There are an abundance of content management systems and website builders out there, each of which offers unique features, benefits, and levels of performance to their users. But sorting through them all to find the right solution for your needs can be a time-consuming and laborious task.
So you might be wondering:
How do I decide which platform to use?
In today’s post, we highlight an old familiar face, WordPress, and compare it to new-kid-on-the-block XPRS, in an effort to help you determine which site builder is best suited for your needs. Both have distinct advantages for different situations. Likewise, both platforms have excellent features that the other doesn’t necessarily offer.
Introductions: WordPress vs XPRS
WordPress is pretty much the gold standard when it comes to content management systems. Launched in 2003 as a blogging platform, as of 2014, it has been used to create more than 74 million websites between wordpress.org and wordpress.com. It is built on PHP and MySQL and utilizes HTML5 as its programming language. Chances are, in your daily internet surfing you will visit more than one site that was built using WordPress.
XPRS is a brand spanking new website building tool that was launched earlier this year. Like WordPress, it is based on HTML5. However, unlike WordPress, XPRS is not a CMS. Instead, it is a visual editing tool. It uses a proprietary technology called POLYDOM, which essentially allows you to create a website out of smart content blocks. These blocks can be built and designed in endless ways, giving users an incredible level of flexibility in creating their websites. More than 20,000 websites have been created since XPRS came online, with that number growing by the day.
With the basics out of the way, let’s explore both of these programs in a head-to-head matchup to see which platform is best for your website needs.
Theme Creation: WordPress Offers Choice, XPRS Offers Quality
Both WordPress and XPRS offer users pre-made themes and templates to create their websites. In the battle of the number of themes, WordPress certainly wins with more than half a million themes currently available. There are presently just 200 XPRS templates available.
But here’s the kicker:
There is a vast difference in the quality of themes and templates available!
Since WordPress is open source, anyone can create a theme, which can sometimes result in a theme that is less than pretty, difficult to use, or both. Many of the themes are also outdated and look old fashioned. Usually, you wouldn’t want to use a theme that isn’t updated by its author either, and that narrows down the number of available themes to just a few thousand. Conversely, XPRS, while offering far fewer themes, offers a greater quality of themes for its users. Each theme is handcrafted by professionals and handpicked by XPRS to offer to its customers. All XPRS themes are up-to-date and always will be!
Making Changes to Your Website: XPRS Makes it a Breeze
Both XPRS (top) and WordPress (bottom) make editing your website’s text simple and straightforward.
There is a marked difference in the manner in which you can modify pages and edit websites in WordPress and XPRS. WordPress requires changes to the theme’s code to modify the way a page looks, necessitating you to have knowledge of coding or the money to hire a developer. On the other hand, XPRS makes modifying the page structure extremely simple with its visual editing system. In this regard, XPRS holds an advantage over WordPress, at least for everyday users who don’t know how to code.
Now:
When it comes to editing text, both WordPress and XPRS are simple and straightforward.
Again, XPRS users can edit their content using the built-in visual editor. WordPress users can make easy adjustments to their text via the WordPress CMS. On this point, it’s basically a draw between WordPress and XPRS.
Extra Features and Other Goodies: How do XPRS and WordPress Compare?
There is no doubt that WordPress is the platform to beat when it comes to content management systems. There really is no competition when it comes to the number of plug-ins, the SEO support, and the scalability of WordPress. That being said, XPRS offers a whole host of its own extra features and goodies. Let’s compare!
WordPress Has Plug-Ins Galore
There are tens of thousands of third-party plug-ins available for WordPress. Like its themes, some are amazing. Others are not. Nevertheless, from SEO to increasing the speed of a site to CAPTCHA, there’s something out there for just about any need.
Conversely, XPRS has no external plug-ins. This is due in part to the fact that so many features, like SEO and e-commerce, which must be added to many WordPress themes, are already built right into the XPRS platform.
WordPress is the SEO King
Again, WordPress has set the industry standard with SEO. Out-of-the-box, WordPress is already quite good at optimizing websites. But with dozens of available SEO plug-ins that supercharge its SEO capabilities, WordPress is the king when it comes to SEO.
Since WordPress is so well established on the SEO front, XPRS has a ways to go to catch up. But having said that, XPRS does have very good SEO support from Google that will take care of most SEO needs. Only SEO pros would find any functionalities missing.
