Weebly vs WordPress | 9 Key Differences to Know

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3.4

out of 5

3.4

out of 5
So, you’ve decided you want to build your own website – but you’ve already found yourself faced with a dilemma: Weebly vs WordPress.

We’ve Weebly is a drag-and-drop website builder that doesn’t require any tech skills to create a website, whether you’re building a portfolio or an online store. Everything comes built-in, from security features to hosting. It also has a free plan! Since it was acquired by Square, Weebly has adopted more of an ecommerce focus, and is used by over 30 million users around the world!

Try Weebly For Free Today[/taco_highlighted_block]

WordPress is better if you want full creative freedom…and don’t mind the extra work

WordPress and Weebly are both heavyweights in the website building world, but WordPress has the biggest boast – it powers around 40% of the internet! WordPress is an open-source platform, meaning you have ultimate freedom and flexibility, but you also need to look after the technical side. This includes finding your own hosting, running updates, and security.

Check Out WordPress Now!

Weebly vs WordPress: Quick Comparison

Can’t seem to decide which is better? Check out our quick comparison table below and see how the two titans face off against each other:

Category & Winner Weebly WordPress
Ease of Use
Winner:Weebly
Simple to set up and mostly easy to use, this drag-and-drop builder has a very low learning curve, making it ideal for beginners. More challenging to use than Weebly, WordPress has a steep learning curve. It has a user-friendly interface, but coding is sometimes needed to really make the most of this platform.
Design
Winner:Weebly
A modest selection of simple, stylish designs, which you can switch between whenever you like. Themes come with features built-in and are easy to customize, although there are certain limits to what you can control. Massive range of themes to choose from – you must make sure you pick a quality theme. Features don’t come included unless you choose a commercial or premium theme. You get total creative freedom when customizing your theme, but that may include some coding knowledge.
Features and Tools
Winner:Weebly
The features available depend on which pricing plan you choose. On the whole, you get a good range of features, including blogging and ecommerce, with a large app store to add any missing tools. Minimal features built-in, but an endless choice of plugins to add extra functionality to your site. These can cost and be careful of how many plugins you install, though, as too many can slow sites down.
Ecommerce
Winner: It’s A Draw
Weebly has a good range of ecommerce features that grow more advanced as you upgrade your plan. It’s not the best ecommerce builder out there, but it’s a solid option for small businesses. WordPress doesn’t come with ecommerce tools included, but with a plugin like WooCommerce, it can be used to build a much more powerful store than Weebly.
Apps and Plugins
Winner: It’s A Draw
Weebly has a large app store, where you can suggest or even build your own apps. Installing apps only takes a couple of clicks, and apps are ready on your site in seconds. WordPress has thousands of plugins to choose from, with new ones being built and added all the time. You should always make sure to check plugins are up to date and have good reviews before installing.
SEO
Winner:WordPress
Weebly’s themes come optimized for SEO, and make it easy for total beginners to start optimizing their sites for search engines. WordPress leaves SEO up to its users, but with plugins like Yoast SEO, even beginners can easily boost their site’s rankings.
Ongoing Maintenance
Winner:Weebly
Weebly is easy to look after because Weebly takes care of your site’s hosting, security, and any updates. WordPress needs a lot of ongoing maintenance – otherwise your site could crash, glitch, or even get hacked. You need to renew your hosting and keep up with any WordPress updates.
Help and Support
Winner:Weebly
Weebly has a help center and community forum, as well as email, phone, and chat support. WordPress has a massive community of users who fill forums with questions, answers, and tips for you to browse through.
Pricing
Winner:Weebly
Weebly has a free plan, and three price plans ranging from $6 to $26 per month. You get a free custom domain for your first year on two of its paid plans, and a free Weebly domain on the free plan. WordPress is a free platform, but you can’t publish for free because you need hosting at the very least. You also need a domain and security, but you should be able to get these included in your hosting plan. It’s also a good idea to budget for premium themes and plugins.
Are You Ready? Try Weebly Try WordPress

Still undecided? That’s okay, we think this topic needs a deeper dive too. Good thing we have this article to take you through each platform’s ease of use, design, pricing, and more, to find out for certain whether you should build your site with Weebly or WordPress.

