Let me start off by saying this: Wix is a great hosting platform, especially if you are just starting a blog, don’t want to spend too much time building out a site, and care deeply about SEO. It worked well for me over the past few years, but given a few key issues and advances in technology, I have decided to step away.
Cost
I pay for the Wix Premium Core service, which comes in at a whopping $610 for two years. When I got the bill back in 2024, that was a hard pill to swallow.
Think of all the cameras or lenses I could have bought with that money!
If I was writing more consistently, or even making money off the blog, I could maybe justify that cost. But the reality is, I am not.
Also, as I mentioned in my previous post, I have developed a deep interest in the art of homelabbing. If I were to lease a VPS, I could, in theory, host my own blog for a fraction of the cost.
Yes, I lose out on some of the ease and features of Wix, but luckily for me, AI can handle a lot of that now.
Which leads me to…
AI Makes Hard Stuff Easy
One of the nagging things about my Wix site was the menu hierarchy and structure. I hated not being able to have submenus.
I could never figure out how to make it work, and eventually the bad news was broken to me: it just wasn’t possible the way I wanted it.
I knew it was possible with WordPress, but WordPress also came with a steeper learning curve. Given my hectic schedule, that was off the table.
Enter Codex.
I use AI heavily in my day-to-day life and work, but more on that in another post.
Through Codex, I was able to set up my own local WordPress site with the exact menu structure I wanted. I can have Articles with submenus underneath for different categories. I can have a completely separate Blog section. I can structure the site the way I actually want it structured.
This means I don’t have to keep paying for Wix just because it is easier, and I get the exact layout I wanted in the first place.
Yes, I still need to host the site somewhere, and yes, Codex is an additional cost. But I now have much more control over my site than I did before.
It’s Mine, All Mine!
The VPS is leased, but the site is all mine.
I report to no one!
Yes, one of the great things about using a service like Wix is that they manage all of the backend infrastructure. Updates, patches, security, and regular maintenance are all handled for you.
But there is still something freeing about managing your own infrastructure, and that is a big part of what is driving me to host independently.
I can move freely between whatever VPS provider I want. If I want to add a new feature to my site, I can. If I want to back the whole thing up and shut it down, I can.
Maybe one day I will even self-host it on a server at my house.
That may be optimistic given all the power outages we have had this year.
But the option is there.
And that freedom is the point.
What’s Next
I have not pulled the plug on Wix just yet. Technically, I have until October to cancel my subscription.
Between now and then, I need to prep and finalize my WordPress instance, lease a server, and make sure all the scaffolding is in place before deploying the site to production.
I’ll probably break a few things along the way, but hey, that makes for great content.