Which one you need
Web designer or web developer: which one do you actually need?
This is the question people are most embarrassed to ask and it is entirely reasonable. The two words get used interchangeably by half the industry, including by people selling to you.
A web designer decides how the site looks and how it is used. A web developer builds the machinery underneath. For an ordinary business website in India you usually need one person who does both. You need a separate developer only when the site has to do something, rather than say something.
Written by Susarathi Bose of Silicon Insights, Kolkata. Last updated .
In detail
The difference, in plain words.
A designer decides what the visitor sees and does
Layout, type, colour, photographs, the order things appear in, what happens when you tap. On a small site this is most of the work, because most of what makes a site succeed or fail is whether a stranger can find what they came for.
A developer builds the parts that do something
Accounts, payments, stock that changes, a booking calendar, anything talking to another system. This is real engineering and it is charged like it. If your site has none of it, you are not paying for a developer, whatever the invoice calls them.
Most business sites need one person, not two
A clinic, a shop, a boutique, a studio. Five to ten pages, photographs, contact details, and the search groundwork. Two specialists on that job means two people to brief, two to chase and a gap between them where things get lost.
The moment you genuinely need a developer
When customers will log in, when money will change hands on your site, when stock levels must stay accurate, or when the site must talk to your billing or booking system. That is a different budget and a different conversation, and anyone honest will tell you so before quoting.
What the job title does not tell you
Neither word tells you whether the person will hand over your files, register the domain in your name, or still answer the phone in a year. Those are the questions that decide how the next three years go, and they are on the page about what to ask before hiring.
If you are unsure which you are being sold, ask one question: what happens on this site that is not a person reading a page? If the answer is nothing, you need design and build, not a development project.
Questions
Questions people ask
Is a web designer cheaper than a web developer?
Usually, because there is less machinery to build and test. But the honest answer is that the price follows the work rather than the job title. A large design job costs more than a small development job. What actually moves the number is the number of pages, whether photographs have to be taken, who writes the words, and whether anything on the site has to do something rather than say something.
What is a full stack developer?
Someone who works on both the visible part of a web application and the server behind it. It is a useful title for software teams and close to meaningless for a shop that wants a website. If somebody offers you a full stack developer for a five-page site, they are describing their skills rather than your problem.
Can I just use Wix or WordPress myself?
Plenty of people do, and for a very simple site it can be the right answer. Be clear about what you are taking on: you become the person who keeps it updated, keeps it fast on a phone, keeps the plugins from breaking each other and sorts out the Google side. The tool is free; the hours are not. If you enjoy it, do it. If it will sit half-finished for a year, that is the real cost.
The other questions