Website template or theme design which is better?

Jessicahoney said:
Website template or theme design which is better?
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A template site is often a great option if the project is simple – for example, a website that’s basically an online brochure. Advantages of templates include:

Template sites are significantly less expensive than custom sites. Using a template means that most of the website coding is in place without your developer lifting a finger. That’s why template sites are much more affordable than custom sites, although your developer will still have to spend time customizing the template and implementing the content.
Template sites are quite fast to implement. Again, this is because much of the coding is done. A template site can generally be launched in a matter of weeks, if the content is pretty much ready to go (this is, however, often not the case — and is often a significant barrier to getting a site launched) and your developer’s schedule is clear. Depending on the complexity of what you want, a custom site will take significantly longer.
Templates are getting more sophisticated. The best templates are well-designed, robust, and allow for a reasonable amount of customization.
There can be significant disadvantages to using templates, especially if your developer isn’t particularly skilled. These can include:

Your site may look like everyone else’s. Skilled designers can minimize this problem with creative use of graphics and customization within the template, but the most popular themes have been downloaded thousands of times.
You’re limited in your graphics design and navigation capability. A significant degree of customization is possible in templates, especially the more expensive ones, but you are largely stuck with the parameters of the template for your graphics design and navigation. This can be simple design parameters, like limited choices in icons, or more serious issues like the inability to have a functionality you want in the way that you’d like it to work.
Some templates aren’t especially well-made or maintained. This can’t be emphasized enough — template sites are only as good as the template itself! Virtually all templates nowadays (as of May 2017) are designed to be responsive — that is, they respond to the device used to view them and automatically optimize to that device’s screen size. However, WordPress is updated frequently to stay on top of security concerns — major updates occur a few times a year, and security patches can come out as often as needed. Unfortunately, not all template developers update their templates to keep up with the changes. If your template isn’t updated regularly, your template might break when you or your developer install a WordPress update. That puts you in the position of having to run an older version of WordPress, which can make your site more vulnerable to hacking. Down the road this can also lead to problems hosting your site, as quality website hosting plans are not willing to host sites that are running severely out-of-date versions of WordPress. Also, certain external tie-ins that may be featured on your site, such as PayPal integration, will update automatically and may cease to work with older versions of WordPress. Fortunately, more expensive, better-designed templates are less likely to develop this problem — to minimize the risk, you should carefully check reviews and history of both the template and its developer before making a choice.
Functionality can be limited in template sites. Adding e-commerce and other kinds of custom applications is difficult or impossible in template sites.
Security can be an issue. People who enjoy writing malicious code find template websites especially tempting, because they represent the opportunity to hack multiple sites at once. Developers will sometimes customize a template site using plug-ins (a plug-in is a bit of code that adds a particular functionality) in an attempt to improve WordPress security in particular, but unless your developer really knows what he/she is doing, this can actually make the problem worse. In addition, if you choose a template that isn’t regularly updated to keep up with WordPress, your site will become more vulnerable to hackers.
 
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