I have been thinking about starting a tech blog for a long time now. I neglected to do so in the past because I did not want to go through the pain of building an audience; now I realize I’m happy just writing for myself.

So when I saw an ad for Wix on Facebook — they advertise quite aggressively there — I decided to check out the service.

I was drawn by their powerful WYSISWYG site editor and attractive templates, and in a couple of hours quickly built something that looked cool. I was impressed enough to pay $99 for an unlimited account and connect it to the cornerplay.com domain.

Looks great right?

Unfortunately, as a blog platform, Wix turned out rather sucky.

Problem #1: That WYSISWYG isn’t really “what you see is what you get.” The layout you create in the editor does not always translate to what’s actually published. For example, there’s a big blank space on my blog where there obviously should not be.

Sticks out like a sore thumb! This empty space did not appear in the editor view, and no matter what I did I could not make it go away. 90% of the reason I chose Wix is aesthetics and this completely ruins it.

I suspect that is typically where a Wix banner ad goes, and because I’m a premium user the ad is removed. But not the empty space. It’s been two days but Wix has not fixed it.

(Update: Shortly after this was published they did. No more blank space!)

Problem #2: Wix’s customer support is not great, although you can tell they are trying. I was promised premium support for my premium package, as you can see on their website:

However, nowhere on Wix have I been able to find this “premium support.” They have an FAQ and a forum anyone can post to. That’s it.

Maybe that’s not so bad if problems can be quickly addressed in the forum, but their forum is incredibly busy. Almost embarrassingly so. It’s midnight Eastern Time in the U.S. — which should be a slow period — and there are over 20 problems submitted in the last hour alone. Is this because the product is so unstable? How do paid customers get their queries noticed?

Problem #3: On Wix, you cannot include multiple images in a blog post, nor can you have users submit comments.

Wait, what?!

How is that possible in this day and age? I understand not allowing HTML embedding, but to not allow multiple images in any single post? That’s ridiculous. I can live without user comments in the short term as few will read this blog, but in this post alone I used six images.

I don’t like reading endless blocks of text; images are necessary to keep things visually interesting. This is a deal breaker.

So my experiment with Wix is over and I will be taking advantage of their 14 day refund window. In the meantime, my search for a permanent home for the cornerplay continues.