Further Information

Ease of Use

Which is Best for Beginners?
The Winner

Weebly is easier to use then WordPress

Weebly is the more beginner-friendly and easy-to-use platform. It takes only minutes to get started, uses a simple drag-and-drop editor, and even guides you through the building process. WordPress demands more from its users – from hosting to building, it needs a lot more work.
Try Weebly
Ease of Use Weebly WordPress
Score 3.4/5 3.2/5
Coding knowledge needed? ✔️
Editor Section based drag-and-drop Backend editing: no templates or sections
What did our users say? “The editing screen is laid out quite nicely. It’s a good introductory-level web builder.” “Whether it was the phrases used or the site navigation, it took me a long time to know where to look for certain elements.”
Ease of Use
Winner:Weebly
May not be as easy to use as other builders, but Weebly delivers on what it offers. The time it takes to learn WordPress is a barrier to entry for many. It’s simply too different to recommend to a beginner who’s short on time.

One of the most common concerns for first-time website builders is how difficult it might be to create and publish your very own site. Will you need coding skills, or three desktops set up in your basement, in order to build a successful website?

Fortunately, the answer for both Weebly and WordPress is no. However, they do vary in how easy they are to use – let’s take a closer look at why.

Getting Started

Weebly is extremely straightforward to set up – you simply sign up (for free if you choose its most basic plan), choose your theme, and edit it until you’re ready to publish. You don’t even have to enter any payment details, meaning you can get started in a matter of minutes.

weebly homepage sign up
It’s easy to get started with Weebly – just sign up and start building for free. Click the image to visit Weebly!

WordPress is a little more complicated. While WordPress itself is free, to publish your website, you’ll need to find hosting first – which means it’s already less straightforward to set up than Weebly. You also need to install a theme and any plugins your site needs, as features don’t tend to come built-in.

Building

Once you’ve set up your account, you need to be able to build your website – preferably without tearing your hair out in the process!

Weebly isn’t as easy to use as some other website builders, like Wix, but it is easier to use than WordPress. This is because of its more basic and simplified editor – Weebly’s certainly not as powerful as WordPress, but that also makes it much more manageable for beginners.

Weebly has a simple, clean editing interface that lets you customize your chosen template within certain limits. It even gives you helpful tips and pointers within the theme – for example, the sample text actually explains how to edit and move text, making it super easy to get started.

weebly ease of use editor
Here you can see what Weebly’s editor looks like. Elements like text boxes and image galleries are easy to drag onto your page from the sidebar.

So what about WordPress? Should beginners just give up on their dream of building a WordPress site? The answer, of course, is no – but you should be prepared for a steeper learning curve and a longer building process.

Despite this, WordPress has made its editor as user-friendly as possible, without giving up any of the power people know and love. It has a clean, uncluttered interface, but it’s less helpful than Weebly’s – WordPress doesn’t hold your hand while you build.

Below, you can see how different the WordPress editor is compared to Weebly’s.

Top Tip! The WordPress account shown below has the WPBakery Page Builder plugin installed, which makes the editor easier to use. If you’re a WordPress beginner then we highly recommend installing this popular plugin, as the drag-and-drop editing style is more user-friendly than the normal editor. Find out more on the WPBakery website.
wordpress ease start building
WordPress works differently from a website builder – here, you edit your site from the backend, rather than making direct edits to a template.

You can see why WordPress is the more challenging platform for building a site – you’re building from scratch, rather than using a pre-filled template as guidance.

Further Information

  • Weebly is easy to use, but there’s easier out there. Read our Wix Review to see how easy website building can be.
  • Are you a beginner? Read our review of the Easiest to Use Website Builders for a helping hand.
  • WordPress.org can be pretty tricky – read our WordPress.com Review to find out if you’d prefer the simpler version.

Design and Customizability

Which is More Flexible?
The Winner

Weebly has the best design and customization

Weebly gives you a good level of creative control, and has all features built-in. Although you have more customization your site, WordPress requires extra effort – you can create a truly unique website, with hand-picked features and your own ideal structure, but you will have to do the work yourself.
Try Weebly
Design Weebly WordPress
Score 2.5/5 2/5
Number of templates 50+ 11,000+
Can you switch later? ✔️ ✔️
Mobile Responsive?
Design
Winner:Weebly
While Weebly may have dropped dramatically in design by 36%, it still offers a good number of templates and nice, professional designs. You may get full creative freedom and customization, but WordPress is undoubtedly harder to get to grips with.

