Wix or Google Sites, which one should you pick in 2023?
Read this in-depth Wix vs Google Sites comparison to make a smart choice.
A perfect website builder is essential for your website’s success and to grow your business. It greatly influences your SEO, along with the website’s performance, uptime, and security which are factors that draw users’ attention.
There are a plethora of free & paid website builders available on the market so things can quickly become overwhelming for beginners while choosing the right website builder.
The features offered by free website builders are not promising and therefore customers may shy away from your site which can eventually lead to loss.
That is why a premium version of website builders is a must if you want your online business to reach the next level of success.
Also, the market is filled with too many mediocre services posing as the best ones. That’s why we made this guide to help you make a well-informed decision.
Today we have two advanced software – Wix and Google Sites– that we’ll compare in a head-to-head battle to see which one is a better website builder.
So, Which one is better and why?
Stick around if you have questions about that because they are about to be answered. Plus, you’ll find out what both software offer in terms of features, ease of use, pricing, customer support, and much more.
In a hurry? Check out the summary of the Wix vs Google Sites comparison below.
Comparison At a Glance
Wix is well-known as an all-in-one DIY website builder that offers a promising feature-set covering all aspects of a perfect website builder. Its flexible pricing plans fit different website needs while its ease of use makes it appealing to thousands of users.
Google Sites, on the other hand, is a simple cloud website builder with an intuitive interface and plain features making it straightforward to build a website, mainly for small projects.
1. Features
Winner: Wix. Wix packs an array of features that makes it one of the top-ranking in the market, whereas, Google Sites has a limited feature-set that lacks some of the must-have features.
2. Templates Library
Winner: Wix. Wix provides over 500 captivating templates with full customization but Google Sites offer only 50 templates along with limited customization.
3. Ease Of Use / Customizability
Winner: Wix. Both offer an intuitive interface along with drag-and-drop functionality. But Wix with its flexibility and more customizing options beats the plain and easy-to-understand interface of Google Sites.
4. Pricing
Winner: Google Sites. Google Sites with its completely free service takes the lead here but Wix offers 7 distinct plans for all types of website needs for beginners to the expert webmasters, at an affordable price.
5. Customer Support
Winner: Wix. Customer support at Wix has no comparison with Google Sites. It has a vast database, live options, and constant pop-up guidelines for building a website.
Wix Vs Google Sites: Short Verdict
Wix is the absolute winner of the comparison between Wix and Google Sites as it is far ahead of Google Sites in 4 out of 5 categories we evaluated, including features, template library, customer support, and even in the ease of use.
Not only this, but also in terms of SEO, eCommerce, and Blogging system, Google Sites does not even come close in comparison to Wix.Google Sites was only able to win in the pricing category as it offers free service. However, Wix with its remarkable feature-set is much affordable and a better choice.
1. Features
Features play a vital role to determine whether a website builder is worthwhile or not.
Wix’s Features
Wix offers a remarkable feature set that helps build a website that you dream of. So, let’s discuss the most prominent ones.
Wix Essential Features — Storage and Bandwidth are the features that depend upon the tier you go for. Storage space at Wix starts from 500MB to 50GB in its most expensive plan.
Two of its plans, Connect domain and Combo offer limited bandwidth of 1GB and 2GB respectively. But 2GB Bandwidth would be enough if your expected traffic is around 3000-5000 visitors a month. All of its other higher plans grant unlimited bandwidth.
Moreover, Wix offers a one-year free domain name for premium Combo and higher plans. In addition to that, all of its plans also come up with a free SSL certificate to protect your website while helping to boost your SEO ranking.
Wix App Market — Wix does not stop here. It allows you to extend the functionality of your website by integrating applications, widgets and tools. The Wix app market consists of a plethora of unique widgets and apps that can be installed with a single click.
The most prominent ones are Wix music and Wix bookings. Wix Music allows you to showcase your playlist and tracks with a fully customizable music player. This will help you promote music and sell it. Whereas, Wix Bookings allows your customers to book appointments, classes, workshops from your website and even pay for it.
On the upside, other industry-specific offerings include:
- Wix Stores
- Wix Blog
- Wix Music
- Wix Photography
- Wix Events
- Wix Videos
- Wix Restaurants
Wix Artificial Design Intelligence (ADI) — One of the unique features that Wix has to offer is ADI. It simplifies the website building process and makes it more efficient.
It starts by asking you some questions. According to the answers that you give, it will look up stuff on the web and then eventually build the whole website for you automatically.
This is so amazing. Like you will get a whole website ready without even building it. Often that site even looks better than the original site made by webmasters. Moreover, you can also edit the final result to make some tweaks accordingly.
Although you won’t get full control, still you should give it a try if you are not willing to invest time or build one by yourself.
