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

Wix vs Drupal: Final verdict

Wix and Drupal cater to different audiences with their unique strengths and weaknesses.

• 
  Wix (Overall Grade: 8.5/10)
  
  is a user-friendly website builder that excels in ease of use, design functionalities, and AI capabilities. It is ideal for beginners and small businesses looking for an intuitive platform to create and manage their online presence. Wix offers a range of templates, advanced marketing tools, and comprehensive customer support, making it a versatile choice for various website needs. When comparing Wix vs Drupal, Wix stands out for its simplicity and accessibility.
• 
  Drupal (Overall Grade: 6.4/10)
  
  is a powerful open-source CMS known for its flexibility and extensibility. It is suitable for developers and businesses that require a highly customizable platform for complex websites and applications. Drupal offers extensive modules and themes, robust user management, and strong security features. However, it has a steeper learning curve and requires more technical knowledge to fully utilize its capabilities. In the Wix vs Drupal comparison, Drupal is the preferred choice for advanced users seeking a scalable and customizable solution.

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

Verdict

: Wix is ideal for users seeking an easy-to-use platform with robust ecommerce features, while Drupal offers extensive customization and flexibility for more complex ecommerce needs.

• 
  Wix
  
  : Known for its user-friendly interface, Wix is perfect for those starting out in ecommerce. It offers an intuitive store builder, basic inventory tools, and multi-channel sales options. However, when comparing Wix vs Drupal, Wix may fall short in terms of advanced customization and scalability.
• 
  Drupal
  
  : With its Drupal Commerce module, Drupal provides a flexible and powerful ecommerce solution. It supports extensive customization, making it suitable for complex ecommerce sites. However, it requires more technical knowledge to fully utilize its capabilities compared to Wix.

Which one is the best for informational and business websites?

Verdict

: When it comes to creating informational and business websites, Wix takes the lead with its user-friendly interface and extensive design functionalities. Drupal, while powerful and flexible, has a steeper learning curve and is better suited for users with technical expertise.

• 
  Wix
  
  : Wix is an excellent choice for informational and business websites due to its intuitive drag-and-drop editor, a wide range of customizable templates, and ease of use. It allows users to create visually appealing websites without any coding knowledge, making it ideal for beginners and small business owners. With a score of 8.3, Wix excels in providing a seamless website-building experience.
• 
  Drupal
  
  : Drupal is a robust open-source CMS that offers unparalleled flexibility and customization options. It is well-suited for complex websites that require custom functionalities and extensive content management. However, its steep learning curve and technical requirements make it less accessible for beginners. With a score of 7.5, Drupal is a powerful tool for developers and organizations that need a highly customizable platform.

Wix vs Drupal: Detailed comparison

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Winner: Wix.

If you’re looking for a platform that offers more creative control and a wide array of design features, Wix is the preferred choice.

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

Compared to Wix, Drupal, as a highly flexible and powerful content management system, offers a vast array of templates and designs to cater to virtually any website need. With thousands of themes available, users can choose from minimalist designs, industry-specific layouts, and highly customizable multipurpose themes. These templates are designed to be responsive, ensuring that websites look great on any device. Moreover, the Drupal community continuously contributes new designs and templates, expanding the options for users to keep their websites modern and engaging.

Drupal Themes

🏆 Winner: Wix

. Scoring a solid 9.0, Wix stands out for its exceptional user-friendliness, making it exceptionally easy for beginners to create and manage their websites. Drupal, with a score of 5.4, offers a robust platform but with a steeper learning curve, especially for those new to web development. If ease of use is a priority, Wix is the clear winner in this category.

Learning Resources

🏆 Winner: Drupal

. While both platforms offer solid learning resources, Drupal goes a step further with its extensive official documentation, vibrant community forum, and a variety of online courses and tutorials, making it easier for users to learn and adapt.

When it comes to ecommerce, both Wix and Drupal offer a range of features. Wix provides an intuitive store builder, basic inventory tools, and multi-channel sales options. On the other hand, Drupal, with its Drupal Commerce module, offers a flexible e-commerce solution that can be integrated seamlessly into its content management system. It provides a wide array of features including product management, shopping cart, payment gateway integration, and customizable workflows.

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

Drupal ecommerce features:

• Shopping Cart and Checkout Process
• Payment Gateway Integration
• Order Management and Invoicing
• Tax Calculation and VAT Support
• Shipping and Fulfillment
• Promotions and Discounts
• Reporting and Analytics
• Security and Compliance

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.

On the other hand, Drupal offers a wide array of eCommerce themes designed to cater to different types of online stores. These themes are built with responsiveness in mind, ensuring that stores function seamlessly across various devices. Themes like Fiora, DrupalMag, and Storefront highlight the diversity available, offering customization options to match the unique needs of each business.

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.

Drupal offers extensive customization possibilities for product pages through its modular architecture, allowing for detailed content types, flexible displays with Views, and theme customizations. The Drupal Commerce module enriches e-commerce functionalities, enabling tailored product management, checkout flows, and payment systems. With the ability to develop custom modules, Drupal provides range of possibilities to meet specific e-commerce needs.

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.

Drupal supports a wide range of payment gateways through third-party modules, including popular ones like PayPal, Stripe, and Authorize.Net. These modules enable seamless integration for e-commerce functionalities on Drupal sites. While Drupal itself does not charge any commissions or transaction fees, the individual payment gateways integrated with it do have their own fee structures, which typically include per-transaction charges and may also have monthly fees. The specific fees depend on the chosen payment gateway and the terms of service agreed upon by the website owner.

