Two Free Website Building Platforms Compared – WordPress VS. Google Sites
If you're thinking of setting up your own personal Website or blog, or considering using one as a collaboration tool for you team, using WordPress or Google sites must have crossed your mind. These two platforms has some overlapping abilities but they actually suit for totally different uses. Here is a review of WordPress and Google sites that will help you choose the right platform for your needs.
WordPress
WordPress is an open source blog tool and publishing platform. It is the largest self-hosted blogging tool in the world.
Google sites
Google Sites is an online application for easy creation and sharing of webpages. It allows you to gather information (such as videos, calendars, presentations, attachments, and text) in one place and share it for viewing or editing with others.
Comparison
First time setup
you do not have to know code to use WordPress, but first time installation might be difficult if you do not know how (or have someone to help you) to create a database and use FTP. Google Pages First time setup is as easy as the day to day use, and include about ten mouse clicks. No code or behind the scenes files to move or change. Note that you can use WordPress.com, which is a service, just like Google sites (that means that you do not host it on your server). In this case, setup is as easy as in Google Sites – you only need to sign up.
Content management
in WordPress, authoring and file sharing are done form the control panel. So if, for example, you want to share a file, you will have to go to the control panel, upload the file and then add a link to it in the desired page. In Google Sites, on the other hand, you only need to go to a page and upload the file as an attachment or click "edit" to change the text. That feature makes Google Sites suitable for daily operations of documents and information management and WordPress for publishing of more carefully edited posts and pages.
Pages functionality
In Google Sites You can choose one of five types of pages – regular web page, dashboard, announcements, file cabinet, or list. Each of them has different functionalities, such as file uploading and sharing, overview of information, data listing, and information sharing (such as news, status updates, or notable events).WordPress offers only regular web page, besides the default page where blog post are published to (although you can build custom web pages using PHP).
Ease of use
both platforms are easy to use, but Google sites is easier for first timers since it is more intuitive. WordPress' control panel might require some accommodation until it can be used to its full strength.
Design
with hundreds of themes available and the ability to change them (using code) makes WordPress based websites beautiful and flexible (examples: networksolutions, ridgewoodprep and biggovhealth). The exact opposite is true with Google Sites – only few pre-packaged themes are available, with limited changes possible to the layout and look of elements. That makes even Google's own example sites (Team project, Employee profile, Student club, Classroom) look simple and unprofessional, design-wise.
Extensibility
WordPress has numerous and ever growing number of plugins to improve the site's functionality, management, monitoring, design, and more. Adding them is easy, but might require you to use FTP, and for small number of plugins, to edit code. Google Sites doesn't have any extensions of that kind, but it is possible to embed content (video, Google Docs documents, spreadsheets, presentations, Picasa photo slide shows, iGoogle gadgets).
Collaboration
The key feature of Google Sites is its collaboration abilities. You can decide who can watch the site (Viewers), change it (Collaborators) or manage it (Owners). Collaborators and owners do not need to have a Gmail account to make changes, but will have to go through a short registration, to get a Google account (with their current email). WordPress collaboration abilities are much more limited. Although it allows similar levels of management privileges, its central content management and lack of pages functionality make it suitable for multiple authoring, but not more.
Conclusion
Although both platforms can grant collaboration permission, the ease of use in Google sites and collaboration abilities make it suitable for team work and collaboration; Its easy setup and limited design makes it suitable for small personal sites (but not if you're in the Internet business) or group participation like in friends club and the like. WordPress is great for "regular" websites thanks to its design, extensibility, and also high level websites that requires code and advanced design and functionality. And, of course, it is a wonderful blogging platform. Look at the table below to see at a glance the differences between Google Sites and WordPress.
| Use | WordPress | Google sites |
| Extended functionality with plugins/gadgets or coding | Limitless | poor |
| Users can share files | X | V |
| Messages and lists | X | V |
| Ease of use | V | V |
| Single-click page creation | V | V |
| No Coding required | V | V |
| Free | V | V |
| non-blog content management | V | V |
| Users can be invited to collaborate | V | V |
| themes | V | V (few) |
| Users can comment | V | V (with permission) |
| Beautiful design | V | X |
| Blogging abilities | V | X |
| Users can register | V | X |
What is your experience with WordPress and Google Sites? How do you use them? share it with us us in the comments.
Related posts:
- The Online Collaboration Tools Guide
- Web Apps & Software for Distributed Teams
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- Google Reader Tips and Practices for Power Users
- Roundup – Gmail, Google Reader, and other Google Tips and Practices
This is an important post. Good job!
Thanks Boaz!
I’ve been using wordpress for my blog/personal site and pretty much happy with it
WordPress gives me great control over what I want to do with my own site.
I Agree Ranjeet,
This blog is WordPress based as well.
very nice! like it!
Thanks Lital!
Thank you for this interesting article.
What would you recommend for a schools' web site? purpose – marketing, community, eleraning, collaborative.