XPRS Gives you Responsive Website Support From the Start
In a world that is increasingly accessing the web via mobile phones and tablets, having a responsive website is absolutely critical. In this department, XPRS has a clear advantage over WordPress. Every theme available on XPRS is automatically responsive. Users don’t have to do any coding or manipulation of their theme to get it to render properly on all devices. There’s no need to crop photos or adjust fonts either – it’s all done automatically.
The bottom line is this:
XPRS is a great choice for individuals and businesses that want a modern, responsive website without having to make customizations to their theme.
This isn’t to say that you can’t have a responsive WordPress website. To the contrary, there are scores of responsive WordPress themes. However, there are scores of non-responsive themes as well. Additionally, many of the premier WordPress themes that are responsive come at a cost. As discussed above, manipulations to themes is very difficult in WordPress, so if you find a non-responsive theme that you want to make responsive, you’d better prepare yourself for a few hours of coding or fewer dollars in your bank account.
E-Commerce Has Never Been Easier With XPRS
WordPress hosts thousands and thousands of e-commerce sites. With an abundance of themes that support e-commerce, and a variety of plug-ins like WooCommerce that can turn your website into a full-fledged online store, WordPress is a great choice for getting your online business up and running, particularly if you have a very large business.
The problem is that e-commerce is not natively built into WordPress. But in XPRS, it is. Not only that, XPRS includes e-commerce for free. There is no need to purchase an e-commerce template or download and run any e-commerce plug-ins. It’s a built-in feature from the start.
Get Your Blog on With WordPress
Obviously it’s hard to beat WordPress when it comes to supporting blogs. WordPress was developed for blogging in the first place, so after more than a decade of developing technology to support blogs, WordPress knows what it’s doing.
XPRS supports blogging as well. Like many of its other features, blogging is a built-in aspect of the platform so you can quickly and easily add a blog to your website. XPRS has some features missing from its blogging system, but it can still get the job done for people who want a sleek website with blogging capabilities for themselves or their small business.
Cost: WordPress is Inexpensive, But XPRS is Totally Free
For a lot of users, the cost of getting a site online ends up being one of the primary factors that determine what kind of site they have and the means by which they create it.
This is crazy:
XPRS is totally free!
As a free service, XPRS has the advantage in our head-to-head matchup with WordPress. You can create a website, select a theme, connect it to a domain, and get unlimited bandwidth and hosting, all for free. Considering all the other great features that are built-in to XPRS – SEO, responsive themes, blogging, and e-commerce – it’s a pretty great deal.
WordPress has many excellent free themes, but you should keep in mind that any customizations you need will require you to foot the bill for a programmer. Likewise, the best WordPress themes tend to be the premium ones, which will incur an expense as well. Other costs to consider are the domain and hosting. Domains are generally under $20, and hosting services can often be found for just a few dollars per month. But at the end of the day, all these costs add up, and it’s still money out of your pocket no matter how reasonable the prices are.
Head-to-Head Results
In terms of maturity level, WordPress clearly has the advantage over XPRS. But…
What does that mean for you?
You get a highly stable platform on which to build your website.
And, with thousands and thousands of designers and developers constantly working to improve WordPress, it looks to continue to be a go-to choice for many users.
Although XPRS is a new player in the game, it’s many free features and ease-of-use make it an attractive option. It’s a young service, though, and there are some kinks that still need to be worked out.
But it gets better:
XPRS’ intuitive and easy approach to web design could make it the future of website building.
For a large business with expansive website needs or large blogs like Medium or Mashable, WordPress is still the way to go. The flexibility and scalability of its CMS, the stability it offers, and the seemingly endless possibilities for themes, plug-ins, and customizations make it a highly attractive choice for individuals and businesses that have the capability or the money to tailor WordPress to their specific needs.
However, XPRS is the better option for individuals and small businesses simply because it’s easier to use. The visual editor takes the mystery out of web design so virtually anyone can create a slick website. With e-commerce solutions built right in, sole proprietors can quickly get their online business up and running without incurring any expenses or spending a lot of time doing so. XPRS is also the clear choice for other small business applications, such as creating a photography portfolio, developing a landing page for a new app, or putting a resume online.
What has been your experience using WordPress or XPRS? What features do you find the most helpful? Leave a comment below to get the conversation started!
Photo Credits:
Money by Pictures of Money via Flickr Creative Commons