WordPress Versus Weebly: Which is Better?

When you decide to build a website, the question of which content-management platform to use may come to mind. WordPress and Weebly are both top performers in the website developing industry, and are both top picks for a lot of developers wanting to build a website of varying functionalities. I'll be breaking apart various aspects of both web builders, and providing my professional opinion of which programs benefit the most for your project.

Credit to: Weebly.com

Credit to: Wordpress.org

A Short History of WordPress & Weebly

WordPress was founded by Ryan Boren, Mark Jaquith, Matt Mullenweg, Andrew Ozz, and Peter Westwood and originally launched on May 27, 2003. Built originally to set up specifically blogs, it expanded to much more and became one of the most appreciated open-source programs on the Internet. 38% of all websites on the Internet are created using WordPress' content-management system, which is a feat like no other.

Weebly was developed in the heart of Pennsylvania by college students who decided there needed to be a way to easily design and develop websites with no learning curve. Founders David Rusenko, Dan Veltri, and Chris Fanini banded together after their project found success and created a private corporation around it. In 2018, Square announced they would aquire Weebly for $365 million dollars.

WordPress

Benefits

1. The software is completely free. WordPress was developed with an aim to keep the Internet dynamic and has always offered it's software for free.
2. It's open source. You can view the whole source code for WordPress and fork it however you want, and even create variations of the editor itself. The developers always wanted a transparent program, and has always kept it that way.
3. There are plugins for anything and everything. There are over 50,000 plugins that individual developers have made that adds flavors to WordPress. With limitless possibilities and functionalities the plugins add to the editor, you can create any website you could ever have dreamed of. 

Drawbacks

1. There is a learning curve. WordPress can be difficult at first and takes time adjusting to. However, there are thousands of resources to be utilized to start building websites with Wordpress.
2. Hosting is not free. The beginning allure of WordPress is that the software is marketed as free, and while that is true, there are costs to run WordPress, such as hosting and a domain.
3. There is no customer support. Since WordPress is just a free program, there is no massive support team behind the service. You have to pay outside developers when you run into issues.
 

Weebly

Benefits

1. There is no learning curve. Weebly's mission since it was founded was to make a simple website builder that anybody can utilize, and they've stuck to that completely.
2. It's perfect for simple, dynamic websites. Websites that don't require various functionalities are perfect for designing them on Weebly. You can't exactly build your own social media like you could on WordPress, but it's wonderful for beginners.
3. It's cheap. While WordPress takes the cake for being freely available, Weebly's prices are very attractive and well worth the money. 

Drawbacks

1. You can't built powerful websites. WordPress is superior for building advanced websites with powerful functionalities, and Weebly is not.
2. It's not free. If you're trying to find a freely available substitution, Weebly is not it for you.
3. There are thousands of less plugins than WordPress. The plugin library on Weebly doesn't compare to WordPress at all.

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