Everybody wants to be unique, whether they’re online or in the real world. You don’t want to build a website that’s identical to someone else’s – especially if you’re marketing a brand or business. So which platform is better for creating a stunning standout site? Weebly or WordPress?

Themes

Weebly has a fairly modest collection of simple themes, split into six categories:

  • Online store
  • Business
  • Portfolio
  • Personal
  • Events
  • Blog

There are between six and 15 themes in each category. None of Weebly’s themes are likely to blow your mind, but on the whole, they’re clean and stylish. You can easily switch your theme at any time, which is a great bonus and makes any redesigns pretty effortless.

Unfortunately, Weebly’s themes are not mobile responsive. This is essential now that over half of global web traffic comes from mobile!

weebly themes
Weebly has a good range of simple templates, which you can easily browse and edit. Click on the image to browse Weebly's themes!

In stark comparison, WordPress has thousands of themes in its Theme Directory. You can search by the layout you want, which features should be pre-installed, or by subject (such as blog, holiday, or portfolio).

Top Tip! Because WordPress themes can be built and uploaded by anyone (including you!), it’s important to quality-check a theme before downloading it. For example, take a look at any reviews and ratings that have been left by other users, and when the theme was last updated.

Whereas Weebly’s themes are all free, you’ll find a mix of free and premium WordPress themes. These vary massively in style and layout because they’re made by so many different people!

wordpress theme directory
WordPress.org has a huge selection of themes to choose from, meaning you shouldn’t struggle to find the perfect design for your site! Click on the image to visit WordPress' theme library!

Customization

Once you’ve chosen your theme, you need to make it your own – this is the really fun part!

While Weebly makes it easy to add new elements, change text, and replace images, you’re limited by your theme. There are certain things you just can’t do, even compared to other website builders like Wix, which let you drag and drop things anywhere you like.

WordPress, on the other hand, gives you ultimate customization over your website.

Although you choose a theme for your site, you build each page and post in the structure you want, giving you much more creative freedom than Weebly could even dream of. This takes more time and effort, and it will help if you know how to do some basic coding. But if it’s total creative control you’re after, then you really can’t beat WordPress.

wordpress editor adding elements
Because you build your page from scratch with WordPress, you have the final say over how your page is built, rather than relying on a template for your site’s structure.

The features and elements you can add to your WordPress site will depend on the theme you choose – i.e. whether it comes with any features included – as well as which plugins you decide to install.

Further Information

  • Do you want better designs than Weebly’s, but less hassle than WordPress? Read our Squarespace Review to find the best of both worlds.

Features and Tools

Is Weebly or WordPress More Powerful?
The Winner

Weebly has the best features and tools

Weebly has the upper hand because its features all come built-in, and it even has an app market in case you need extra tools. WordPress has an enormous range of super powerful tools that can’t be dismissed – but you have to source them all yourself.
Try Weebly
Features and Tools Weebly WordPress
Score 3.5/5 2.2/5
Storage Unlimited N/A (depends on your hosting plan)
Industry specific features (e.g. menus, RSVP forms, etc.) ✔️ ❌(through plugins)
Edit from mobile?
Best For Small Businesses Blogging
Features and tools
Winner:Weebly
Weebly has all the necessary features with most of them coming built-in. WordPress has an enormous number of features of tools – all in plugin form, sadly. Not only do they have to be found but downloaded, usually at some cost.

While having a well-designed website is undeniably important, looks aren’t everything. Your website also needs some power under the hood to win over your visitors and make your life easier.

Blogging

Weebly comes with a great range of blogging tools to help get your blog started in a matter of minutes. Advanced sharing and scheduling features, social media sharing, and comment management are just a few of the features that set your Weebly blog up for success.

weebly vs wordpress weebly blogging features
You can start a blog quickly and easily with Weebly, and make use of its handy blogging tools.

Weebly is a solid choice for a blogging site. But if it’s a really impressive and powerful site you’re after, you can’t beat WordPress for its blogging features.

WordPress began as the ultimate blogging platform, and it’s held onto that title even as it’s grown to cater to all sorts of different sites. Its range of plugins, SEO capabilities, and level of customization all combine to create a unique platform for blogging.