Logo creation — Wix has much more to offer yet. Amongst its many high-end features, the Wix Logo Maker is one of them.
It allows designing and integrating an enchanting logo into your website. You just need to tell it about your business and it will suggest some ready-made logo. Just select one according to your taste and needs, then customize it.
Moreover, you can also import a logo and then customize it here
Backup & Restore Options — Wix allows you to restore previous versions of your site through Site History with a single click.
Wix SEO Features — Wix knows the importance of SEO, therefore it has made impressive efforts for its users. It has an SEO Wiz tool that makes SEO optimization straightforward by allowing and guiding you to adjust SEO parameters. It permits you to add or edit meta tags, titles, descriptions, headings, anchors, alt tags for images and so much more.
Moreover, you can also browse through its App market for many SEO-related widgets for further optimization of your website. Furthermore, you also get visitor analytics, where you can track the traffic that visits your site.
Google Site’s Features
When we talk about Google Sites, it does offer some worth-mentioning features, but surprisingly, it lacks some of the must-have features that put it in a bad position.
Integration with other applications– As Google Sites is a part of a massive suite of Google applications, it’s obvious that it would be pretty easy to connect to other web-based Google apps.
So, the Google Sites editor allows users to incorporate content from Google applications synced with your Google account. These include;
- Google Calendar
- Google Maps
- Google Sheets
- Google Drive
- Google Slides
- Google Forms
- Google Docs
With these options, you can upload various documents on your website saved on Google Drive or maps with a precise location. These added elements are arranged in blocks that can be aligned and customized according to your needs.
However, it does not allow the integration of third-party applications like Wix does.
Direct Search from Google Sites Editor — One outstanding feature is that you can search Youtube videos and Google images directly from The Google Sites interface. This further helps in directly uploading images and videos to your website without going to another tab. In addition to that, it filters those images that are for commercial reuse.
Moreover, there is something more fascinating about this feature. It can filter images by their dominant colors which helps in aligning the images with the website’s color scheme.
Announcement Banners — One simple, yet amazing feature, of Google Sites, is the announcement banners. You can use eye-catching announcement banners which can act as put a CTA, directing the users to a certain resource. You can add it either sitewide or on a single page. Moreover, you can customize its color and text as well.
Logo Creation — Unlike Wix, it does not offer a Logo Maker. However, it allows you to add an existing logo to your website.
Google Sites SEO Features — Unfortunately, there is not much to discuss here as Google Sites offer poor SEO features. It only allows you to specify the website’s title and URL. Alongside this, it has Google Analytics to keep track of the traffic on your website.
Real-time Collaboration — If you have ever used Google Docs then you would be very familiar with this feature. It allows you to collaborate with team members by granting them access so that they can edit in real-time as well. This special feature is an asset for those working on team projects.
With this being said, we need to keep in mind that Google Sites still lacks an eCommerce and blogging system. It also misses out on many important features such as social media links.
In conclusion, Wix comes with a complete package of impressive features, but the same cannot be said about Google Sites. Its limited features make Google Sites not even worth being mentioned in the list of actual website builders.
Winner: WIX
2. Templates Library
Every website owner wants his website to look attractive and professional. Templates are pre-made website designs that you activate and without any coding, you get your website’s design done and dusted.
Let’s check which one of Wix and Google Sites, provides a better template library along with its editing tools.
Wix leaves Google Sites far behind when it comes to design and customization. It provides more than 500 ready-made templates to choose from. All these templates are captivating and are entirely based on HTML5.
Wix has made it easy to browse through hundreds of templates by dividing all of these into 5 major categories.
These categories are Business and services, Blog, Community, creative, and store. These all are then subdivided into numerous tabs making it pretty easy to look for a perfect template.
These templates are even fully customizable with the help of built-in tools so that you can align them with your taste and website’s demand.
Moreover, they are also adjustable to all kinds of mobile and desktop devices. If you still can not find your desired template, it even allows you to customize the whole template from scratch on a blank template.
But the major drawback is that once you select a particular template, then you can not switch to any other template.
Let’s see how Google Sites fare in this category.
Google Sites does not offer a loaded template library like Wix, instead, it only offers around 50 ready-made templates to choose from. These limited templates are divided into categories like Personal, business, work, and education.
However, it gives you the option to customize these templates, such as changing the typography, color, adding certain elements, etc. But still, the customization options are limited.
That’s the reason the websites made on Google sites look similar. But yours may look a little unique from others on the platform, by different combinations of elements and their positioning.
At some corners, Google Sites also gives flexibility by allowing the editing of HTML codes of the chosen template. For some, it is easier to choose from a few options but many may argue that it’s better to choose from hundreds of different options available.
With all being said, the obvious winner of this particular category is Wix.
