Which Website Platform Is Right for You? A Guide for Service Professionals

If you've ever Googled "best website builder," you know the rabbit hole. There are dozens of options, each claiming to be the easiest, the most powerful, or the most affordable. And now, with AI entering the picture, the landscape is shifting faster than ever.

As a website and marketing strategist who builds sites for service professionals every week, I want to cut through the noise and give you a real-world breakdown of what's out there — and, more importantly, what actually matters when choosing a platform.

The DIY Builders: Wix and Squarespace

These are the platforms most people think of first, and for good reason. They're designed for non-technical users who want to build something themselves.

Wix offers a drag-and-drop editor with hundreds of templates and a growing suite of AI tools (Wix ADI) that can generate a starter site from a few prompts. It's flexible, beginner-friendly, and has built-in ecommerce if you need it. The trade-off is that Wix sites can feel cluttered if you're not careful with design, and the sheer number of options can be overwhelming.

Squarespace takes a more curated approach. Its templates are polished and visually striking out of the box, and its grid-based editor (Fluid Engine) keeps things clean. If aesthetics matter to you — and they should — Squarespace makes it hard to build something ugly. The downside is less flexibility than Wix, and customization beyond the template's boundaries can be frustrating.

Both platforms work well for someone who wants to build and maintain their own site. But here's the honest truth: a DIY site built by someone whose expertise is therapy, chiropractic, or coaching will almost always look and perform like a DIY site. The tools are good. The strategy behind how you use them is what separates a website that books clients from one that just exists.

The More Robust Options: WordPress and Showit

When you're ready for something with more horsepower, these are the platforms designers and developers tend to reach for.

WordPress powers roughly 43% of the internet, and there's a reason for that. It's open-source, endlessly customizable, and has a massive ecosystem of plugins for everything from SEO to appointment booking. It's the platform of choice for businesses that need complex functionality, robust blogging, or deep SEO control. The catch is that WordPress has a steeper learning curve, requires regular maintenance (updates, security, backups), and often needs a developer to get it looking and functioning the way you want.

Showit has carved out a loyal following among creatives and service-based professionals. It's a true freeform drag-and-drop builder — no grid constraints — which means your designer can place elements exactly where they want them. It integrates with WordPress for blogging, giving you the design freedom of Showit with the content management power of WordPress. It's a strong choice if you're working with a designer who specializes in it.

These platforms give you more control and a more professional result, but they also require more expertise to use well. That's where working with a professional becomes less of a luxury and more of a strategic decision.

The New Wave: AI Website Builders

This is where things get interesting. Over the past year, AI-powered website builders have gone from novelty to genuinely useful tools. Platforms like Hostinger's AI Builder, Framer, Durable, and others can generate a full website from a text prompt in minutes.

The appeal is obvious: describe your business, and the AI builds you a site. No design skills needed. No waiting weeks for a developer. For someone who just needs a basic online presence quickly, these tools are a real option.

But there's a significant gap between "a website that exists" and "a website that works." AI builders are excellent at generating layouts and placeholder content. They're not great at understanding your specific audience, crafting messaging that connects emotionally, or building a strategic customer journey that converts visitors into booked clients. The design might look fine. The strategy behind it is usually missing entirely.

That said, the technology is advancing fast, and the smartest approach is to use AI as a tool within a strategic process — not as a replacement for strategy itself.

Why Your Designer's Platform Preference Is a Good Thing

Here's something that catches a lot of people off guard: when you hire a web designer, they're probably going to recommend (or require) a specific platform. If you've been on Squarespace and your designer works in Showit, they're going to ask you to move.

I understand the instinct to resist that. You've already invested time learning your current platform. You might have content there. Change feels like a hassle.

But here's the reframe: your designer's platform preference is actually one of the best signs you've hired the right person.

A designer who has mastered a specific platform knows its strengths, its limitations, and its shortcuts. They've built dozens — maybe hundreds — of sites on it. They know how to push the design further, how to optimize performance, and how to set things up so the site is easy for you to maintain after launch. That depth of expertise translates directly into a better website for you, built faster and with fewer headaches.

The alternative — a designer who claims to work on "any platform" — often means they're a generalist who hasn't gone deep on any of them. You want someone who knows their tool inside and out.

The right company will also make the transition seamless. They'll handle the migration, set everything up, and walk you through what you need to know. You shouldn't have to figure out a new platform on your own. If the process of switching feels painful, that's a red flag about the company, not the platform.

Why We Use Manus

At Beyond Business Co., we build every client website on Manus — and it's a deliberate choice that aligns with everything we believe about how websites should be built.

Manus is an AI-powered platform, but it's fundamentally different from the template-based AI builders I mentioned earlier. Instead of generating a site from a generic template and swapping in your colors, Manus builds custom-coded, full-stack websites. That means every site we create is genuinely unique — not a template with your logo dropped in.

Here's why it's the right fit for our Website 48 process:

Speed without sacrificing quality. Our 48-hour intensive model requires a platform that can keep up with focused, rapid development. Manus lets us move fast because the AI handles the heavy lifting of code generation while we focus on what matters most: your strategy, your messaging, and your design.

Built-in hosting and infrastructure. Your site lives on Manus's hosting with custom domain support, SSL, and everything you need for a professional online presence. No third-party hosting to manage, no plugin updates to worry about, no security patches to stay on top of.

A platform built for iteration. Because Manus generates custom code rather than locking you into a template system, we can make changes and updates efficiently as your business grows. Need a new service page? A booking integration? A client portal? We can build it without fighting against platform limitations.

Performance and SEO. Custom-coded sites are inherently faster and more SEO-friendly than template-based builders. There's no bloated plugin overhead, no unnecessary scripts slowing things down. Your site loads fast, which Google rewards and your visitors appreciate.

We chose Manus because it lets us deliver the quality of a custom-built website at the speed and price point that makes sense for service professionals. It's the tool that makes our Website 48 model possible.

The Bottom Line

The "best" website platform depends entirely on your situation. If you want to build and maintain your own site, Wix or Squarespace are solid choices. If you're working with a designer, trust their platform recommendation — their expertise on that tool is part of what you're paying for. And if you're looking for a professional website built strategically and delivered fast, the platform matters less than the team behind it.

What matters most isn't the tool. It's the strategy, the messaging, and the expertise that goes into using it.

Curious how your current website is performing? Take our free Homepage Audit to get a personalized scorecard with actionable recommendations.