Social Media Integration

Weebly lets you add links and social icons to your website, linking to your various social media accounts. There are 13 social networks to choose from, including Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

As you’d expect, there are plenty of social media plugins in the WordPress Plugin Directory – it’s simply a matter of choosing the one that’s best for you!

Marketing

Weebly makes marketing easy – you can create and send emails with just a few clicks. Its in-house email marketing service, Weebly Promote, integrates with your site so that you can choose a template, manage your contacts, and track your results, all from the same place.

WordPress doesn’t come with marketing tools built-in, but you can easily use a marketing plugin instead. The good news is, that there are some high-quality ones you can install for free, such as Jetpack.

Further Information

Ecommerce

Can You Sell Online?
The Winner

It's A Draw!

WordPress can give you a much more powerful online store when you build with WooCommerce, but Weebly actually comes primed and ready for you to build your own ecommerce website. Weebly is easier to start selling through, but WordPress gives you a more scalable store in the long-run. So it’s a tie!
Ecommerce Weebly (through integration with Square Online) WordPress (through integration with WooCommerce)
Score 4.2/5 4.2/5
Main Payment Options PayPal
Stripe
Square
WooCommerce Payments
PayPal
Stripe
Product types Physical
Digital
Service
Physical
Digital
Service
Subscriptions
Abandoned Cart Recovery
Transaction Fees 2.9%+$0.30 2.9%=$0.30
Product Limit Unlimited Unlimited
Stock Management
Automatic Tax Calculator
Ecommerce
Winner: It's A Draw!
Square Online is the ecommerce side of Weebly, available as soon as you get the platform with features built-in, so you can get selling quicker. WooCommerce is WordPress’s dedicated ecommerce platform. It has amazing potential for bigger online stores, but takes longer and needs plugins.

If you want to build an online store, then the platform you choose will need to have ecommerce capability. Luckily, you can still choose between Weebly and WordPress, since they both have ecommerce options. Let’s find out which one is better for you!

Weebly for Ecommerce

You can build your store and sell online using Weebly’s free plan thanks to its integration with Square Online. Its free plan lets you sell an unlimited number of products and comes with useful tools such as automatic tax calculators and in-store pickup options.  Pretty neat, right?

However, to remove adverts from your store and use your own domain name, you’ll need at least Weebly’s $12 per month Professional plan.

Weebly is a decent choice for building an online store, with basic ecommerce features such as shipping tools and inventory management all built-in automatically, ready for you to make use of.

weebly online store
Weebly is a good choice for entrepreneurs and small businesses looking to sell online. Click on the image to check out Weebly's sales tools!

It’s not quite in the big boy leagues just yet, though – you won’t find the same level of power that you’d get with a platform like Shopify, for instance. Still, Weebly’s been stepping up its ecommerce game since being acquired by Square, and should be an interesting space to watch…

WordPress for Ecommerce

While Weebly’s ecommerce features are all built-in, with WordPress, you need to install an ecommerce plugin. We recommend using WooCommerce – it’s the most popular ecommerce platform on the web, with over 70 million downloads so far!

wordpress ecommerce woocommerce
WooCommerce is an ecommerce plugin built for WordPress and lets you create a powerful and unique online store. Click the image to visit WooCommerce!

Once you’ve installed your plugin, you can begin adding products and building your store. The ecommerce features you get will depend on the plugin you choose. With WooCommerce, for example, you can show product ratings and reviews, set the currency, set shipping options, and more.

The main advantage of WooCommerce is its flexibility – you have much more control over your store than you do with Weebly.

Further Information

Apps and Plugins

What Extras Can You Get?
The Winner

It's A Draw!

Although WordPress undoubtedly beats Weebly in terms of sheer numbers, it falls down slightly in how easy those plugins are to install on your site. The quality of its plugins is also a factor that calls for caution, whereas Weebly is a much more user-friendly app provider with plenty still to offer. So it’s a tie!
Apps and Plugins Weebly WordPress
Score 3/5 3/5
App Market
Number of apps 360 58,000+
Integrations with third parties?
Apps and Plugins
Winner: It's A Draw!
While nowhere near as big as WordPress’s, its quality over quantity and Weebly is just easier to use and improve with apps. WordPress has a plugin for probably everything - but you have to be able to find and install them. For us, the sheer amount of effort doesn’t seem worth it.

Apps and plugins add extra functionality to your website, so you can expand beyond whatever features come with your theme.

