Wix vs Format: Comprehensive comparison guide for 2024

Final verdict

Wix and Format both offer unique strengths, but they cater to different audiences.

• 
  Wix (Overall Grade: 8.5/10)
  
  is a versatile website builder that excels in user-friendliness, design flexibility, and comprehensive features. It is ideal for users who need a robust platform for various website types, including ecommerce. Wix’s extensive template library, AI capabilities, and strong customer support make it a top choice for those seeking an all-in-one solution for building and managing their online presence.
• 
  Format (Overall Grade: 5.8/10)
  
  is tailored specifically for creative professionals such as photographers, artists, and designers. It offers high-quality, customizable templates and features designed to showcase portfolios effectively. While it may not match Wix in terms of overall functionality and ease of use, Format provides a focused set of tools that cater to the needs of creatives, making it a suitable choice for those looking to display their work professionally.

Best for ecommerce

Verdict

: Wix is a more versatile and comprehensive platform for ecommerce, while Format is better suited for creatives with basic ecommerce needs.

• 
  Wix
  
  : With a score of 8.0, Wix offers a robust set of ecommerce features, including an intuitive store builder, multiple payment gateways, and advanced customization options. It is ideal for small to medium-sized businesses looking for a flexible and user-friendly platform. However, when comparing Wix vs Format, Wix stands out for its comprehensive marketing tools and detailed analytics, making it a more powerful option for ecommerce.
• 
  Format
  
  : Scoring 5.2, Format is designed for creative professionals who need a simple and visually appealing way to sell their work online. While it offers basic ecommerce functionalities, it lacks the advanced features and scalability of Wix. Format is best for those who prioritize showcasing their portfolios over extensive ecommerce capabilities.

Best for informational & business websites

Verdict

: When it comes to creating informational and business websites, Wix takes the lead with its user-friendly interface, extensive design functionalities, and robust support system. Format, while excellent for creative professionals, falls short in comparison to Wix for broader business needs.

• 
  Wix
  
  : Wix is a versatile website builder that excels in creating and managing informational websites. Its intuitive drag-and-drop interface, wide range of customizable templates, and comprehensive support resources make it an ideal choice for businesses looking to establish a strong online presence without the need for coding skills. With a score of 8.3, Wix offers a balanced mix of design flexibility and ease of use, making it suitable for a variety of business types.
• 
  Format
  
  : Format is tailored specifically for creative professionals such as photographers, artists, and designers. It offers nearly 100 customizable templates designed to showcase portfolios in a visually appealing manner. While Format provides useful features like an integrated online store and client proofing, it scores 7.2 in this category, indicating that it may not be as versatile as Wix for broader business needs. Format is best suited for creatives who need a specialized platform to display their work.

Detailed comparison

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

On the other hand, Format is a website builder specifically designed for creatives, offering nearly 100 customizable templates tailored for various artistic disciplines. It emphasizes high-quality imagery and mobile-friendly designs, ensuring portfolios look professional on any device. While it offers easy-to-use features and e-commerce tools for selling work directly, some users find its interface less intuitive and its feature set somewhat limited for broader website needs.

Format Themes

🏆 Winner: Wix

. With a score of 9.0, Wix is recognized for its exceptional user-friendliness, featuring an intuitive drag-and-drop interface and an Artificial Design Intelligence (ADI) tool for effortless website creation. Format, scoring 8.3, also offers a user-friendly platform tailored for creatives, but falls slightly short in comparison to 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 goes a step further with its large collection of articles, video tutorials, and live chat support. Format provides a comprehensive help center and a YouTube channel, but lacks a substantial online community for additional support.

Wix and Format offer different ecommerce capabilities. Wix provides a comprehensive platform for individuals and businesses to create and manage online stores easily. It includes features like an intuitive store builder, Wix Payments and various gateways, basic inventory tools, multi-channel sales options, abandoned cart recovery, and basic analytics and SEO tools. On the other hand, Format caters specifically to creatives and photographers, offering basic ecommerce functionalities for selling physical and digital products. However, its ecommerce capabilities are basic and may not suit those looking for extensive ecommerce 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

Format ecommerce features:

• Inventory management and tracking
• Discounts
• Multiple currency options

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. In contrast, Format does not have ecommerce specific templates.

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. On the other hand, Format offers limited specific details on product page customization directly, but its e-commerce features suggest a focus on showcasing products through high-quality imagery and detailed descriptions. You can manage product specifics like shipping, availability, and pricing, with customization likely extending to layout and presentation styles to highlight products effectively.

Payment processing

When it comes to 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. In contrast, Format offers integration with major payment gateways, including Paypal and Stripe. It charges a 15% commission on the Pro plan and 5% on the Pro Plus plan. However, the platform does not have built-in POS (Point of Sale) capabilities.

🏆

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.

Format’s editor, scoring 7.5, offers a variety of features for creating online portfolios. It provides nearly 100 professionally designed templates and thousands of design variations without requiring any coding. Users can express creativity with custom pages, incorporating unique gallery layouts, colors, text formatting, and custom code embeds. The templates and pages are fully responsive, ensuring a mobile-first experience. Format also supports direct video hosting, high-quality image rendering, and easy template switching to give sites a new look. Additionally, it includes studio management tools, e-commerce capabilities, and SEO tools.

