If you’re a small business and you’re looking to either DIY your website or hire a web designer, it’s important to know which website platform is the best one for you in 2025. I’ve used all of these over the years and am sharing the pros and cons of all the top platforms right now.
Let’s start with the most popular:
WordPress
As of 2024, WordPress websites made up 43.6% of all websites on the internet. WordPress continues to be one of my absolute favourite platforms to build on due to its open-source nature (it’s free and nobody can shut down your site), massive community and huge range of options for whatever you need to achieve. Basically, anything is possible with WordPress.
Due to the complete freedom that WordPress provides, it does have a reputation for being clunky and difficult to use. It’s like a remote control: a simple remote control with 2 or 3 buttons is easy to use but has very little functionality. A remote with 20 buttons is more complicated but gives you so much more.
Pros
- Open-source
- Large community of helpful users
- Large marketplace of free and paid plugins/add-ons
- Strong e-commerce capabilities
- Choose from multiple page builders (Divi/Elementor/Bricks and more)
Cons
- Due to the massive power and functionality, it requires a little more tech savvy
- Easy to over-complicate your website if you don’t set it up right
- Needs to be kept updated in order to run smoothly and stay safe from hackers
Cost
- $0 (Free) – You do need to pay for hosting though, and I don’t recommend skimping on this.
Shopify
For e-commerce websites and anyone selling products, you can’t go past Shopify. While it costs more than WordPress, it offers robust ecomm functionality, a large marketplace of add-ons and an easy user experience that makes it the go-to for small businesses with online stores.
While it offers less design freedom than other platforms, its themes are clean, beautiful and professional, and can be edited with the some coding knowledge. Shopify also offers something many find will extremely useful: analytics. Shopify boasts a powerful set of data so that you can use constantly be optimising your website for conversions.
Pros
- Purpose-built for e-commerce
- Many beginners find if easy to set up and use
- Large marketplace for add-ons
- Safe and secure
- Polished-looking templates
- Doesn’t require updating
Cons
- No free version and can get very pricey
- Limited design/customisation freedom
- Closed system (they control what happens to your site)
Cost
Basic plan starts at $42/mo (paid yearly)
Squarespace
In 2024, the biggest third biggest contender was Squarespace. Squarespace is known for being incredibly easy to use and beginner-friendly. You can quickly make an account and create a beautiful website with one of its many clean, professional-looking templates. It continues to be somewhat limited in its e-commerce functionality but is still perfect for anyone looking to open a small store that might not be the main purpose of their website.
Squarespace has also stepped up their page-building game with the introduction of their Fluid Engine builder, which allows far more flexibility with drag-and-drop functionality. It still requires the user to reposition everything on mobile view but if you’re a DIYer with a bit of time on your hands, this won’t be a problem.
Squarespace has also introduced email campaigns, which is huge and makes it one of the most convenient platforms to use for the busy small business owner in 2025.
Pros
- Very easy to use for beginners
- Easy to create a clean, polished website
- Basic e-commerce functionality
- Minimal tech knowledge required
- Doesn’t need updating
Cons
- Limited design capability unless you know code
- E-commerce capability is also more limited than WordPress and Shopify
- Closed system (they control what happens to your site)
Cost
$16/mo (paid annually)
Wix
Wix is another major player that is popular with beginners. Known for its drag-and-drop editor and ease of use, it’s a solid option. With its introduction of Wix Studio, a lot of its previous limitations have been addressed and it now has a very powerful page builder to support its other functionality, which includes a well-developed e-commerce system.
Pros
- Easy to use for beginners
- Lots of templates
- E-commerce funcitionality
- Doesn’t need updating
Cons
- SEO is unintuitive
- E-commerce capability is also more limited than WordPress and Shopify
- Closed system (they control what happens to your site)
Cost
$16/mo AUD
Showit
Showit is one of the smaller platforms out there but is popular among creatives due to the complete design freedom its builder offers. The main downside that comes with this freedom is that a Showit website isn’t actually responsive and they don’t score that well for accessibility either.
DIYers find it very easy to use though. While it doesn’t have e-commerce functionality, it can connect to WordPress for blogging if you’re willing to upgrade your plan.
Pros
- Easily build beautiful, unique websites
- Easy to edit for beginners
- Doesn’t need updating
Cons
- You pay quite a lot for features you’d get on WordPress for free
- Poor accessibility and code structure
- Needs to be redesigned on mobile
- Closed system (they control what happens to your site)
- No e-commerce functionality
Cost
$28.90/mo AUD (paid monthly)
Webflow
Webflow is a powerful web platform that is popular among web designer due to its clean code and an interface that makes advanced website-building approachable to people of all skill levels. You’ll almost certainly want to hire a pro to build your site if you go this route but once done, it’s pretty easy to edit yourself. Webflow is known for its animations and can create some really slick looking sites.
Pros
- Doesn’t need updating
- Outputs clean code and uses best practice
- Very appealing for web designers and developers
- Has the most powerful page-builder out of all platforms (minus some page builders on WordPress)
Cons
- Can get pricey
- Limited e-commerce functionality
- Closed system (they control what happens to your site)
Cost
$21/mo AUD (Billed annually)
Need help building your website?
Alchemy Creative builds high-end, high-converting websites on WordPress, as well as Squarespace and Showit. Check out my Custom Web Design package or get in touch directly to book a chat.
