With almost two decades of experience, Wix is arguably the most well-known website builder today, so you’d be silly to overlook it. In fact, it features in our guides to the best website builder for small businesses and best free blog website, and has done for several years – but Wix actually offers two different products (and its easy to confuse them).
First there's Wix ‘classic’ and then there's Wix Studio. Wix classic is a drag-and-drop website builder aimed at non-professionals, whereas Wix Studio allows for more granular control and is aimed at creatives, but how do they fare in practice? To confuse things further, price-wise they’re almost identical, and they also offer the same features to end-users. In addition, they both have templates to choose from as well as the ability to generate websites using AI, so are they really any different?
In this Wix vs Wix Studio comparison, we’ll see which one’s better for creatives in terms of features, user experience, customer support, and pricing.
On one hand, Wix classic’s drag-and-drop approach can be a little clunky. On the other hand, while Wix Studio’s Figma-like controls are surprisingly straightforward even for non-professionals, its AI website builder can only take you as far as a wireframe. So which one’s really best for creatives in the long run?
Best Wix deal
Wix: best website builder from $8.50 per month It's quick, easy and cheap to build a website with Wix, making it our pick as best website builder overall. Choose from 800+ templates, add your content, and you'll have your site up and running. There's even a free plan.
Features
(Image credit: Future)
What you’re able to create using Wix classic, you’re also able to create using Wix Studio — the user-facing features are the same. This includes a comprehensive suite of eCommerce features to help you sell almost anything, CMS features to display anything from jobs to recipes to properties, form features to collect CMS data or accept bookings, and support features for help guides and live chat. There are also features for specific business types; for example, restaurants can manage menus, deliveries, pickups, table reservations, and loyalty points. Third-party Wix apps can provide even more functionalities.
On the admin side of things you can manage SEO, marketing, analytics, and design systems. Wix Studio also offers real-time collaboration so entire teams can work on the website at once.
Wix’s AI can generate all kinds of content, but Wix Studio can also leverage AI to make sections responsive.
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All in all, they’re very similar in terms of features, but Wix Studio has a very slight edge.
Performance
The majority of the Wix user interface is neat and beginner-friendly (Image credit: Wix)
Wix classic and Wix Studio both kick things off with a choice between starting with a template and generating the website with AI.
In terms of generative AI, they take completely different approaches. Classic Wix generates the entire website, whereas Wix Studio lets you choose between a sitemap (pages and sections only) and wireframes (pages, sections, elements, content, and layout), leaving the aesthetics totally in your hands.
With Wix Studio, designs can also be imported from Figma, but the implementation is complicated compared to other tools with this feature. Luckily though, Wix Studio wins in the templates department and the GenAI department.
Comparing the Wix Studio vs Wix editors, classic Wix’s drag-and-drop approach feels awkward and imprecise. Wix Studio on the other hand is more akin to Figma, so you’re able to control every pixel with precise values, alignments, grids, padding, and even some pretty advanced (yet very straightforward) responsive design settings.
Both Wix classic and Wix Studio offer 24/7 customer support in the form of an AI chatbot. Although you can speak to a human agent, there isn’t a button to request this, and you might have to ask the chatbot to refer you several times. If you don’t want to wait in the queue, you can request a callback.
Wix Studio offers priority support on the plus, elite, and enterprise plans (the plus plan is £21 per month). This enables you to skip the queue, skip straight to a human expert, and get dedicated assistance.
Alternatively, Wix’s help centre is pretty decent, plus there are guides, courses, webinars, resource centres, blogs, podcasts, and newsletters, as well as a forum and Discord community for third-party help.
Pricing and plans
Wix is quite expensive, but it does have a free forever plan (Image credit: Wix)
Comparing Wix vs Wix Studio on price isn’t difficult since they both facilitate the same outcome at the same price, which is the creation and management of a website on plans that range from £9 to £119 per month (not including VAT). In addition, both come with a free domain for 1 year as well as free hosting. Neither offers eCommerce features on the most basic plan.
Beyond that, Wix classic and Wix Studio’s plans do differ a little bit. Wix Studio allows for slightly more collaborators and storage space, although it does have a limit on CMS items (starting from 1,500 on the most basic plan), whereas Wix classic doesn’t. Adversely, Wix classic ramps up the marketing features for higher plans, whereas all Wix Studio plans have full SEO and marketing tools.
Wix Studio also has an enterprise plan, but you’ll need to book a demo to learn how much it costs. On this plan you’ll get unlimited collaborators and CMS items as well as multi-site management, custom integrations, enterprise-level support, and SSO.
To help non-professionals tread unfamiliar territory without time constraints, Wix classic offers a ‘free forever’ plan. Wix Studio, however, offers a full refund if cancelled within 14 days.
Verdict
While classic Wix can generate entire websites with AI, the results as well as the templates that you can start with fall short of today’s design standards. In addition, classic Wix’s clunky drag-and-drop movements aren’t smooth enough to rival Wix Studio’s granular controls, which we believe even first-time website builders can operate. In terms of pricing and user-facing features, both are offering the same thing, so it really comes down to this Wix Studio vs Wix editor, a battle that Wix Studio wins hands down.
It’s just a shame that Wix Studio’s AI can only take you as far as wireframes. Despite this though, we still think it’s the best, fastest, and most fun option overall. It’s certainly the best option for creative professionals and businesses.
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Previously a design blog editor at Toptal and SitePoint, and before that a freelance product/UX designer and web developer for several years, Daniel Schwarz now advocates for better UX design alongside industry leaders such as InVision, Adobe, Net Magazine, and more. In his free time, Daniel loves gaming, café culture and Wikipedia, and also travels perpetually when there isn’t a pandemic.
