Your website platform is one of the few decisions that is hard to undo. It decides who controls the site, what it costs each year, how easily your team can change it, and how much work it takes to leave if you outgrow it.
A note before we start: we build websites on WordPress, so we are not a neutral party. We have tried to give every platform a fair hearing anyway, because choosing the wrong one costs you far more than it costs us. Where Wix, Squarespace or Shopify is the better choice, this guide says so.
Wix and Squarespace work in much the same way, so we group them together. And “WordPress” means the free software from WordPress.org on hosting you choose, not WordPress.com, a hosted service that can restrict themes and plugins much as a builder does.
The short answer
- Choose Wix or Squarespace if you need a simple site quickly, you are happy to build and update it yourself, and you don’t expect it to grow much.
- Choose Shopify if selling products online is the heart of the business: a catalogue, stock, shipping and payments.
- Choose WordPress if the website is a long-term business asset. You want to own it outright, publish plenty of content, be found in more than one language, and grow without changing platform.
The three platforms at a glance
| Compared on | WordPress | Wix or Squarespace | Shopify |
|---|---|---|---|
| Best for | Content-rich business sites that will grow | Simple sites on a small budget | Product-led online stores |
| What it is | Open-source software on hosting you choose | A website builder and host in one | An online store platform and host in one |
| Ownership | Full: files and database move with you | Your content is yours; the site stays behind | Your store data is yours; the theme stays behind |
| Cost structure | Build, hosting, licences, maintenance | One subscription plus paid add-ons | Subscription, apps and payment fees |
| Editing | As simple as the build makes it | Very easy drag and drop | Easy, within your theme’s sections |
| Design freedom | Almost unlimited | Wide, within the editor | Theme-based; deeper changes need a developer |
| Multiple languages | Mature plugins, separate URLs per language | Built into Wix; Squarespace relies on an add-on | Supported, with translations via an app |
| SEO control | Full: URLs, redirects, structured data | Covers the basics well | Good basics; some URL patterns are fixed |
| Selling online | Capable with WooCommerce, more to manage | Fine for a small shop | Built for it |
| Main trade-off | You are responsible for updates and security | Hard to move away later | Monthly costs grow with apps |
Ownership: what you can take with you
Ask one question of any platform: if you leave in three years, what comes with you?
WordPress. The software is open source. Your site is a set of files and a database that you can download, back up and move to any host. Fall out with your developer or host, and you take the whole site elsewhere. That only holds if the domain, hosting account and administrator logins are in your company’s name, so get it in writing. We hand over every site we build that way.
Wix and Squarespace. Your words and images are yours, and you can move your domain away. The site itself, meaning its design, layout and the way it is put together, generally can’t be exported to another platform. Squarespace can export some content in a format WordPress can import, but leaving usually means rebuilding.
Shopify. You can export products, customers and orders as spreadsheet files, so your store data is portable. The theme, apps and their settings stay behind. Moving a store is well-trodden ground, but the front end is still a rebuild.
None of this makes the hosted platforms a bad choice. Renting is convenient. Just make sure you know you are renting.
Total cost over time
Launch prices are easy to compare and tell you little. Compare three years of costs instead.
Wix and Squarespace. One subscription covers hosting, the security certificate and support. Higher tiers add online selling or bookings. Premium apps and business email usually cost extra, and a free first-year domain renews at the normal price. The low cash cost is partly paid in your own time, because you do the building.
Shopify. A monthly or yearly plan, then paid apps. Most stores add a few, for reviews, filters, translations or subscriptions, and each usually carries its own monthly fee. On top come payment processing fees on every sale. Check which payment gateways work for your Thai customers, and whether Shopify adds its own transaction fee when you use a third-party gateway.
WordPress. The software is free. You pay for the build (a one-off, and usually the largest cost), hosting, the domain, yearly licences for premium plugins or page builders, and maintenance: updates, backups and security, done by you or by someone you pay. Our own care plans start from THB 1,500 a month. Costs are front-loaded, and running costs tend to stay flat as the site grows, though a busy site may need better hosting.
