- Sapir Ziv
- 4 days ago
- 6 min read
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Back in the day, building a website meant one of two things: you could either hire a designer or hack one together yourself.
Today, it’s a different story. There are more tools than ever, and one question I encounter is: “Should I use a template or AI to build my website?” Between all the DIY tutorials and apps out there (including Wix’s popular AI website builder), it’s easy to see why people are exploring their options more closely. Hence, I thought it would be worthwhile to unpack this in more detail.
Food for thought
When choosing between AI versus a template, you're essentially choosing between placing your trust in an AI model—which is trained on web design principles through an abundance of information and examples—or placing your trust in the curation and consideration done by an experienced web designer. There are advantages and disadvantages to both.
Before diving in, I recommend asking yourself a few important questions:
How clear is your vision for the site's design? Do you picture every element in your mind already, or are you craving direction and inspiration?
How much control do you want over the small details? Are you the type to tinker, or do you prefer something more hands-off?
Is there a template that already fits your industry and business goals? Or, are you envisioning something completely new from what you’re seeing?
What AI brings to the table
The advantage of designing a website with AI tools is that you can really ask for anything. The level of customization is very high. You could ask for specific colors, design styles, layouts, order—whatever you envision.
You can also create and iterate quite quickly, without needing to browse through hundreds of templates. The result usually comes down to your prompting skills: the more detail and time you spend defining what you want at the prompting stage, the better the outcome.
AI models intuitively understand websites because that’s what they’re trained on. There’s a wealth of knowledge that’s being utilized and is constantly improving.
What website templates bring to the table
The advantage of using a template, on the other hand, is that a professional designer has carefully considered the look and feel of the site, as well as its functionality. Whenever a new Wix template is created, the first step is to research industry trends and study high-performing sites.
This means that you, as the website owner, benefit from a designer’s attention to detail, content curation and design choices—built with specific performance and business goals in mind.
Not to mention, you have full editing capabilities to alter your site. The difference is that you start with a solid, well-thought-out structure that’s been tested across multiple devices.
Comparing AI vs. website templates across various factors
Looking a bit closer, you’ll see there are some key ways these options set themselves apart.
Quality
As of the time of writing this, there’s still a notable difference in design quality between the two approaches.
When you’re working with AI tools, the layout and overall visual narrative of websites tend to feel more standard, clean and less adventurous. The rhythm and visual storytelling aspect of the site often feels more straightforward. AI can sometimes struggle with maintaining design consistency across all elements and components of a large site, and has difficulty creating truly unique visuals that tell an engaging brand story. That said, AI models are rapidly improving, quickly bridging the gap and addressing these limitations.
When you’re working with designer-made templates, you often get more elevated design outcomes. The designs are more intentional and cohesive out of the box. They’re built to tell a complete story and create impactful scrolling experiences for your specific business type or industry needs. The downside is that you risk having a similar-looking site to others in your industry who use the same provider and template.
Ease of use / technical skills required
Both approaches require knowing what you want, but the technical demands vary.
With the AI approach, prompting skills will matter more than technical skills. Giving the system good, clean instructions on what you’re trying to achieve will get you closer to the result you’re looking for. You don’t have to have all the answers. It’s true that the more information you provide, the better, but it’s definitely okay to leave room for the model to interpret and create. Just try not to be too vague, as this will likely lead to basic outcomes. Regardless of the tool you use, it’ll likely take several rounds of iterations to mold the results to your needs.
With templates, a lot of it comes down to choosing the right template. Don’t simply choose a template because of how it looks. Pick a template by a reliable provider that is well-aligned with your industry or business type. After that, you’ll need to know—at least in the very basic sense—how to use a website editor. It’s crucial to know how to change settings, move, change and add/remove things from your editor-of-choice. Although this might seem like the more intimidating approach, popular editors like Wix are very intuitive and easy to master.
Speed to create
Both approaches can produce a website within minutes, but to create something great, you’ll likely want to spend extra time perfecting the result. How you spend your time might look slightly different depending on the route you choose.
With AI, you begin the process by guiding the AI with your input, rather than sorting through a sea of templates. Some AI builders are open-ended, allowing you to enter free-form prompts. Others, like Wix’s AI website builder, help to structure your conversation by asking you a series of questions. The builder will then generate a customized design within a few minutes. Afterward, you’ll spend time checking that the site has all the functionality and pages you wanted, adjusting content as needed, modifying the design and testing it across various devices.
With templates, you’ll spend most of your time trialing multiple templates until you find one that gets you closest to your vision. Some template libraries will be more vast and well-organized than others. You might get lucky and find a template that matches your vision closely and only needs small tweaks. Other times, a template might look amazing but need significant changes to work for your business.
Costs
No matter which approach you choose, your starting point shouldn’t make a huge difference in cost. Both offer free and paid plans, and the final price largely depends on the features you want and the complexity of your site.
So, which should you choose?
If you’re a small business owner with limited design experience, I'd recommend starting with a template that fits your industry and business model. Templates make it easy to get a professional-looking site without complicated edits. The process is more predictable, and there's a clearer path from start to finish.
However, if you’re a business owner with a very specific vision that doesn't fit standard templates, AI tools are worth exploring. They’re especially useful for businesses in emerging industries with few templates to choose from, or for anyone who enjoys the creative process and wants to experiment.
One final word of advice: don't let perfect be the enemy of good
The beauty of websites, in my opinion, is that they aren't static objects. They’re living and breathing, dynamic platforms that change, grow, improve and update. Trial and error is an inevitable part of web design, and any great website usually goes through several versions or edits.
Whether you go with AI tools or templates, the most important thing is to launch your site and see how real users interact with it.
Also, remember that the backbone of any beautiful and successful website is strong, meaningful content that evolves with your brand. Don’t just think about what you need right now. Think ahead and choose a setup that makes it easy to add content and expand your site over time.
Finally, remember that your first website doesn't have to be your forever website. Both AI tools and templates are relatively low-cost ways to establish your online presence. You can always upgrade, redesign or start fresh as your business grows. The key is to start somewhere and iterate as you go along.
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