Winner: WIX
3. Ease Of Use / Customizability:
Website builders are there to make things simpler for you rather than making them complicated. Therefore, it’s essential to look for a website builder that makes building a website a piece of cake.
Wix has built such an intuitive interface that it can easily be mastered even by beginners without coding or website building knowledge. The system comprises a dashboard having all the setting options for your website and an Editor to work on your website.
This Wix Editor has simple drag-and-drop functionality that allows users to easily drag a particular element to the canvas and arrange them with regards to their needs.
So, its control panel and WYSIWYG interface make it super fast and easy to build a website while allowing you to unleash your creativity through this classical editor.
However, when you first land on its editor, you may find it difficult to navigate as it offers a lot of options. It will take a few hours to study and take in all the information that flows along with memorizing elements and sections’ positions.
In addition to that, it also brings a distinguished ADI tool which stands for artificial design intelligence. As the name itself suggests, it’s like having a website designer walking you through the website building process.
It actually builds the whole website for you based on the answers to the questions it will generate. This will help the system build a website tailored to your requirements efficiently. Meanwhile, you can also make edits to the final product you get.
However, if you want full control then this option is not for you.
Now let’s see what Google Sites brings to the table.
Google Sites does not bother its customers with a long hectic registration process. If you have a Google account, you will have one-click access to Google sites’ interface. After selecting the template, you can get to work in just a few clicks.
So simple, isn’t it?
Furthermore, It has an amazingly simple and extremely easy-to-understand interface. Unlike Wix, you can understand the whole interface at first sight as it only focuses on the essentials. It will only take a couple of minutes to get used to this intuitive interface and editor.
It’s just a one-page interface having everything within your sight at the same time which makes it super easy. Besides the main canvas, on the right side, you get all the options which are categorized into three tabs.
You can drag and fix the widgets, images, text box, etc anywhere on the screen, but with a few limitations.
What needs to be taken into account is that its simplicity is due to the lack of features and options it has to offer. But again, if you look at the motive of building a simple, not a complex website, then simplicity is quite a benefit,
In the end, Wix has an upper hand on Google Sites given that it offers much flexibility, options, control, and still manages to have an intuitive user interface.
Winner: WIX
4. Pricing Plans
Before choosing between these two, looking for the best value for money is also an important factor to look for. What do you think, which one of Wix and Google Sites provide cheaper plans?
Wix comes up with diverse plans fulfilling different website needs of the users, hence, making it suitable for everyone.
It starts with a free plan so that you can explore its service and get used to it. Once you are fully satisfied and want to make full use of it, then you can upgrade to a premium plan.
But keep in mind that its free plan will have limited features, will contain Wix ads, and you cannot have your custom domain.
Its premium plans are in two major categories; One is Website Plans while the other is Business and E-commerce plans.
The basic pricing structure of its Website Plans is;
- Connect Domain is its most basic plan that contains Wix ads. It costs $4.5 a month.
- Combo plan is most suitable for personal use which goes for $8.5 a month.
- Unlimited plan is its most popular plan for entrepreneurs and freelancers. You can subscribe for a price of $12.5 per month.
- VIP plan grants you extra and dedicated support along with free professional logo design for your business. It goes for $24.5 per month.
Wix Website Plans | Regular Price | Best-for | Discounted Price |
Connect Domain Plan | $4.50/month | Beginners | Check Price |
Combo Plan | $8.50/month | Personal Website | Check Price |
Unlimited Plan | $12.50/monthly | Entrepreneurs | Check Price |
VIP Plan | $24.50/monthly | Advanced Webmasters | Check Price |
Now take a look at the pricing plans of its Business and Ecommerce category;
- Business basic is the basic plan of this category that accepts online payments. It only costs $17 a month.
- Business Unlimited is the most popular plan as it offers most of the features to grow your business. It goes for $25 a month.
- Business VIP, the most expensive of all the plans as you get the complete Wix suite here for a price tag of $35 monthly. It also offers priority customer support.
Wix Business Plans | Regular Price | Best-for | Discounted Price |
Business Basic | $17 | New Business Owners | Check Price |
Business VIP | $25 | Advanced Webmasters | Check Price |
Business Unlimited | $35 | Large Business | Check Price |
All of its plans offer 14 days money-back guarantee so you can also explore and check the service before partnering with it for a longer-term.
Now let’s see how much does Google Sites cost.
Guess what?
Google Sites subscription is completely free of cost. You will have to pay nothing to get started with Google Sites. Anyone with a Google account can have complete access to all of its features without paying a penny.
This means you can connect up to 5 custom domain names with your website at Google Sites. Moreover, you will get unlimited storage and won’t see any Google ads as well.
As it’s a free website builder, the feature-set it offers is limited that hinders the making of a fully functional website. It also lacks some of the features that free versions of well-known website builders have to offer.
