People expect me to dismiss website builders. I don’t.
Wix and Squarespace got good. For a certain kind of business at a certain stage, one of them is the right answer and I’ll say so.
Here’s the honest version of both sides.
What They’re Genuinely Good At
You can do it yourself. Drag, drop, type, publish. No developer, no waiting, no invoice for moving a photo.
It’s cheap to start. Twenty or thirty a month, hosting included. For a brand new business that needs to exist online by Friday, that’s hard to argue with.
The templates are decent. A designer made them and they work on phones out of the box. Starting from a good template beats starting from nothing.
The basics are built in. Contact form, gallery, sometimes a store. No plugins to hunt down.
Where It Stops Working
You end up looking like everyone else. Templates are popular for a reason, and that reason is a lot of people use them.
Speed is out of your hands. They load a lot of code to make the editor work. You can’t strip it out, because it isn’t yours.
You can’t take it with you. This is the big one. Outgrow the platform and you rebuild from scratch, because the site isn’t a set of files you own. It’s their system.
Odd requests hit a wall. Fine until you need something specific, then it’s just not possible, and there’s nobody to ask.
How I’d Actually Choose
Brand new, tight budget, need something up quickly, and the site is mostly a business card? Use a builder. Genuinely. Don’t spend money you need elsewhere.
Website is how you get most of your work? Care about speed and search? Have something particular in mind? Then you want something built, and you want to own the files.
One Thing Either Way
Register your domain yourself, in your own name, on your own account. Not through the builder, not through a nephew.
Own the address and you can always move the house. I’ve untangled enough of these to feel strongly about it.
Not sure which side you’re on? Let’s talk. I’ll give you a straight answer even if it isn’t hire me.