I have had some experience using or trying other Content Managed Systems…. Weebly, Shopify and Joomla. A few years ago, a client asked me to make changes on a site he had created in Weebly. I was horrified at how clunky and blocky it was. I couldn’t make the changes he needed due to its limitations. Perhaps it has improved, but one criticism I’ve read is that Weebly is very basic on SEO (search engine optimization).

Shopify works if you want to set up a shopping cart quickly and easily. Adding products and setting up the cart software is great. But, you pay Shopify monthly and if you want to move your site elsewhere, you can’t. The bottom line is that any of these, including WIX, Squarespace or others I haven’t mentioned are not really FREE.

A recent article on the Codeinwp blog by Karol K. entitled “Wix vs Squarespace vs Virb vs Weebly vs WordPress Theme Builders” received these comments among others:

I’m pleased with the WordPress authors at Automattic, who provide the world WordPress community with free, open source software and continue to devote their time and expertise to upgrading it. Thousands of developers, hosting companies, designers and business entrepreneurs have put their faith in WordPress and earn their living from its code.

Still, some say it’s hard to learn. It is not WYSIWYG right on the page. To take the mystery out of your WordPress website, visit the “Learn WordPress” videos here, brought to you by Bluehost.