Wix vs DNN (Part 1)

Creating a website today is easier than ever. The main problem is that there are so many different website design platforms to choose from. Some spend more money than others on advertising, which can cause those who don’t advertise to be swept under the rug in the public’s eye. It can be difficult to figure out which website design platform is the best for you and your business’s needs. In this article we will be discussing the major differences and some similarities between the well-known Wix platform and the less well-known DotNetNuke (DNN) platform, and tell you which one you should most consider using to grow your business.

Wix is one of the most well-known website building platforms available today, partly because they advertising on a lot of main stream media, and because they are one of the top-rated website design platforms in terms of its overall ability. However, overall ability does not mean it is the best platform for your needs. DNN is also an excellent website building platform and caters more towards a specific group of people, because of its features and abilities. In this first of two blogs posts about DNN versus WIX, I will be discussing the usability of the platform interfaces and pricing options of each platform as well.

Scalability

One of the biggest downsides of Wix is that it does not offer multiple installations, multiple hosting options, and multiple users to manage the site. DNN has capitalized on this downfall of Wix, and has allowed these actions to be taken, which allows for enormous scalability of the website in general and especially when compared to Wix. DNN also has fantastic structure which allows the platform to encompass many sites under one umbrella, leading to part of the large scalability of the platform. The bad part of all of this customization, combined with the scalability and multi-usage, is that it means the admin screen is a little difficult to use, but most users believe it is a small price to pay for its vast advanced abilities of the DNN platform.

Interface and Usability

The interface and usability of a platform can allow you to create a beautiful and properly working website, that visitors fall in love with. However, if you’re not using the right platform it can actually cause visitors to leave prematurely. Wix is easily one of the simplest platforms to use to design a website. The platform provides a simple and intuitive interface with drag and drop capabilities, and lots of templates to choose from when initially building a website. DNN is more time consuming, and can be overwhelming in terms of initially building a website because it allows for so much more customization than Wix does.

As previously mentioned, Wix has a low scalability, but it is not the biggest complaint that most of its users have though. The biggest complaint of Wix users is the platform’s slow loading and rendering times. Wix websites can have slow loading times for applications, plug-ins, PayPal functions, repeater boxes, and video while visiting and editing sites. Current users also tend to complain about the mobile view not being stable, multi-language support being complex, the website not being transferable (needing to rebuild your website from scratch when changing themes or layouts), and frequent bugs within the platform.

The main complaints from people using DNN tend to be a small support community from other users, and difficulty with customization because of how many options there are. Now that you understand how each site works, we will talk about the pricing options each site provides.

In terms of security, both Wix and DNN are PCI compliant, although DNN has better overall security because it is at the forefront of DNN’s development.

Pricing

When building a website, you need to have a budget in place for the website itself and anything else associated with maintaining and operating it. In this section we will discuss the price of owning a website with DNN and Wix, along with other costs that may be accumulated along the way.

To build a website with Wix is free, but provides almost nothing else other than forced Wix branding.  Wix offers a total of 8 subscription plans, 4 for traditional website creation and 4 for ecommerce websites.

• $14/Month - Combo Package: recommended by Wix for personal use, and provides a small number of tools and features.
• $18/month - Unlimited Plan: recommended by Wix for freelancers and entrepreneurs, and provides half of all of the tools and features available.
• $23/month - Pro Plan: Wix recommends it for those looking to do complete online branding, and this plan provides almost every tool and feature.
• $39/month - VIP Status: allows you access to all of the tools and features and gives the site owner priority service when contacting customer support.
• $23/month to $500/month - Wix ecommerce plans: Build upon ecommerce tools and features in a similar configuration as the plans mentioned prior.

Other costs associated with having a Wix website are the domain name ($14-$25/year), custom email addresses ($4/month per email address), Wix Ascend (SEO, videomaking, marketing integrations, live chat, email marketing, automation, and workflows)($0-$49/month depending on your service option), and any additional costs associated with purchasing modules in the Wix App Store, such as tracking and analytics ($0-$100’s).

DNN is free to use at its core, which includes all of the features and tools available, however, the main costs associated with it are the purchase of a domain name ($10-$20/month), and the purchase of any additional modules ($0-$100’s). Wix and DNN provide two very different pricing philosophies, which is a lot to comprehend.

The premium versions, of the already extensive DNN platform, called Evoq and On Demand, can be purchased for $3000/year, which is very pricey, although it is less expensive compared to the alternatives it competes with. Since you are reading this blog post you most likely will not be purchasing or using Evoq or On Demand. Wix and DNN provide two very different pricing options, which is a lot to comprehend.

What else do you need to know?

With all of this information presented to you, which website creation platform is best for you and your business, Wix or DNN? It probably sounds like Wix is your best bet, based on the usability of its interface and price, but it’s actually not the best choice for many businesses. To understand why, you need to know the features and tools that both Wix and DNN offer. For next week’s blog article, I will be discussing the features and tools you need to know about Wix and DNN. The features and tools of a website creation platform are incredibly important to developing a website that meets your needs and wants, as well as driving sales (Part 2 https://equatekinteractive.com/Our-Blog/wix-vs-dnn-part-2).