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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.

Drupal’s editor, scoring 7.5, offers a wide range of features tailored for content creation and management. It supports rich text editing, enabling users to format text, insert links, images, and media, as well as create tables and lists with ease. The editor is highly customizable, allowing administrators to configure toolbars and options according to the needs of their site. However, its steep learning curve can be a limitation for new users.

Mobile editor/app

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Winner: Wix

. Wix offers a user-friendly, drag-and-drop interface in its mobile app, excelling in general website editing. The app is particularly beginner-friendly, making it easy for users with no prior website building experience. Wix receives a higher rating for its versatility in general website editing and a more beginner-friendly interface.

On the other hand, Drupal does not have a dedicated mobile editor app. This means that users cannot edit their Drupal websites on the go using a mobile device, which can be a significant disadvantage for users who need to make quick updates or changes to their website while away from their computer.

Overall Result

:

Wix wins

. Wix scores 8.1 in product testing options, while Drupal scores 7.1. 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. Drupal, being an open-source CMS, is free to use but does not offer a trial version or the possibility to test premium features.

Wix offers a range of pricing plans, while Drupal is a free, open-source platform. However, with Drupal, users may need to consider additional costs for hosting, domain, and possibly for a website builder.

Winner: Wix

. Wix offers a variety of hosting plans, including a free plan with limited storage and bandwidth, and premium plans with up to 50GB of storage and unlimited bandwidth. It also has 10 global data centers and an uptime of 99.95%. On the other hand, Drupal does not directly provide hosting services, and the uptime, type of hosting, and data centers depend on the hosting provider chosen by the user. Therefore, Wix has a higher hosting quality score than Drupal.

🏆 Winner: Wix

Both Wix and Drupal prioritize website performance and page speed, but Wix has a 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 909 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.

Drupal, on the other hand, offers numerous guides and tutorials on speed optimization, allowing users to optimize almost all aspects of their website. However, the load times and PageSpeed scores vary depending on the optimization and website complexity. The improvement in Core Web Vitals also depends on the users’ optimization efforts.

🏆 Winner: Drupal.

With a score of 8.6, Drupal takes the lead in this category. Its open-source nature allows for a vast array of over 51,000 modules, showcasing the extensive contributions from its community. These modules are designed to enhance and tailor Drupal applications to specific needs, emphasizing the platform’s flexibility and openness. Predominantly, these modules are freely available and open source, embodying Drupal’s commitment to accessible and communal software development.

Wix, scoring 8.2, also offers a variety of plugins and integrations 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. However, the number of plugins/extensions offered by Wix is significantly less than Drupal.

Wix Applications

Drupal Applications

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Overall Winner: Wix

. Wix stands out for its user-friendly interface and advanced marketing tools, especially in social media integration and analytics. Drupal, while flexible and extensible, requires more technical knowledge to fully utilize its marketing features.

🏆 Winner: Wix

. When comparing Wix vs Drupal, Wix stands out with a higher 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 timely and comprehensive assistance.

Drupal, with a customer support score of 6.7, provides a range of support options through its community on Drupal.org, including forums and documentation. Additionally, professional 24/7 support services are available via providers like Drupal Connect, offering flexible plans. However, Drupal lacks dedicated enterprise support, which may be a limitation for larger businesses.

Overall, Wix’s extensive and accessible support system makes it a more user-friendly option for those seeking reliable customer service.

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Winner: Wix

. Wix prioritizes website and data security through secure servers, encryption, and compliance with privacy regulations. It also offers strict access controls, regular security audits, and additional features like two-factor authentication for enhanced protection. Wix communicates transparently through clear privacy policies, practices data minimization, and empowers user control over their data.

Drupal, on the other hand, is an open-source CMS that requires users to configure the system securely for private data storage and protection. It offers role-based access control and field permissions to restrict access to sensitive information, and uses encryption for data at rest with secure key management. Regular updates and security audits are essential to maintain the site’s integrity. However, the security of a Drupal site largely depends on the user’s ability to configure and manage the system securely.

🏆 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.

Drupal, with a score of 7.5, integrates AI across various functionalities, enhancing e-commerce through chatbots, content creation, marketing automation, and cognitive services. While Drupal’s AI capabilities are powerful, they are not as user-friendly or design-focused as Wix’s AI.

🏆 Winner: Drupal

. Both Wix and Drupal offer robust user management capabilities, but Drupal’s flexible permission and role system gives it an edge.

• Wix allows unlimited editors regardless of the plan, but caution is needed with 50+ editors to avoid potential backend performance issues.
• Drupal allows for an unlimited number of users to manage and edit a website, only constrained by server capacity and practical management considerations. Administrators can create various roles, such as “Editor” or “Administrator”, each with customized permissions.

Wix User Roles and Access Levels:

Drupal User Roles and Access Levels:

Additional Features

Wix vs Drupal: 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, making it a popular choice for those seeking an easy-to-use website builder.

Drupal, on the other hand, is praised for its ease of use, security, and flexibility as an open-source CMS. Users highlight its ability to scale and support a variety of websites and applications with modern technology tools. Despite a lower G2 rating of 3.8/5 from 415 reviews, Drupal’s community and documentation are frequently mentioned positives, providing ample support and resources. However, users note a steeper learning curve for customization without coding and some challenges with installation and updates. Overall, feedback underscores Drupal’s strength in creating secure, customizable, and scalable web solutions.

Wix vs Drupal: FAQ