Pricing (weighted 12%)
WIX
Free - There is a free plan that gives you limited bandwitdth (500MB) and storage space, and will also give you a screwed up URL that is a subdomain of Wix.
$4.08/month - This will bump your bandwidth up to 1GB and also gives you the option to connect a custom domain, but it still displays Wix ads. This plan is not much of an improvement over the free plan.
$9.25/month - With this plan you get a free domain for one year and the bandwidth is bumped up to 2GB with 3GB of storage. This is the first plan that is actually useful, but it is slightly more expensive than some competitors.
$12.42/month - This plan gives you unlimited bandwidth and 10GB of storage. They also throw in one year of a domain and one year of a mailbox attached to the site.
$16.17/month - This plan brings the bandwidth back down to 10GB, but lets you have an online store.
$24.92/month - This gives you access to some premium support options and gives you unlimited bandwidth.
These prices are a bit more than I would be willing to pay for Wix. The free website is hardly even worth it, and the cheapest plan is a joke. Their only usable plan is also more expensive than the competition. IM Creator is much cheaper for a much better designed, if less fully featured, interface.
IMcreator
Free - IM Creator offers a free option. It is about as tantalizing as the other free website options offered by other website builders. It gives you 50mb of hosting and a site that is a subdomain of IM Creator.
Premium - The premium plan has a few different pricing options. You can choose how often you are billed, and that determines how much you pay.
If you pay biannually (twice a year, not every two years) then you pay $9.95/month.
If you pay yearly then it is $7.95/month.
If you pay once every two years (also biannually) $6.95/month.
If you pay every three years they will charge you $5.95/month.
The premium plan gives you unlimited hosting and bandwidth, ten custom email addresses, and better support options.
Pro & Whitelable - This is IM Creator’s most expensive option at $250/year. It allows freelancers to rebrand IM Creator as their own product to sell to clients. You also get better support options.
These pricing options are quite odd. You probably won’t want to be stuck with IM Creator for three years so some of the pricing plans aren’t really worth it. If you are committed to IM Creator as a platform then they are a great value.
Neither of the free options on these apps are worth your time.
Design (weighted 12%)
WIX
The editor is not very good. It is extremely laggy and unresponsive. The menus lag and design elements either don't move or jump erratically across the screen.
The rather infuriating bubbly animation that comes up as the editor is loading only exacerbates the issue. I can see that the editor is very fully featured, but the unresponsiveness renders it useless.
The editor is clearly much more fully featured than IM Creator, but because it is frustrating to use IM Creator takes the cake here.
IMcreator
The editor in IM Creator works well for what it is. It delivers pretty good websites that are really more of an exhibition than anything else. Wix has many more design options, but the interface makes that a moot point.
IM Creator does not have many design options, which makes the end result a little less useful than something built in Wix.
IM Creator has a number of good templates for artists, designers, and other people who want a web presence to show off their stuff.
Frontend Features (weighted 12%)
WIX
Once you get through the frustrating design process you are rewarded with a very nice, fully featured website. They are pleasant to navigate and don't have any of the lag apparent in the editor.
Also the mobile preview is very useful and you can edit the mobile site separately from the desktop site. The mobile editor is much better and more responsive than the desktop editor.
You can put a lot of stuff in the websites. Embedded videos and suchlike. Wix just makes better websites than IM Creator
IMcreator
The websites work well for what they are, but Wix's websites are much better. IM Creator is slightly hobbled by their lack of features, and the frontend of the website makes that very apparent.
The sites are best for showing pictures. If you have a ton of pictures you want to put on the internet, IM Creator will do a good job displaying them. But if you want to use the site for any deeper applications, look elsewhere.
Backend Featuers (weighted 12%)
WIX
The desktop backend is confusing in the same way as Wix's editor. It is unresponsive, and there is a lot of bubbly stuff that doesn't seem to do very much.
The backend is plagued by many of the same issues as the editor. The link for the dashboard is hidden in a menu. The dashboard has the same lag that the menus in the editor experience.
I can see that there are a lot of features in Wix's backend, but using them is such a headache that it takes a lot of the joy away.
IMcreator
The backend is very sparse. There's not really anything there beyond the option to edit your website or create a new one, all set against a black background with lots of empty space.
Compared to Wix, this is a very good thing. IM Creator has such a simple interface that it is not subject to any of the design problems apparent in Wix. But on its own IM Creator falls a bit flat. There aren't really enough features to keep anyone coming back.
Hosting & Security (weighted 12%)
WIX
Wix gives you bandwidth ranging from 500MB to unlimited depending on what plan you get. The hosting is all internal.
Wix is much better with the free option than IM Creator, but the paid options are quite similar. The one difference is that Wix is prepared for eCommerce.
Wix doesn't let you put SSL encryption on their site anywhere. They let their eCommerce apps deal with security separately. IM Creator is a little better, but neither of these apps have robust security options.
IMcreator
The free plan has hosting only up to 50MB, which is very very little. The paid plans will give you unlimited hosting. You may host to your heart’s content.
IM Creator might not be a good choice for eCommerce. They don't really have the ability to power an online store.
You can set up SSL on an IM Creator website, but you will have to do it yourself. Also, SSL certificates are not cheap, and you'll have to purchase one before adding it to your site.
Installing SSL can be a daunting process for anyone new to developing websites.
Reports & Statistics (weighted 12%)
WIX
Wix only supports integration with third party statistical tools. They don’t have any statistics of their own to display.
This is disappointing. They clearly have the means to implement at least some basic statistics, judging by how overdesigned their interface is.
There are some free plug-ins in the store that you can use to track statistics.
IMcreator
IM Creator is not any better than Wix. They let you use only Google Analytics. You have to fill out a small form to get reports.
This is too bad for both of these apps. They could easily integrate at least a small statistics section. It would make IM Creator's dashboard look much better.
Extensibility (weighted 12%)
WIX
They have an app market with over 250 apps. This is a very large app market. Since IM Creator doesn't have an app store, Wix blows them out of the water.
This is where Wix shines. They have an enormous number of integrations, including favorites like eCommerce, social media, and email marketing.
IMcreator
There is no real extensibility to speak of in IM Creator. They don't have any third party integrations. If you want add-ons you'll have to code them yourself, which most of us are not up to.
Wix trounces IM Creator here.
Support (weighted 12%)
WIX
Wix really doesn’t have much in the way of support. They don’t have a live chat or phone line.
They do have an FAQ, and knowledgebase, and a support forum. IM Creator does not do much better, but they just manage to edge Wix out with their phone support.
That said, Wix's knowledgebase is very helpful. Their documentation is very good at getting you up to speed with their software. If only the software wasn't so plagued by laggy graphics.
IMcreator
IM Creator has a few different support options. They offer a FAQ, forums, a downloadable manual, and one hundred and twenty-three how to articles.
The downloadable manual is very nice. I referred to it a number of times when setting up my website and it was very helpful.
Their higher paying plans include phone support.