In this article, we compare two popular website platform; this is the battle between WordPress and SiteBuilder. Building a website with little to no technical experience has been getting easier and easier as the web continues to evolve. Hundreds of companies now offer site building platforms where you basically just need to drag-and-drop or edit a few options in order to create a functional, attractive web site. With all the options that are available, how can someone know which one is truly the best one for their needs? Here, we take a look at two such platform, slash, content management system (CMS), that are currently being used by a number of users: WordPress and SiteBuilder.

WordPress vs SiteBuilder

If you’re looking to build your own web site using a free site building platform, there’s a good chance that you’ve stumbled upon either WordPress or Parallels’s SiteBuilder program. Both are very powerful and easy-to-use programs, but one platform has stood the test of time and continues to dominate the market. But for now, let us look at the features of each and see which one emerges ahead at the end.

Both programs offer an easy install option, and many web hosts offer a quick installation of the platforms. Basically, you answer a few questions about how you want the site set up and the site is ready to go in less then a couple of minutes. Also, the user interface, or admin area, is extremely user friendly and most people are usually able to learn the basics of the programs with little outside help.

Out of the box, WordPress is considered to a be a blogging software, but it has evolved into a full-blown CMS due to the amount of features that have been developed for the software. SiteBuilder is meant to build a website, with a blog option as an add-on, but the blog is not the main selling point.

New users may find SiteBuilder a bit easier to use at first, as it offers a drag-and-drop option for most of the design elements of the site. Also, SiteBuilder comes with tons of templates that you can choose from. WordPress only has a drag-and-drop option on certain themes and areas, and, even then, it can be a bit complicated to learn at first without a good tutorial. A large amount of themes are not preloaded on WordPress either, as the current version only comes with two themes.

Why WordPress Takes Over

That is where most people will say the advantages of SiteBuilder stop and where WordPress starts to dominate. WordPress is the most downloaded free CMS available online, and for good reasons. While the software does not come preloaded with themes, there are thousands of themes that are available for free download. WordPress even has a large amount of premium themes, which allows you to create an e-commerce or content rich site that rivals other custom made sites, all at a low price. Indeed, higher quality WordPress themes can be purchased from websites like ThemeForest.

In addition to the great selection of themes, WordPress has something called plugins which allows you to add functions to a web site easily. This can be from adding a contact form to adding a checkout area for e-commerce sites. While SiteBuilder has a lot of modules that are similar, WordPress has the sheer volume in the plugin department.

Finally, WordPress gained popularity by having well-designed code that naturally does extremely well in getting web sites ranked high in the search engines. People who are looking for the best possible CMS for SEO, or search engine optimization, usually lean towards WordPress because of how powerful it is in this regard. Also, 3rd party developers have worked tirelessly on developing plugins to help take advantage of the natural power that the software possesses.

When starting a site, both of these platforms will more then likely be a great starting point for anyone who is new to the website industry. However, as you gain more experience and want to expand on your website, slowly migrating to WordPress for the reasons discussed above should be the path to take. The best advice to anyone looking to get started is to learn WordPress immediately and save a ton of time and frustration in the long run.

If you want to learn how to create your own WordPress blog or full-blown website, we strongly suggest that you read our How to install WordPress on HostPapa article.