800website builds on WordPress. We will still tell you when Wix is the right answer, because recommending the wrong platform costs everyone more later.
Wix or WordPress for a Dubai small business?
Wix if you will build and maintain it yourself and the site is essentially a business card. WordPress if the site has a commercial job to do or you expect it to grow.
Wix is genuinely good at what it does: drag and drop, hosting included, nothing to update, live in an afternoon. For a sole trader who needs a credible presence and will never hire anyone to touch it, that is a sensible choice.
WordPress requires more setup and someone to keep it updated, and in return you own everything, you can hire any developer in Dubai to work on it, and there is no ceiling on what it can become. Our builds start at AED 999 and you own the result outright.
Is WordPress good for business websites in 2026?
Yes — it powers a large share of the web and the majority of UAE SME sites, and the reason is portability rather than features. If you stop working with your agency, any developer can pick up a WordPress site. That is not true of a proprietary platform, and it is the single most under-weighted factor when people choose.
The fair criticisms are real. WordPress needs maintaining — core, theme and plugins — and an unpatched site is the most common route to being hacked. Plugin sprawl slows sites down. Both are manageable: keep the plugin count low, use decent hosting, and budget maintenance from AED 299 a month.
What has changed recently is that the “WordPress is slow” complaint is now mostly a hosting and plugin problem rather than a WordPress one. Well-built WordPress sites hit PageSpeed 60+ routinely; we commit to that number in writing on Premium builds.
What is the real difference in cost?
Wix looks cheaper monthly and there is no build fee if you do it yourself. WordPress costs more upfront — AED 999 to AED 6,999 with us — plus hosting at AED 2,400 a year.
Over three years the totals often land closer than expected. The difference that persists is what you hold at the end: a WordPress site is an asset you can move, extend or sell. A Wix site is a subscription that stops when you stop paying.
Can I move from Wix to WordPress later?
Yes, and it is a rebuild rather than a transfer. Wix does not export in a form WordPress can import, so content moves largely by hand.
The expensive part is not the rebuilding — it is the SEO. Every old URL needs a 301 redirect to its new equivalent, or you lose the rankings you spent years earning. Sites that migrate without a redirect map routinely lose most of their organic traffic and take months to recover.
If you think you will outgrow Wix, that is an argument for starting on WordPress. Doing the build twice always costs more than doing it once.
See our WordPress development, the published packages, or talk to us.
Talk to us
800website is a Dubai web design and development agency with published fixed prices. Send the details and you get a fixed scope and a fixed price back — no hourly billing. Contact us, message us on WhatsApp, or call +971 58 578 5380.