It it possible to embed moodle into Google site?
How is Joomla compared to Google site?
Thanks Ariellah,
well, it really depends…
roughly, I would say that for Marketing I would use a WordPress site (since you can design it). For collaboration I would use Google sites (it was made especially for that). For the community and elearning – it depends on what kind of activities you are doing.
I do not know moodle and do not have experience with Joomla, so unfortunately I cannot answer these questions.
Eyal.
OK. Toda
I use Google Sites for my Maths website, (http://www.neotsmaths.co.uk) – it's great for sharing worksheets, podcasts, pictures and news. I think it's fab, but I think its lack of user registration is a little limiting. I am trying to get the students to comment more on the Maths blog in this respect.
Although there are a few themes, it is very customisable!
Interesting article though – thanks!
Your site looks very well built…
Thanks Sam.
Thanks – this really helped decide what to recommend for an author friend – Nick
That's the great article! I just pass 'n read it, two thumbs up!
Great idea for a comparison post! Thanks
All and all, WordPress wins! I've been trying my hand with a WordPress theme and I realized just how flexible their service really is. I wouldn't have had so much liberty with Google, that's for sure.
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Mathew Farney – Web Hosting
This post is great, and really saved me some comparing these products myself, since I want to start using one of them soon.
You didn't mention hosting fees or limitations ???
and one more thing…
I just wen to check out Google Sites, and it seems like they updated it with more layouts and plenty of more styles and themes to choose from. It seems like they have a them and template for any subject you could think of!
I believe, that in the long run, Google will have stronger abbilities than WordPress, but only time will tell…
Very helpful information. I bookmarked this article. Thanks for sharing.
Jessica S.
http://nocostwebsite.co.cc/
I'm not finished read this yet, but it's so fabulous 'n I'll back again when I was finished my job
Bravo, Bros! keep going like this, more good info again.
Great post, Very informative..
This was written a year ago, do you still agree with what you said? Just wondering because I’m looking into a website for our small not for profit and things change really quickly.
Good question.
1. Google sites has become more powerful since then, and got better themes.
2. The things about WordPress are still relevant.
I should note that it my be more correct to compare Google Sites with WordPress.com, which is the hosted version of WordPress. This means that you don’t have to mess around with the server configurations (but you’re much more limited)
Wow! For a nice and hunting yahoo for hours in this and i also as a final point found it listed here!
just had to go through the same decision and after spending several days to work out all the several features, i came exactly to the same conclusions. unfortunately, i found your site only afterwards, but at least i am now even more reassured
Cheers!
Great article, saved me loads of time figuring out the differences myself
thanks a lot!
Thank you also, I’m working in two non profit areas and had used 1 & 1′s web site builder to get started only to find out that it is very poor + they charge extra if you use it to produce more than 25 pages.
I’m now learning Drupal but having many of the self learn hurdles slowing things down. To get the content up for now I will give google sites a go after reading your helpful comparison.
You have freed up some time for me to work on the important content.
I’ve spent vast amounts of unpaid time on problems within cancer care, Thank you for this.
I’m really glad to hear that! Let me know if you need help, my contact details are in the Contact page
I’ve recently been messing around with weebly , googlesites and wordpress.com as these are the free webuilding platforms which offer free hosting. I find that googlesites seems to be good for quick and easy setup and sharing ,table formats, files and forms easily, However, the template is customizable but only so far . There is no access to moving around the navigation bars, you have horizontal or a side bar but being able to freely move this around is not an option. The content page only allows you a number of set layouts ( this in weebly is more customizable ), it doesn’t allow for example a two column layout in the ratio 75 %one side 25 % the other. Leaving public comments on the site also proves to be problematic and requires embedding (html comments box) into the site which then causes problems in other browsers. Google site however requires no CSS coding however weebly does if you want to make your template semi attractive and without a massive header .
Weebly although flexible as mentioned above is fidgety, requiring some css coding and steady mouse clicking.
Word press.com i haven’t much experience with but the first thing i checked was trying to embed my google calendar unfortunately it was not easy and i still haven’t managed to do it . From what i understand this type of thing is more suitable for wordpress.org . This requires webhosting though and isn’t as user friendly as the others.
Anyways that’s my finding after hours of tinkering about
I used Google sites initially for First Class Water but soon got frustrated with its lack of flexibility, themes, plug-ins, SEO ability .. i found it a very constrained tool and really only of use to someone in need of an online classified ad. If you have the time WordPress is the premium product here.
Nice comparison article. I am a big fan of wordpress. I really dont like Google sites because it lacks flexibility, design, blogging capabilities and SEO. Today, wordpress makes even a beginner look decent with all the new themes out there.
really nice comparison
but for professional world(users in office) i would say it would be good to setup website using google as in cooperate world , almost everybody blocks the blog sites.
if your viewers are not limited to tech guys then surely wordpress is good