You’ll find hundreds of apps in the Weebly App Center, where you can find everything from FAQ sections to live chat features. Apps are a great way to scale your site as it grows, and provide your visitors with helpful functions.

weebly app center
Weebly’s App Center contains hundreds of apps, and is super easy to navigate. Click on the image to visit Weebly's App Center.

There’s a generous amount of free apps, alongside a number of premium ones too – most apps let you start off for free, and then upgrade if you so choose.

Any of these apps can be added to your Weebly site in just a few clicks – it’s super easy, and completes in seconds.

Can’t find the app you’re looking for? Weebly even lets you suggest ideas for new apps via the Weebly Community, or build your own in the Weebly Developer Center for any coders out there.

WordPress has over 58,000 plugins in its Plugin Directory, blowing Weebly’s few hundred clear out of the water. Just like with WordPress themes, this collection is made up of plugins built by a range of people – so it’s to be expected that some are of better quality than others.

weebly vs wordpress plugins
WordPress has over 58,000 plugins in its Plugin Directory, meaning you should always find something you need. Click the image to check it out yourself!
Top Tip! Whether you choose Weebly or WordPress, don’t go overboard on the extras. This is less of a danger with Weebly, but piling tons of plugins onto your WordPress site can seriously affect your loading speeds, dragging your site down. Be picky about what you need, and don’t overwhelm your visitors with needless apps or plugins.

Just make sure to choose high-standard, up-to-date plugins for your WordPress site, or you could find unwanted bugs and breaks sneaking in.

It’s not as simple to install a plugin to your WordPress site as it is to install an app on Weebly. You shouldn’t struggle to install plugins, but it’s not so easy as a couple of clicks – you’ll usually need to go to your WordPress admin dashboard to install and activate your chosen plugin. Not rocket science, but not a three-second job either.

SEO

Which Will Help You Rank?
The Winner

WordPress has the best SEO

Despite Weebly’s SEO tools coming built-in, not to mention its very helpful SEO Guide and checklist, WordPress has to win. Its sheer power, plus the fact you can install plugins like Yoast SEO to maximize your site’s rankings, just can’t be ignored.
Try WordPress
SEO Weebly WordPress
Score 4/5 3/5
Customizable meta titles
Meta descriptions
Image alt attributes
SEO specific app
SEO prompts
Mobile friendly?
Keyword support
Google integrations Google Analytics
Google Search Console
Google Analytics
Google Search Console
SSL security
Personalized SEO suggestions
SEO
Winner:WordPress
While all the SEO features of Weebly are built-in and at hand, it can't compete with the sheer SEO-power WordPress provides With access to top-grade SEO software like Yoast, WordPress smashes the competition to deliver some of the best SEO tools on the web.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of making your site as appealing as possible to search engines – most of all, the almighty Google. There’s a seemingly endless list of things that you need to optimize, which is understandably daunting for beginners!

Luckily, you’ve got some help. Weebly, for example, has an Ultimate SEO Guide designed to see you from your first nervous steps through to confident SEO glory. Not only that, your Weebly site is already optimized to a certain extent, meaning you just have to fill in the blanks to get your site ready to rank.

WordPress works a little differently. Often lauded as the best platform for SEO, WordPress leaves all the fun technical stuff up to you. If that thought alone is enough to make you run for the hills, hold up and head to the WordPress Plugin Directory.

Once you’re there, install Yoast SEO, and let it pretty much manage your SEO for you. That’s right – this plugin makes SEO easy even for total beginners and is a must for any successful site. There are other SEO plugins out there, but Yoast SEO is the one we most recommend.

wordpress seo plugin yoast seo
Yoast SEO is the most popular SEO plugin for WordPress, and make SEO easy for beginners and pros alike! Click the image to visit Yoast SEO.

Further Information

Ongoing Maintenance

How Much Work Are They?
The Winner

Weebly has the best ongoing maintenance

Weebly needs a lot less ongoing maintenance than WordPress, because it’s all sorted in-house for you. WordPress is a constantly changing platform that requires more work to keep up with, which is why it loses out to Weebly in this round.
Try Weebly
Ongoing Maintenance Weebly WordPress
Site Speed Performance Score 72 (Needs Improvement) 76 (Needs Improvement)
Speed Index Time Score 24 51
Server Response Time Poor Poor
Ongoing Maintenance
Winner:Weebly
Being an all-in-one site, Weebly is a lot easier to maintain since it handles updates and security for you, making it the winner. However, it could still see some speed improvements WordPress is much harder to maintain because you’re responsible for running theme, plugin, and software updates, and staying on top of security for your site. This can be tricky when you need maintenance for potentially 15 different software on one site.

