of the plan, but caution is needed with 50+ editors to avoid potential
  backend performance issues. It excels for large, collaborative teams.
• Ionos website builder permits multiple users for website editing. However, there is no mention of user roles and permissions, nor is there information about limitations on the number of users allowed to edit a website.

Wix User Roles and Access Levels:

Additional Features

Wix vs IONOS: User Feedback

Wix, though well-regarded, caters to a diverse set of website requirements beyond just ecommerce. This inclusive strategy attracts a broad user audience but might not align as closely with individuals prioritizing advanced ecommerce features. With a G2 rating of 4.2/5 from 1641 reviews, users appreciate its user-friendly interface and range of templates, though some may find it lacking in specialized ecommerce functionalities.

As IONOS is primarily a hosting provider with a website builder as an additional product, most reviews focus on its hosting services. Users have mixed experiences with IONOS 1&1 Websites & Shops. While praised for its great packages, personalized support, and streamlined interface for IT professionals, some encounter issues with backend functionality and find customer service representatives too pushy. Despite occasional short outages, the overall reliability and responsiveness of the service are appreciated by users, reflected in its G2 rating of 3.9/5 from 20 reviews.

Wix vs IONOS: FAQ