There is a very thin line of difference between custom designs and ready-made templates, but when it comes to which is better than which, then there is no definite answer. Both of them have their pros and cons. The decision of choosing between them depends on several factors.
Here are some of the key factors that help in deciding which design to choose:
- Budget: It is one of the main factors that determine whether to choose custom or ready-made templates. In case you have a limited budget, then going for ready-made templates is a wise choice. But, it should be kept in mind that no matter how good the template is, you might still want some customization, and that will result in spending extra money than customization alone.
- Brand name: if you are looking to establish your brand’s name, choose customized designs over ready-made templates. This way, you can design your website according to the image you wish to accomplish while creating a website from scratch. Establishing the brand’s name means affirming an emotional connection with the audience.
- Purpose: while creating a website from scratch, you have a chance to convey your purpose to the audience, and this can be achieved by choosing to customize your website’s design. A pre-planned business goal for your website has a lot to do with the website layout. Therefore if you wish that your website design fits your purpose, then definitely go for customization.
- Timeframe: If you are bound to a limited timeframe, prioritize ready-made templates over customized ones. Custom designing requires a lot of time for planning, creating, and finishing the design. In this case, choosing ready-made templates would serve the purpose.
- Scalability and flexibility: if you plan to create a website from scratch, you certainly will need to add some extra features in the long run. But if you have a clear idea of the features you wish to include in the future, the developer can contemplate with them to avoid any conflict in the long run.
Pros of ready-made templates:
- Ready-made templates serve the purpose in a lesser budget, whereas some extra money may be required for additional functionality.
- Ready-made templates are a perfect choice in case of quick launches, where you have limited time. Therefore, choosing ready-made templates in case of a limited time frame is advisable.
- Having a clear idea of what you are putting your time and mind into is the biggest benefit of ready-made templates. In the case of ready-made templates, you would already have an idea of how the website would look like. There are no astonishments, and you are paying for what you already see. Whereas custom web designing will only reveal the final look of the website once the operation is completed.
- There is a wide variety of ready-made templates available in the market. You do not have to put your brains into designing the layout for your website. Despite the uniqueness of your project, you will always have options accessible for your website.
Cons of ready-made templates:
- The wide variety in functions can be a demerit as it ends up making the customer sceptical about the functions, which later may end up in unsatisfied customers.
- The main disadvantage of ready-made templates has no exclusive designs. Unless you go for purchasing a buyout license, even if you pay for an exclusive design, you still would not be the only person buying that design. There will always be people who bought the same design before you.
- Even though the latest templates are highly flexible, there still are certain limitations to customization. You will need coding skills to introduce some major changes.
- Junk codes are another biggest demerit. It results in reduced loading speed of your website.
- The surplus amount of features can rather be a disappointment as it slows down the loading time of the website.
- It is a difficult task for the developer to re-code the same theme furthermore.
Pros of custom designs:
- The availability of unique layouts is the most significant merit of custom designs. Especially when building a website from scratch, you will have all your demands fulfilled.
- Therefore, it results in optimization for search engines and will not have any redundancy for the features not required.
- Custom designing lets you inbuilt only the features you want and helps in adding extra features in the future without any trouble.
- Building a customized theme lets you convey your intentions, interests, and differences. Also, the quality of customized design is top-notch.
- The web studios you choose for designing your website offer long-term support services to their clients.
Cons of custom designing:
- The first and foremost being the cost. Custom designs are expensive. Therefore, if you are bound to a limited budget, then choosing custom designs is not advisable.
- Designing a website from scratch requires a lot of time since it requires enough research prior to finalizing the layout. Generally, it takes about two months for a well thought good quality website to build. Therefore, in case you have limited time, custom designing your website is not a smart choice to make. Instead, go for ready-made templates when you are time-bound.
- Technical knowledge is required while conveying what you want in your website to the designer. If you lack technical knowledge, you would not be able to explain to the designer what you expect from the design, resulting in a weaker final product.
- You can not get a clear idea of how the website would look until the design is finally ready.
It is difficult to say whether custom designing is better than ready-made templates or vice-versa. But the choice depends on several factors discussed above. Both of them, custom designs and ready-made templates, have their respective merits and demerits. Thus, the choice between them is completely personal and based on the things you are hoping for from your website.