After you’ve built your website, you want it to stay at the top of its game. That means keeping it safe from bugs, hackers, and crashes, and making sure it’s running with all the latest updates. The more things you add though, the slower your site will be, so it’s important to keep track of your site’s speed. This is how fast a browser is able to download and show your visitors your web pages. This is crucial, as slow loading has been proven to affect conversion rates.

If that sounds like a lot of work, then Weebly will be the better builder for you. Why? Because it does all of that for you!

weebly ongoing maintenance
Weebly takes care of your site’s infrastructure, security, and more to keep your site performing at its best. Click the image to visit Weebly's homepage.

Weebly provides you with hosting and security, and runs any updates automatically to keep your site safe and secure. You don’t need to worry about renewing anything other than your Weebly subscription – instead, you can just focus on your website, and let Weebly take care of the technical stuff.

WordPress, on the other hand, calls for much more care and attention. It’s super important not to fall behind on WordPress updates, as this can open up your site to security breaches and glitches.

The good news is that a quality WordPress hosting provider, such as Bluehost, will run these core updates for you automatically. You’ll also need to update your theme and plugins, but having those automatic updates does mean you can relax a little more.

weebly vs wordpress bluehost hosting
Bluehost is the best WordPress hosting provider, and helps you out with site maintenance by running automatic updates and optimizing for fast site speeds. Click the image to visit Bluehost!

On that note, another important factor to stay on top of is your hosting. The type of hosting you need can change over time as your site grows, so be ready to upgrade in order to avoid crashes. If you’re happy with your hosting plan, then all you need to do is renew it on time to keep your site live.

All in all, Weebly is like choosing an all-inclusive holiday, where everything is taken care of for you. You don’t need to run around sorting out hosting or security because Weebly’s got your back.

WordPress is more of a camping trip, where you need to check on your tent pegs and zips regularly to make sure the tent doesn’t fall down or get invaded by bears. Some people love that hands-on approach and enjoy the responsibility that comes with a WordPress site.

Further Information

Help and Support

What Happens If You Get Stuck?
The Winner

Weebly has the best help and support

We know, we know – WordPress has endless guides and invaluable support forums, and that shouldn’t be sniffed at! But Weebly has direct, in-house expert support agents to answer your questions, which is especially helpful for beginners, and tips this section in Weebly’s favor.
Try Weebly
Help and Support Weebly WordPress
Score 3.3/5 1.3/5
24/7 support
Live Chat
Phone Support
Email Support
Help ad Support
Winner:Weebly
Weebly offers a solid range of support options, being able to contact its support team via phone, live chat or email, as well as decent Knowledge Center For a builder as tricky to get to grips with as WordPress, its lack of in-house support options are a real let-down

Weebly has an in-depth Support Center, where you can search for answers or browse through various help articles. You can also check out its blog, Inspiration Center, and Community pages for more information. If none of that works, you can email Weebly support 24/7 with more specific questions, or contact them during business hours via live chat or phone.

WordPress doesn’t have live chat or email support – instead, it has an impressively large number of support articles, forums, and community pages. That’s the bonus of having such a large WordPress family out there, asking the same questions as you!

wordpress support
WordPress has a thorough support system for you to browse when you need help. Click the image to visit WordPress support.

WordPress also has official articles on its site to help you. These are thorough and detailed but can be pretty dense, so make sure you’re sitting comfortably if you need to get through them!

The real goldmine of WordPress support lies in its forums, where you can browse through past threads and even create your own topics for questions you can’t find answers to. You can also get support through a good hosting service, like Bluehost. They provide tons of guides and support for both its service and WordPress in general. It can be pretty overwhelming, but if you understand the method to its madness, you’ll be just fine.

The main point to make here is that Weebly has in-house experts on hand to help you out when you get stuck. That’s the big difference between WordPress and Weebly’s help and support options.

