TemplateMonster or Wix? What Is a Better Choice?

You have a number of tools available to power your website creation and growth today.  And they are quickly getting more and more comprehensive and newbie-friendly year after year.

Having a wide array of options is always great, isn’t it? However, the more you have to choose from, the harder it is to make a choice.

In this post, I will compare the two most popular go-to places to jump-start a process of your website creation: TemplateMonster vs. Wix.

Let’s get started!

#1. TemplateMonster

One of the biggest birds on the global template market, TemplateMonster offers high-quality templates since 2004.

They are known for providing some of the most advanced, feature-rich templates that marry quality with functionality.

Most excitingly, last year, TemplateMonster platform turned into a global marketplace.

They now deliver to their customers the best themes created by developers from all over the world.

The Range of Products Offered

TemplateMonster marketplace boasts one of the largest and most versatile range of templates and tools for building websites.

• You will find there some of the most appealing templates for blogs and corporate websites running on a CMS.
• You will easily find your perfect e-commerce template browsing a collection of WordPress, Joomla, Magento, PrestaShop, WooCommerce, Shopify and other themes.
• TemplateMonster also features high-quality HTML themes and landing pages for those of you, who prefer working with code.
• Besides templates, you will also find a number of premium plugins and tools. They will empower your site with some cool additional features, including integration with PowerPoint, Unbounce, PSD, third-party email services etc.

Below is the list of popular website building platforms, the themes for which are offered by TemplateMonster:

• WordPress (1871 themes);
• Joomla (1032 templates);
• PrestaShop (982 themes);
• Magento (459 items);
• WooCommerce (435 templates);
• Shopify;
• OpenCart;
• VirtueMart;
• MotoCMS;
• Drupal;
• Muse;
• etc.

Template Quality and Functionality

All the templates offered by TemplateMonster undergo a strict verification procedure and multiple-point quality checks.

That’s why it’s next to impossible to stumble over a poorly coded template on their website.

There’s a number of template features that TemplateMonster clients will enjoy.

These are as follows:

• Responsiveness. Keeping up with modern times, TemplateMonster company delivers you responsive themes, that are mostly also Retina-ready.
• Cross-browser compatibility. All present-day themes on this marketplace display just the same for all website guests, no matter what browser they use.
• Ease of customization. Whether you’re building a blog, a corporate website or an e-commerce store, recent TemplateMonster themes come with premium pre-built editors. Mostly, these editors are WYSIWYG and let you adjust layouts and add content in a convinient drag-n-drop mode.

• SEO-friendliness. TemplateMonster recognizes the importance of the template when it comes to SEO. They deliver templates with clean and well-commented coding that search engines love. Many themes come with pre-built SEO optimization plugins that will improve your runking in search engines.
• Documentation and Customer support. With decades of template creation experience, TemplateMonster has generated a huge base of step-by-step guides and tutorials. You will get a template of your choice shipped with a comprehensive documentation. You will also get a highly-praised awards-winning 24/7 support. It is available via live chat, phone, and a tickets system.

TemplateMonster team also offers custom customization services if you need to implement a bespoke functionality for your website.

So, choosing a theme at TemplateMonster, you’ll definitely end up right with what you need.

Pricing Policy

TemplateMonster’s pricing policy is pretty straightforward and transparent. To purchase a template, you’ve got to purchase the template’s license.

A single-site license entitles you to use the chosen theme on one website. Such a license would typically cost you around $45 – $75 for HTML and CMS websites, and $75 – 140 for an e-commerce site.

Under this license, you typically get all the stock imagery that you will see in the template demo. This nice-to-have extra lets you save money by purchasing stock imagery later on.

Another licensing option is GPLv3. If you opt for a theme licensed under GPL, you can use it for as many websites as you wish.

Power ten websites with a single multi-skin GPL template. Typically, GPL templates cost just the same as a similar single-site licensed option.

Please, keep in mind that GPL templates don’t include the stock images.

#2. Wix

Founded in 2006 in Israel, Wix also offers you a number of stunning templates to power your web presence.

Wix templates are HTML5 compatible. They can be customized within the cloud-based WIX builder.

Along with the builder and themes to build a website, Wix also provides you with their own hosting solution and a domain name.

The Range of Products Offered

Wix is a one-stop website building solution aimed at empowering your web presence.

With Wix, you can create as many websites as you need. Choose your templates and customize your sites within the Wix WYSIWYG editor.

All of the themes featured on their website are Wix-created themes.

They do not run on any CMS or e-commerce engine. You can use them only with tools and services provided by Wix.

At the time of me writing this post, the themes offered are divided into the following categories:

• Business;
• Online Store;
• Photography;
• Video;
• Music;
• Design;
• Restaurants & Food;
• Accommodation;
• Events;
• Portfolio & CV;
• Blog;
• Health & Wellness;
• Fashion & Beauty;
• Community & Education;
• Creative Arts;
• Landing Pages.

Then, you simply make your template choice based on the UI that you see on the Theme Preview and jump ahead to the template customization.

Wix Templates and Experience

Wix platform brings you a simplified website powering experience.

The templates feature modern eye-catching pages but are not very extensible. You may find it hard to integrate third-party plugins or extensions.

You are limited by what Wix delivers and have to stick with it.

For example, Wix c-commerce themes offer only three payment options:

• Credit cards;
• PayPal;
• Offline payment.

You can not add your own custom payment methods.

Pricing Policy

Wix is a freemium, subscription-based tool. This means, that you can build a basic Wix website for free.

In this case, your storage and bandwidth will be limited. You’ll have to stick with wix.com domain name and will see Wix ads on your website.

In my opinion, the free Wix plan is most fitting for personal blogs and pages.

If you would like to run a business or e-commerce Wix website, you’ll have to pay monthly for an advanced plan.

Prices vary from $4.5 to $24.5 per month. For example, if you want to have a custom domain name and unlimited bandwidth, this will cost you $12.5 per month.

So, a year of running a basic Wix website will cost you $150 in this case.

See the detailed description of Wix plans below:

Wrapping Up

We’ve just looked into two most popular website creation solutions TemplateMonster and Wix.

TemplateMonster offers you a wide range of feature-rich templates to power your website.

They are stand-alone solutions that are highly customizable, SEO-optimized and responsive.

Many of them let you easily create websites with intuitive built-in plugins.

The themes offered on TemplateMonster marketplace would be ideal to power blogs, personal, business or e-commerce websites however small or large.

Wix is oriented toward the ultimate simplicity of website creation. They offer you everything from hosting and domain name to templates and drag-n-drop Wix editor.

With Wix, you pay month by month. As a result, for a year of running a website with them, you spend more than if you would paying a one-time fee for a CMS template you can use with no time restriction.

In my opinion, Wix will be an ideal solution for personal websites and small-scale business and e-commerce websites, the owners of which do not need a lot on top of a pretty basic web presence.

Which one of the two options appeals to you more? We’ll be glad to hear from you in the Comments section below.

Stay tuned for more!