5 reasons why I don’t like Showit
This might be an unpopular opinion, I know people can be fiercely loyal and passionate when it comes to Showit, but I really just don't like it. Nothing against you if you're one of those folks that swear by it, if it works for you then more power to you! But personally, I have only come across a very small handful of websites that were built on Showit that have actually 'worked' across all browsers and media screens. So often I've come across a website and thought, "Hmm, this was probably built on Showit." and left with a less than stellar impression of somebody's online home.
Here are a few of the main reasons why I feel like you'd be better off using another platform for your website.
1. It's Expensive
If you don't need a blog, a Showit site will cost you $228 per year. This only includes the Showit builder, web hosting and a security certificate. You will still need to pay around $20-ish per year to a 3rd party provider for your domain. So let's say around $280ish per year (assuming you want to include an Instagram widget at the very least).
If you do need a blog, it will be around $288 (without the extra $50-$60p/y added for Instagram or your domain) for basic blogging capabilities through WordPress if you have less than 10k blog views per month or only want one WordPress user. If you need more people to be linked to your blog's backend (like if you're working on a team) or you have up to 25k blog views per month then it will set you back $408p/y minimum. That's a LOT. I'm not sure what happens if your blog views exceed 25k, I can only imagine you'll be paying more.
In case you don't know this, you can find way cheaper (and better) options elsewhere.
Building your site through WordPress itself while hosted on Siteground will set you back ±$120 annually for up to 25k views per month (they currently have a great discounted rate available). Unlimited blogging is already included. A good theme, as you'll find at Flothemes, will probably set you back $279 once-off and then the domain will also be around $20p/y. So if you're cutting out the middle man that is Showit, using WordPress right off the bat will cost you almost HALF of what you'll be paying with Showit. And with Flothemes's flex builder, there is nothing that you can build in Showit that you can't build equally well with Flothemes on WordPress. It's also WAY easier to integrate things like Instagram feeds or eCommerce features (which Showit does not support).
Another great option is Squarespace. A Squarespace business subscription will cost you $236 per year if you include the cost of the domain ($216 without). Hosting, a security certificate, unlimited blogging, good basic eCommerce features, analytics and all themes etc. are already included! You also don't have to worry about any 3rd party plugins (and the tedious task of updating them regularly) because things like Instagram feeds are also already integrated. Squarespace might be a touch trickier if you want a site that looks fully custom and less like a template, but if you're already hiring someone to build your site then they'll be able to make it one-of-kind using custom CSS anyway (something that's not so easy to accomplish and implement with Showit or WordPress). The backend of Squarespace is also truly beautiful and so so simple that you'll be able to do the updating of your site yourself, where with Showit, there is a bit of a steep learning curve (plus you'll be juggling two platforms and their updates if you're having your blog hosted with WordPress.) so you might have to pay someone to do design updates for you which adds up quickly. Squarespace just seems like way less of a headache.
2. The responsiveness (or lack thereof)
Something that can often happen with drag and drop builders like Showit is that the responsiveness of your website can be straight trash. Showit 5 offers a side-by-side builder for building your website on desktop and mobile but offers no options for anything in between. Which means that smaller screens (like iPads or even large mobile screens) will often look warped and weird and definitely not how they're supposed to. One thing that also bugs me is the mobile builder on Showit. It offers the option to sync the desktop design but it always does the shittiest job so you're always better off doing the mobile build from scratch anyway. This means that you're essentially building two websites simultaneously which seems like such a super ineffective use of your time. The mobile designs hardly ever account for screen differences so fonts end up huge, sections sometimes cut off prematurely and elements will move around or stretch causing warped images. So not only are you building two sites, but you have to deal with irritating tweaks and basic fixes that I feel should be more intuitive.
With WordPress, Flothemes does way a better job at integrating the desktop and mobile designs. Although you do have to build the mobile site separately too, they make it way easier to drop in existing desktop elements so it doesn't feel like such a hassle, and the fonts and elements do resize responsively which saves a ton of time.
But this is where I have to sing Squarespace's praises again, their desktop to mobile transition is super smooth and automatic and there are normally only minor tweaks that can easily be made using a short CSS snippet. It's easy, looks good and saves so much time.
3. So many 3rd party plugins
The same thing that puts me off using WordPress too is all the damn plugins. You pretty much need a plugin to do anything other than having a basic website. If you want to have your Instagram feed included on your site you need a plugin (which is also not free). If you are blogging via WordPress you will need plugins for security, for anti-spam, for SEO, the list goes on. And all these plugins, free or premium, need to be updated regularly to keep everything working and secure. If you just want a simple website experience, you don't want to have to go in weekly to make sure all your plugins are up to date and not causing issues (because sometimes one plugin can break which can cause your site to break too until the plugin issue has been fixed). So if you're not already logging into your Showit-WordPress dashboard for regular blog updates, it wastes a lot of time trying to keep everything up to date. It does also bug me a little that a few basic plugins can cost quite a bit to use.
4. It can be super glitchy
Every Showit website that I've built always had kinks on Showit's side that needed to get smoothed out before everything was working. This can sometimes take days of back and forth with their technical team to get anywhere. They need to install an SSL certificate onto your site (this keeps your website safe and secure) but it feels like such a complicated process with them when it can and should be so simple! It also takes ages for the SSL certificate to start working leaving your site looking unsecure to visitors.
The issues with responsiveness come into play here again because it causes a lot of glitches within the design. It does not account for different screen sizes so things could look fine when you're designing on a desktop screen, but it will look warped and weird and out of place when viewed on a laptop. Things stretch in strange ways and the text wraps wrong. It's a tedious and finicky process trying to get it to not look like crap on more than one platform.
5. It's hard to upkeep if you're not tech-savvy
As I mentioned before, Showit has a steep learning curve (it is slightly easier if you're comfortable using Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator) so if you're just an entrepreneur looking to have a website you might need to hire someone to make changes for you. Or spend a lot of time figuring it out for yourself but still end up potentially breaking something in their bounty of complicated settings. The fact that Showit is so customisable has it's downsides if you want to make quick changes. You have to move individual pieces around in order to change the look of anything, making sure not to accidentally tweak or move other things in the process (and don't forget, you'll be needing to make those changes on the mobile version as well. Making changes is not as quick and simple as it could be on other platforms.
If you're an entrepreneur that needs a website for their business but does not want the hassle of finicky design updates, plugins updates etc. I would suggest opting for another platform to host your site, with my biased opinion being to use Squarespace.
One positive that I will share...
If you are a designer, a Showit convert and you've learned all the many ins and outs of this hellish platform then it is actually a great way to make some passive income. Showit makes it easy to build and sell templates (that don't require any coding skills) that other people can then customise to fit their brands. That way they don't have to worry about all the weird glitchy processes and they can just drop all their info and images into place. Showit also has a few free templates to get you started.