Pricing

Which Is Better Value – Weebly or WordPress?
The Winner

Weebly has the best value for money

This is a pretty hard round to call, but we think Weebly deserves the title – while WordPress is free, it comes with a lot of extra costs, whereas you can actually build and publish your site using Weebly’s free plan. You don’t need to worry about hosting renewal prices, or paying for a premium theme with Weebly. You know exactly how much you’ll be paying from day one, and its prices are budget-friendly to boot.
Try Weebly
Pricing Weebly WordPress
Score 5/5 4.8/5
Free plan or free trial? Free Plan Free Plan
Number of plans 4 N/A (Depends on your web host)
Starting price $6 WordPress: $0
Hosting: $2.75+
Personal plans Combo: $6
Professional: $12
N/A
Business plans Performance: $26 N/A
Ecommerce included?
Pricing
Winner:Weebly
With built-in features and a very affordable starting price, Weebly remains one of the best value-for-money builders out there While you can start WordPress for nothing, the price soon hikes up with all the other inclusions, like hosting, themes, security, and plugins.

It’s all very well dreaming of your ideal website, but at the end of the day, you need a platform you can realistically afford and maintain in the long-run. Let’s take a look at how Weebly and WordPress compare.

Weebly Pricing: All In One

Weebly has three pricing plans ranging from $6 to $26 per month (billed annually), plus a free plan. This means Weebly has options for sites of different types and sizes, whether you’re building an online store or a small portfolio.

Take a look at the basics of each plan below:

  • Free plan: $0 – comes with free SSL security, a Weebly.com domain, and Weebly adverts onsite, and lets you sell online. Best for building and perfecting your site before promoting it.
  • Personal: $6/month (billed annually), or $9 month-to-month – lets you connect your own domain, but still displays adverts. Best for very basic sites.
  • Professional: $12/month (billed annually), or $16 month-to-month – removes adverts and unlocks better features. Best for small online stores and professional personal brands.
  • Performance: $26/month (billed annually), or $29 month-to-month – unlocks professional ecommerce features, advanced analytics, and priority support. Best for business sites.
wordpress vs weebly pricing plans
Weebly has set pricing plans that include a range of features, including hosting, a free domain, and security. Click on the image to visit Weebly's pricing page.

You get a free domain included on Weebly’s Professional plan and above, when you choose an annual plan. This free domain lasts for your first year and is especially good for anyone just starting out, as it means you get a professional domain with zero financial risk.

Weebly’s paid plans don’t come with a free trial, but you do get a 30-day refund period in case you change your mind.

WordPress: Pricing Break Down

WordPress doesn’t have price plans – because it’s an open-source platform, WordPress is free!

Before you go racing to sign up, though, you should know there will be some cost involved. This is much harder to accurately pin down because it varies massively depending on the services you choose.

Before you can publish your WordPress site, you’ll need to sort out a few things. Here are the main areas you’ll need to factor into your budget:

Hosting

This can cost anywhere between $1 and $150 per month depending on what type of hosting you need, and which provider you choose!

A website needs to be hosted on a server before it can be accessed by searchers of the net. Typically, a web hosting provider (like Bluehost) will offer space for clients to rent out or buy so they can keep their sites up and running.

Builders such as Weebly or Wix have their own, internal hosting that is included with the price of a plan, so you don’t have to worry about finding a provider. It does mean you are tied to that builder and their services, with some servers being faster than others.

Top Tip! Bluehost is the best provider overall for WordPress hosting. Its cheapest WordPress hosting plan costs just $2.75 per month, while its more advanced managed WordPress plans start at $24.95 per month. This gives you a realistic idea of how much you could expect to pay for quality hosting.
blue host prices new
Bluehost’s managed WordPress hosting plans range from $2.75 to $13.95 per month (promotional prices for new users). Click on the image to visit Bluehost

Domains

Your domain name doesn’t come included in your WordPress site as it does with Weebly – instead, you need to register it elsewhere and connect it to your website. You can search and buy a domain from popular domain name websites such as Domain.com. Domains vary in price depending on what you’re looking for, but the standard price varies between $10 and $20 per year.

Some hosting providers, like Bluehost, include a free domain for your first year, so this is something worth looking at if you need a new domain.

Top Tip! Domain.com is one of the most popular domain registrars, and makes it easy to get started and search for a domain for your website. It even offers some great deals – you can get 25% off your domain name using the discount code WBE25 – so it’s worth checking out if you’re trying to keep costs low.
domain.com domains
Domain.com is a well-known domain registrar, and offers a range of domains at low prices. Click the image to visit Domain.com

Security

While Weebly automatically includes free SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) security in its plans, you need to install this yourself on WordPress.

