Website design template vs custom build
Before having your first website designed, get yourself familiar with the term "template" or "theme", consider its pros and cons to save yourself some headache down the road.
TL;DR: use template if you need low budget, quick turn around solution for simple website. Use a more custom solution if you need brand focus design, complex features and can afford higher budget and longer deadline.
TL;DR: use template if you need low budget, quick turn around solution for simple website. Use a more custom solution if you need brand focus design, complex features and can afford higher budget and longer deadline.
Before we get started, lets define the term "template" or "theme": in the design word, a template is a pre-designed, pre-coded website. By using a template, you can save your time from the design and development process which is the major cost factor of a website design project. Because they are pre-designed and pre-coded (and hopefully pre-tested), templates offer several benefits:
I. Website template is a cheap and fast way to get started
- Cheap - The template authors make profits by selling to the mass, instead of selling to 1 single client they can sell the same template to a thousand or more clients. A normal template goes around 50 USD, even the premium goes around 200 USD or less. Great template can be sold to 1000 clients or more, giving the authors at least 50000 USD in return.
- Fast - Since it's already developed, if you use the template as is and only change the content then it takes just a few hours/days to launch. (compared to a few weeks or months for custom built solutions)
Because of its pre-built nature, templates suffer from certain issues:
- Generic - A template is not designed for any specific business, it's designed to be used for as many businesses as possible. There is nothing unique, brand focus, or "wow" factor in a template.
- Bloated features - Since the authors of templates need to cover most requirements, they usually try to add as many features as possible. In real-world usage most of these features are not used and in turn weigh down the website performance instead.
- Hidden cost & time: Templates usually look really pretty and awesome, because they use 1 hidden trick: they always use the ideal content, ideal graphics, ideal amount of items etc... It's like buying clothes that look good on models, you will soon realize you don't have a model's body. Once you start making the template your own, you will realize you still need the help of designers and developers to make the changes and customize the template for you.
- Maintenance nightmare: If you website is complex and constantly needs new features, you will run into problems down the road because the website was not designed and developed with that in mind. In addition, in most cases you buy the template from one author, and get the additional development from another 3rd party source, this will soon turn into a nightmare due to the conflicts in coding style and logical thinking. If you plan to buy a template then do a major re-design of layout or features on it, don't, you will soon find out it may cost the same with building things from scratch.
Before discuss custom build websites, lets check several false blames on template websites:
- Low quality - Many people point out that templates usually have low quality code which hinder performance, but custom build can also have low quality code. It depends on the authors (developers), a template website can have very good code base.
- Non responsive - Some believe that a template website does not display well on multiple devices, again this is false. It all depends on how the template was designed and coded.
- Framework = template - Some online resources claim that websites built on frameworks such as WordPress, Joomla are template websites. Again, this is false. Framework can be customized to build any type of custom website.
II. Custom design website provides tailor-fit design and features
In contrast to template website, custom build website service offers tailor-fit service that make a website from scratch. A custom build website usually consists of a lengthy process of design, revisions, development, testing, and revisions again.
Several advantages of custom build website:
- Tailor-fit - A custom build website requires the creative team to take the client's requirements, do thorough research, then brain-storm and come up with several proposals. These proposals will go through a lengthy process of revisions before reaching an acceptable state where the final design can be approved and sent to development team. The development team will then have to code everything from scratch using the approved design and features, ensuring the website runs smoothly cross browsers, cross devices.
- Extendable - If planned carefully, a custom build project can be extended easily in the future with new designs and features.
- No hidden cost - Once you sign a contract with the agency regarding the exact design and features you want, you don't have to pay any additional fee unless there are new features or requirements that you want to add afterward.
It's obvious that the custom built websites will be a lot more expensive than template built websites in term of time and cost. Is there another option? Yes, there is. In the recent years, there have been a number of website builders that help anyone to build a website. These tools usually offer drag-and-drop feature to allow users to create a new website from base elements. A few tools to check:
All these tools give users the possibility to have a good website at a very low cost, perhaps even lower than the template option at first. However, there are several problems that cannot be easily solved:
- Even with all the best tools, one cannot become a good designer without years of training and some talent. Despite the beautiful demo websites that are shown, in reality most of the sites built by end-users have much lower quality.
- Many end-users, after much frustration, end up using the generic pre-built templates available on these builders with some minor customization.
- No matter how easy these builders claim to be, end-users must take time (usually weeks) to learn the in and out of the tools to build a website. In the end the hidden cost can be much greater than what it appears to be at first.
- By making these tools extremely to use for end-users, these builders usually have to trade for flexibly and . Most of the website builders are limited in term of features and can never offer the same customization level a custom build website has.
I have written another article, dedicated to website builders pros and cons, if you are interested in this topic please check it out. Using website builders can save your money especially if you are a start-up, just make sure you understand all the advantages and disadvantages.
Depending on your requirements, budget, deadline, technical level, you can decide which option best fits you. For a hybrid option that can offer high-end, low-cost, fast turn-around website project, check our web design packages.
about the author
Vu Nguyen
Vu Nguyen is an entrepreneur, a developer, and a founder of nilead.com. While his love is in the backend website development work, his experience covers eCommerce (being both a real online store owner and a developer), Search Engine Optimization, UX Design and Content Strategy.
Since 2005, Vu Nguyen has led and directed UX design, full-stack development teams on projects large and small for corporations, start-ups, individuals and more. He was involved in every task of each project, from idea to concept and vision, prototype, detailed design, build and deployment.
Since 2005, Vu Nguyen has led and directed UX design, full-stack development teams on projects large and small for corporations, start-ups, individuals and more. He was involved in every task of each project, from idea to concept and vision, prototype, detailed design, build and deployment.
