Of all the systems available in the market today, some remain more popular with millions of active sites. This article will help you compare and choose between two leading website platforms: WordPress vs. Squarespace.
If you’re planning to build a website and wondering which system to use, you’ve come to the right place. We’re going to compare these two: WordPress vs. Squarespace.
Before we compare two leading, widely-used systems, there are several deciding factors you need to consider when creating a website and choosing a platform. Let’s take a look at them.
What you should consider when creating a website
Even before comparing WordPress vs. Squarespace, ask yourself (or your client) these questions:
What kind of website are you working on?
E-commerce, blog, company profile, personal website — different systems might work better for different types of websites.
Do you have a dev team or are you developing it yourself?
If you’re a one-man or one-woman team, you might want to choose a website builder that’s effortless to use.
How much time do you have to complete the project?
The more time you have, the more comprehensive your website can be.
What’s your budget range?
Some platforms cost higher than others, with more advanced technology, features, and services.
Now that you have a better idea about your website project, it’s time to look deeper at the comparison of WordPress vs. Squarespace.
Is Squarespace really worth it?
Did you know that there are almost 3 million live websites built using Squarespace? While this huge number can be a testament to their reliability, you still need to check out what features they offer and if they fit what your business needs.
First, what is Squarespace?
Squarespace is a website builder and hosting provider that allows you to create a website using various templates. Being a website builder, Squarespace doesn’t require you to have advanced, top-level coding knowledge and the learning curve is not complex.
That’s why this platform is popular among business owners with limited resources, or those who want to create a website quickly.
The pros and cons of Squarespace
People love Squarespace mostly because the system is great for non-developers — especially for blogs, portfolios, and e-commerce sites.
You can use hundreds of themes that Squarespace offers to create a website that looks and functions well for your business. The drag-and-drop editor also allows you to customize these themes if you want to take out or move some elements and sections.
We have some clients who are business owners to the core, with very limited coding and programming knowledge. Before we worked together, they had built their websites with Squarespace by themselves and their non-developer resources!
Squarespace can support up to 1,000 web pages, content creation tools to make videos and posts for social media, a wide array of blogging templates, a free domain name with an annual plan purchase, and most importantly, reliable customer support whenever you need some help.
However, using Squarespace can be expensive, depending on which plan you take. Moreover, the system doesn’t allow any third-party plugins or extensions, and the marketing tools options they have are quite basic.
Now, let’s take a look at another leading platform for comparison — WordPress.
Is WordPress still the best website builder?
If the number of websites that use Squarespace amazed you, well, WordPress has an even higher number. 37% of all websites in the world are powered by WordPress, which means around 455 million sites!
What makes WordPress so popular?
WordPress is not a website builder like Squarespace. WordPress is an open-source content management system (CMS) and you need to have decent programming knowledge to develop your website on WordPress.
But there’s still light at the end of the tunnel for non-nerds. The CMS is easy to use and comes with over 50,000 free and paid plugins to help you create a website with a minimum amount of coding. For example, you can install platforms like Elementor which turns your CMS into a website builder — similar to using Squarespace.
Other plugins are also available for different types of websites. WooCommerce for building an e-commerce site, and Yoast SEO for improving SERP rank are just two of the best-known ones. With all these plugins, your WordPress site is infinitely customizable and you can even host your own server and infrastructure using WPEngine or FlyWheel.
On the flip side, too much customization can take a toll on your budget. You may also need to check each plugin’s compatibility on every update. And while third-party plugins can be very useful for your site and business, they might not always play nice with your other plugins and services. All these combined, WordPress still can be quite complicated for non-developers.
WordPress vs. Squarespace — which one is better?
The answer might sound cliché but it truly depends on what you’re looking for for your business. We’ve summarized the pros and cons of WordPress vs. Squarespace to help you weigh out the options:
Pros and cons of Squarespace
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Great for non-developers | Can be expensive |
| Comes with a wide array of blogging templates | No third-party plugins or extensions |
| Can support up to 1,000 pages | Most of the marketing tools are basic |
| Various templates and content-creation tools available | Limited customization options |
| Free domain name if you purchase the annual plan |
Pros and Cons of WordPress
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| The CMS is easy to use | Can be expensive with too much customization |
| Over 50,000 free and paid plugins available for customization | Can be complicated for non-developers |
| WooCommerce plugin available — efficient for e-commerce | Plugin compatibility on every update can be inconvenient |
| SEO ready (with free plugins), great to improve SERP rank | Sometimes third-party plugins may not play nice with your other plugins and services |
| Can host on your own server and infrastructure | |
| Infinitely customizable |
All in all, both these two systems come with their set of pros and cons, so the answer for the comparison between WordPress vs. Squarespace really depends on your business needs.
If you don’t have resources for web development and urgently need to set up your web, Squarespace will be the better choice. However, WordPress is preferable if you have a developer team.
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