The easiest way to get SSL security is to choose a good quality hosting provider that includes it for free in your hosting plan – providers like Bluehost, HostGator, SiteGround, and InMotion all throw SSL in as standard.

For extra security, you can buy a more advanced SSL certificate from your hosting provider – for example, HostGator offers SSL certificates ranging from $19.99 to $269.99 per year.

Top Tip! If your provider doesn’t include SSL in its plans, then you can get a basic SSL certificate for free from Let’s Encrypt, a non-profit certificate authority.
lets encrypt free ssl
Let’s Encrypt is an open certificate authority where you can get an SSL Certificate for free. Click to explore Let's Encrypt in a new tab!

Plugins and Themes

As you already know, you may need to spend a bit of money on high-quality, professional themes, and plugins. Again, these are things you can get for free, but it’s worth setting some money aside in your budget just in case you do need to go premium later down the line.

Further Information

Weebly vs WordPress: Our Overall Winner

This article has laid Weebly and WordPress bare, so you know exactly what you’re signing up for from the get-go. We’ve covered each platform’s ease of use, designs, features, and more – you can get a good picture of these two platforms and who they’re best for. WordPress is the more powerful platform, but that also makes it more of a handful to build with, whereas Weebly is more basic but easier to use. But our ultimate winner and recommendation is…

weebly logo
The Winner

Weebly is the better builder overall!

Weebly wins! While WordPress fought valiantly with its creative freedom and endless customization, it was its head-scratching complexity that sadly lost it in this race. If you have the time and passion to build with WordPress, go for it! But for those of us who need a website sooner rather than later, it’s best to keep it basic, and that’s exactly what Weebly excels at. It can be clunky and slow, but ultimately it gives you exactly what you need for a very affordable price. And sometimes you can’t say fairer than that.
Weebly Wins! Try It Today!

We’ve given our verdict, but as we said in the beginning, the best builder is really what’s the best builder for you – so let’s summarize the qualities that make each builder special in their own way…

We Recommend Weebly If...

  • You need a website published quickly
  • You’re a beginner
  • You don’t need a complex website
  • You want to start a small online store
  • You’re working on a tight budget
  • You know a little code, but don’t want to rely on it too much

We Recommend WordPress If...

  • You need to build a complex website
  • You have coding knowledge
  • You want complete control over your site
  • You’re happy to pay to build your site
  • You want to create a powerful website
  • You’re launching a large blog

Who Do We Recommend Overall?

If any of these considerations apply to you, then you have your answer. If you’re still in doubt, here’s our final recommendation: use Weebly. You have nothing to lose by trying out its free plan, and overall, it’s the easier, cheaper, and less high-maintenance platform.

Don’t just take our word for it – take Weebly’s free plan for a test drive and see what you think!

Website Builder Guide aims to provide you with honest data. That’s why we conduct our own research and obtain direct, personal insight. Click here for further information.
Written by:
Lucy Carney is a Content Manager at Website Builder Guide, specializing in website building, ecommerce, and digital marketing. Previously working as a Writer and then Senior Writer on the brand, Lucy has 6 years of hands-on experience testing web building platforms including Wix, Squarespace, and Shopify. Lucy is passionate about using her knowledge to help small business owners build their online presence and achieve their goals. She’s reported on industry trends over the years, attended events such as the eCommerce Expo, and advised readers directly with over 400 comment replies on the site to date. Her work has also featured on other online publications such as the Shopify Partners Blog, Usability Geek, Serpstat, and Open Source, and has over 100 articles published on the Website Builder Guide blog.
Researched by:
natasha_willett
I love to understand human behavior and the cognitive biases that drive us to do what we do. For over nine years I have worked as a mixed method researcher – research using a mix of numerical data and personal experiences – across a range of sectors, from insurance and policy development to finally arriving at Website Builder Guide five years ago. Fascinated by consumer decision-making, I meticulously built our leading ranking methodology to explore where providers like Wix sit within a competitive industry and what value they truly bring to our audience.
As a member of the Market Research Society, I’m an advocate for high ethical, commercial, and methodological best practices. All of this combines to give you the most ethical recommendations based on real data.

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