Wix genuinely builds a good website quickly. It also has no export function, ever. How much that matters depends on a question about your future you should answer deliberately.
The standard developer position on Wix is that it is a trap and you should use WordPress. The standard small-business position is that Wix got them a decent website in a weekend while the WordPress quote was £3,000 and six weeks. Both positions are defensible, which is why the argument never ends.
What Wix does better than WordPress
Honestly: quite a lot, for a certain kind of site. The editor is true drag-and-drop with absolute positioning, which is far more intuitive than WordPress's block editor for anyone who has ever used PowerPoint. Hosting, SSL, CDN, updates, security and backups are simply not your problem — there is no server, no plugin conflict, no PHP version to worry about. Bookings, basic ecommerce, email marketing and forms are built in rather than assembled from five plugins by three vendors. And Wix Studio is a credible tool for agencies now, not just a toy.
For a hairdresser who needs a site with hours, photos, prices and a booking form, Wix is a rational choice and the WordPress alternative is often worse in practice — an outdated theme, twenty unmaintained plugins and nobody to update them.
The one thing it does that WordPress does not
There is no export. None. You cannot take a Wix site to another host in any form. You can copy the text out by hand and re-download your images; the design, layout, structure and functionality stay behind. This is not an oversight and it is not going to change — it is the business model.
Squarespace is the same. WordPress.com, notably, is not: it exports to self-hosted WordPress whenever you like, which is a genuine and under-appreciated advantage.
The question to actually ask
Not "is lock-in bad" — obviously it is — but "what is the probability I outgrow this, and what does it cost me if I do?"
| Situation | Lock-in risk | Verdict |
|---|---|---|
| Local service business, 5 pages, no plans to expand | Low | Wix is fine. Take the convenience. |
| Content site expecting to publish for years | High | WordPress. Rebuilding 400 posts is brutal. |
| Shop expecting real volume | High | Shopify or WooCommerce — Wix ecommerce hits ceilings. |
| Portfolio for a designer or photographer | Low–medium | Squarespace, or Wix. Rebuilding is a weekend. |
| Anything a developer will later need to extend | Very high | WordPress. No API access to what you have built otherwise. |
| Business that may be sold or valued on its assets | High | WordPress. You want to own the asset. |
The cost comparison people get wrong
Wix Business is around £22/month, forever, and that includes hosting. A self-hosted WordPress site on Krystal is £6/month plus whatever you or someone else spends maintaining it. If you pay a developer £40/month for maintenance, WordPress is the more expensive option — the honest comparison is not £22 versus £6, it is £22 versus £6 plus your time or somebody's retainer.
What the extra buys is portability and ceiling. You keep the option to move, to hire anyone, to add anything. Whether that option is worth £16/month depends entirely on whether you will ever exercise it.
The compromise worth knowing
Start on WordPress.com. Free or ~£4/month, nothing to maintain, similar convenience to Wix — and it exports cleanly to self-hosted WordPress the day you outgrow it. It is the only mainstream builder-style option that does not make the decision permanent.
Published 24 August 2026. Prices and ownership change — check the comparison table for current figures, and the provider's own site before buying. No affiliate links anywhere on this site.