For a small, simple site where your own time is cheap, a builder is often the least expensive route. For a site your sales depend on, once you add up higher tiers, apps and add-ons, WordPress is often comparable over a few years, and you finish with something you own. Our guide to what a website costs in Thailand lists the running costs worth putting side by side.
Editing and design freedom
Wix and Squarespace are the easiest place to start: drag things where you want them and see the result straight away. The flip side is that it is easy to tidy a section on desktop and leave it a mess on phones.
Shopify has an excellent back office for running a shop: products, stock, orders and discounts. Pages are edited with the sections your theme provides. Anything beyond them needs a developer who knows Shopify’s theme language.
WordPress is as easy to edit as the build makes it. With the block editor or a page builder such as Elementor or Breakdance, a well-built site gives your team clear fields and fixed layouts, so marketing can change text, photos and projects without breaking the design. A careless build can be confusing. Ask to try the editor before you commit, and ask what training is included.
On design, WordPress has almost no ceiling: custom page types for property listings or product catalogues, request-for-quote forms, links to LINE, a CRM or a booking system. That freedom needs discipline, because every plugin you add is one more thing to keep updated.
Several languages on one site
A proper multilingual site is more than a translate button. Each language needs its own page addresses, its own titles and descriptions, translated menus and forms, and hreflang tags that tell Google which version to show to whom. Our multilingual SEO guide covers the set-up in detail.
WordPress has mature multilingual plugins that do all of this, with separate SEO settings for each language. You can even show different content per language, such as a Thai-only promotion. The better plugins are paid licences.
Wix has a built-in multilingual tool that handles the basics well, with less fine-grained control. Squarespace usually needs duplicated pages or a third-party translation service.
Shopify supports several languages, including at checkout, with translations managed through Shopify’s own app or a paid alternative.
Whichever you choose, check three Thai details: fonts that render Thai and English equally well, line breaks that look right on phones, and page addresses. Thai characters in a URL turn into long strings of code when shared, so many sites use short English addresses for Thai pages.
SEO: what each platform lets you control
Any of the three can rank. Google cares far more about useful content, speed, mobile experience and clear structure than about your platform. The difference is how much you control.
Wix and Squarespace cover the basics well: page titles, descriptions, sitemaps and redirects. For a small site, that is often enough.
Shopify handles product SEO sensibly, but parts of the URL structure are fixed, such as the /products/ and /collections/ prefixes, and its blogging tools are basic.
WordPress gives you full control of URLs, redirects, structured data, speed tuning and separate SEO per language. Control cuts both ways, though: a heavy theme and a pile of plugins make a slow site. The platform sets the ceiling. The build decides how close you get to it.
Selling online
Shopify is the strongest option for product-led stores. Checkout, stock, shipping rules and order management are what it was built for. If most of your revenue comes from online orders, start here, and see our guide to e-commerce website design for what a store needs beyond the platform.
WordPress with WooCommerce suits businesses where content matters as much as products, or where a modest product range sits alongside a service. Everything lives in one place that you own, but there is more to maintain, and a store needs good hosting.
Wix and Squarespace are fine for a small catalogue and a simple checkout.
Many SMEs don’t need a checkout at all. A manufacturer, exporter or construction firm usually needs a clear catalogue and a request-for-quote form rather than a shopping cart. That is a website job, not an online store job.
A quick decision guide
Work through these in order and stop at the first yes.
- Is selling products online the main job of the site? Choose Shopify.
- Is it a simple site you will build and run yourself, on a small budget, with little need to grow? Choose Wix or Squarespace.
- Do you need several languages with separate SEO, lots of pages or content, connections to other systems, or complete ownership? Choose WordPress.
- Still unsure? Pick the one thing that matters most to you, whether ownership, running costs or editing it yourself, and let that section of this guide decide.
The platform matters less than what you build on it. For the wider decision, see how to choose a CMS, and if you settle on WordPress, what separates a solid build from a fragile one. Clear pages, honest content and an easy way to get in touch do more for enquiries than any platform switch.
If WordPress sounds right, our website design and development page shows how we plan, build and hand over a site you fully own. You can also compare website package prices side by side. And if Shopify, Wix or Squarespace is the better fit, that is a good answer too: take the ownership and cost questions above with you when you compare plans.