Mobile editor/app

🏆

Winner: Wix

. Wix and Format both offer mobile-friendly designs, but their mobile editing capabilities differ significantly. 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. This versatility and ease of use earn Wix a high score for mobile editing.

On the other hand, Format does not offer a dedicated app for editing on mobile devices. While it is possible to edit your website using a mobile browser, the interface is the same as the desktop version, making it difficult to use on a smartphone. This lack of a dedicated mobile editing app and the limited mobile editing capabilities result in a lower score for Format.

Overall Result

:

Format Wins

. Format scores slightly higher than Wix with a score of 8.3 compared to Wix’s 8.1. While Wix offers a free plan with basic features for an unlimited duration, Format provides a 14-day free trial during which users can test all premium features. Additionally, Format offers a longer money-back guarantee period of 30 days compared to Wix’s 14 days.

Wix offers a wider range of pricing options and discounts, while Format’s pricing is more straightforward and tailored to creative professionals.

Winner: Wix

Wix provides a more comprehensive hosting service, with various hosting plans, a multi-cloud infrastructure, a 99.95% uptime, and 10 global data centers. Format, while offering hosting, does not provide detailed information about its hosting services, resulting in a lower hosting quality score.

🏆 Winner: Wix

Both Wix and Format prioritize website performance and page speed, but Wix outperforms Format in terms of website speed optimization.

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. Successfully improving Core Web Vitals (CWV) scores, 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.

Format, on the other hand, focuses on image and video optimization for speed enhancement. However, it does not disclose any specific performance tools, PageSpeed score ranges, or Core Web Vitals improvements. The load times and PageSpeed scores vary depending on the optimization and complexity of the website. Continuous maintenance and optimization are essential for keeping Format websites fast.

🏆 Winner: Wix.

Wix scores 8.2, offering over 500 apps in its App Market, covering a wide range of functionalities. These apps come with various pricing options, including free, paid, freemium, and one-time payment models. 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.

On the other hand, Format scores 4.9, offering a limited selection of plugins/integrations. However, it does include support for several key integrations, including Adobe Lightroom, Mailchimp, and Google Analytics. The available integrations, although useful, represent just a fraction of the broader ecosystem of web development and marketing tools that modern websites often rely on.

Wix Applications

🏆

Overall Winner: Wix

. Wix stands out for its comprehensive marketing tools, including advanced SEO features, robust email marketing, easy blogging, diverse social media integrations, detailed analytics and reporting, and sophisticated ad campaign management. Format, while offering basic marketing tools, lacks the advanced capabilities of Wix, especially in terms of analytics, reporting, and ad promotions.

🏆 Winner: Wix

. In the Wix vs Format comparison, Wix takes the lead with a customer support score of 8.2. Wix offers a variety of support channels, including a callback service during business hours, 24/7 live chat in multiple languages, and extensive forums. The large community ensures that users can find solutions to their problems quickly and efficiently.

Format, on the other hand, provides 24/7 customer support through email and live chat, with a tech support team distributed across different countries to ensure round-the-clock availability. However, with a customer support score of 7.0, it falls short compared to Wix. While Format’s support is reliable, it lacks the extensive community and enterprise-level support options that Wix offers.

🏆

Winner: Wix

. Wix takes the lead in security with a score of 8.5, compared to Format’s 7.4. 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.

Format, on the other hand, emphasizes the security of user data through encrypted data storage and employs strict access controls. The platform regularly updates its security measures to protect against new threats and complies with data protection regulations like GDPR. However, specific details about Format’s security measures were not directly mentioned, which might be a concern for some users.

🏆 Winner: Wix

. Wix, with a score of 8.7, offers a comprehensive suite of AI capabilities that enhance the user experience in website creation and management. Its AI capabilities range from an AI builder that offers tailored design suggestions to AI ecommerce features that include personalized marketing and dynamic product recommendations. Wix also offers AI content generation and a range of additional AI features.

Format, on the other hand, does not have any AI capabilities. This lack of AI features may limit the user experience in terms of website creation and management.

🏆 Winner: Wix

. Wix and Format offer different levels of 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.
• Format, on the other hand, allows only one user to manage and edit websites, which might be limiting for larger teams or projects.

Wix User Roles and Access Levels:

Additional Features

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 features, though some may find it less specialized for niche needs.

Users highly praise Format for its user-friendly website builder, particularly noting the ease of adding images and the effectiveness of customer service. Many reviewers appreciate the variety of modern templates and the platform’s suitability for users without technical expertise, especially photographers. Format’s mobile app and proofing section receive special mentions for their convenience and functionality. However, some users desire more customization options, particularly for mobile views, and mention minor limitations in template flexibility and SEO functionality. Overall, Format is celebrated for its ability to provide a professional online presence easily and efficiently, solving users’ needs for showcasing work and attracting new clients.

FAQ