In conclusion, Google SItes takes the lead here for its no price tag for any of its features, but still, Wix offers affordable plans with much better features.
Winner: Google Sites
5. Customer Support
Another important part of building and maintaining a fully functional website is to have exceptional support from your website builder. When you face a problem, there must be a proper channel to solve your issues.
Wix provides a huge Help Centre so whenever you face a problem, the first thing you should do is to turn to its help center. It’s a complete and detailed support centre that consists of FAQs, and dedicated video tutorials to guide you in building your website.
It will cover most of the problems (if any) you face.
It even guides you step by step and gives tips about the elements and features in detail to make your website building process intuitive.
If you are not satisfied by the vast knowledge base, you can even approach specialists at Wix via Email or 24/7 callback service. They usually respond to emails within a few hours addressing your issues comprehensively. Wix is also working on providing live chat support and surprisingly it is available in many regions now.
Now, let’s look at the support options offered by Google Sites.
Google Sites does not provide that level of customer support that we just saw at Wix. It may be better if we say it’s miles off the competition to Wix in terms of customer support.
Google Sites does not offer any live support option to contact a real person to answer your queries. It does not have any email, call, live chat, or any such options to go for.
Well, it does have a help centre that contains comprehensively written articles or support documents that mostly address common issues or error messages you may receive and how to deal with them.
You can also send your queries on a community help forum. Furthermore, like Wix, there will appear pop-ups that will help you in building your site. But still, there’s a high possibility that such limited support may leave you stranded.
In short, Wix completely dominates in this category as well.
Winner: WIX
Which One Is Best For eCommerce?
Wix is the absolute winner of the two when it comes to eCommerce. It has a powerful eCommerce engine that allows you to start and manage online stores.
Moreover, you can also integrate many Ecommerce related widgets from the Wix App market which will further enhance your eCommerce business.
With its robust feature pack, it allows you to set up a product gallery, customize eCommerce templates, introduce special offers, web store management, etc.
On the other hand, Google Sites is out of the discussion as it does not have an eCommerce engine at all so it is not possible to launch a web store with Google Sites.
Which One Is Best for Blogging?
Wix is best for Blogging between the two as it has an amazing feature-rich add-on that allows you to create a blog on your website. Amongst numerous features, the most important is the option to add, edit, and update blog posts.
Along with this, it allows setting up SEO parameters and integrating social media options. Moreover, you can also schedule blog posts. However, it does not allow users to leave a comment unless they sign up with your website.
Here, also, Google Sites has nothing to be a part of the comparison as it does not have a blogging engine as well.
Which Is Better In Terms Of SEO?
Wix presents itself as SEO friendly and with its search engine optimization tools it helps boost your sites’ ranking on the search engine. With its Wiz SEO tool, you can align multiple crucial SEO parameters.
Moreover, video analytics, SEO-related Widgets, personalized SEO tools, and social tools can further enhance your ranking on search engines. Some of its sophisticated SEO tools are ‘SEO Patterns’ and 301 redirects.
In contrast, Google Sites offer mediocre SEO settings. The most important SEO feature it has to offer is Google analytics. So here, Wix unquestionably beats Google Sites in terms of SEO.
Final Thoughts
Wix wins over Google Sites in almost all of the categories, not to mention, Google Sites does not even come close to it in many. Wix is loaded with remarkable features, hundreds of stunning templates along with great customization options that give you super control over numerous aspects of your website.
Moreover, it comes up with excellent customer support and ease of use. It offers versatile plans at a great value for money that is best for all kinds of websites from beginner and expert level to eCommerce and enterprise-level websites. However, Wix is for websites with less than 30 pages.
On the other hand, Google Sites has a simple interface but comes with few customization options. Although it is free of cost, its limited feature pack can only help in building simple websites mainly for small projects.
Frequently Asked Questions
Should I choose Google Sites or Wix?
Without a doubt, Wix is the best option to go for. Its remarkable features, diverse plans, customer support, and ease of use would help you make an impeccable website with advanced performance and magnetizing visual impact. This will surely boost your business and rank your website on search engines as well.
Is Wix Good for SEO?
Yes, without a doubt Wix assists its users to build an SEO-friendly website that ranks well on search engines. For that, it offers Sophisticated and personalized SEO tools, SEO-related widgets, video analytics, etc. The most worth mentioning is its Wiz SEO tool that helps improve various SEO parameters.
Which is cheaper, Google Sites or Wix?
Google Sites is a completely free website builder with a simple interface allowing you to build your own website for free. However, with the array of features and affordable diverse plans, Wix has to offer, it does come up with a great value for money.
Is Wix worth it in 2021?
At a time when the internet is flooded with website builders, everyone trying to frame themselves as the best, Wix does stand out. Its promising features, customer support, interface, and ease of use make it worth it for all user categories.