Theme Vs Custom Web Development | Which One’s Better?

There’s no correct answer to this question. It all depends on what’s best for your business and how important your website is to your company. So, we’ll take a look at the key pros and cons of using a theme website vs custom web development, which will hopefully help our readers understand the two better.

First, let’s try to understand the template or theme websites.

Theme Websites

The template websites have totally exploded over the last couple of years. And no doubt that a lot of creative designers have made some gorgeous web templates and made them available for a very cheap amount. It’s a very effective way of getting a savvy website, however, there’s a couple of things that you should know before committing to a template.

Pros of a Template Websites:

Cost Efficient

For almost zero investment and in a very short amount of time, you can get a website serve whatever purpose you want it to serve. The basic templates are free, while the advanced versions will cost somewhere in between £50-£250. Pretty cheap, right?!

Speed:

No need of creating designs as the majority of the design work has already been done. In case you want to quickly launch your website, say in a week or so, then template is your only realistic option. There are a lot of clients that prefer this approach as they are not content with any of the custom web app development ideas put forward to them. From a customer’s viewpoint, a theme at least gives them the idea what their future website is going to look like without having to spend anything.

Drawbacks of using Template websites

Non-SEO Friendly:

The theme websites are not as much SEO friendly as custom-built websites due to which they fail to rank high on search engines. On the other hand, custom websites offer more SEO friendliness, making your business shine online.

Generic Feel:

A website is a true reflection of your business. It should be able to represent your business in the best way possible. However, achieving this is relatively difficult with template websites as they are built to be versatile to go with any business, thus being extremely generic in nature. The result is a bland website with no user appeal.

Code Redundancy:

Code redundancy is another downside of theme website. Since they are built to be versatile, they may include blocks of code that you may never use. For example, if a theme offers 3 different navigation styles, you can obviously choose only one. The problem is despite using only one style, the code of all three will be loaded in the user’s browser. This unnecessary code means that the code is redundant, resulting in slow loading speed.

Custom Websites

There are plenty of reasons that make custom web application development the most powerful web building approach. Some of those reasons are as follows:

Bespoke Design:

A website with a good design will always convert more sales and generate more leads. But this is only possible when a website is built under bespoke requirements.

Remember that a lot of what convinces users to buy from your website is how they feel on there. If they find it trustworthy, aspirational, and pleasing to the eyes, they will love to purchase whatever you have to offer.

Functionality:

Custom websites also offer great functionality without limitations. The only limitations here are the ones of the platform itself. For example, Shopify, a well-known e-commerce platform has one or two limitations when compared with say Magento. However, the latter is expensive and requires lengthened timelines for project completion.

Performance:

Performance is more related to the skill of development team than anything else. For example, most of custom-built websites are thoroughly tested by developers to ensure an error-free product. On the other hand, template websites usually have lower quality insurance standards due to which they do not perform as properly as a custom website.

So, Which Approach to Go With?

It depends on a few things – budget and timeline being the most essential ones.

If you have a limited budget and timeline, then go with the theme website. But if you want to enjoy greater success, then having a custom website will be the ideal choice for you.