Building a website is easier than ever, especially if you choose the right platform. Having worked with both Squarespace and WordPress over the years, we’ve seen firsthand how each option caters to different needs. Both platforms let you create a professional website without any coding.
In this article, we will share the pros and cons of both Squarespace and WordPress, drawing from our experience. Whether you need flexibility or a more streamlined approach, we will help you understand which platform is best for you.
By the end, you’ll feel confident in your choice.
Note: This comparison is between Squarespace vs self-hosted WordPress (not WordPress.com). See the difference between self-hosted WordPress vs. WordPress.com.
Our Comparison and Testing Methodology
To thoroughly compare Squarespace vs. WordPress, we tested both platforms with real websites. Our focus was on users looking to create personal blogs, business websites, or eCommerce stores.
Since we want to create the most detailed WordPress vs Squarespace comparison, we have broken down the article into multiple in-depth sections.
We will look at each section and see which platform offers the most benefit to a beginner-level user:
- Ease of Use and the Learning Curve
- Costs of Using Squarespace vs. WordPress
- Design and Templates
- Extensions and Integrations
- eCommerce Comparison – Squarespace vs. WordPress
- Data Portability
- Languages and Internationalization
- Summarizing Squarespace vs. WordPress Comparison
- Squarespace or WordPress – Which One Should I Choose?
- Frequently Asked Questions About Squarespace vs WordPress
Ready? Let’s get started.
Ease of Use and the Learning Curve
Most business owners and beginner-level users are not familiar with HTML, CSS, and other code-related things.
They want a website builder that is beginner-friendly and helps them make a website without hiring a developer.
Let’s see how both WordPress and Squarespace stack up in this category.
WordPress
WordPress is the top choice among users who want to start a blog or small business owners building a DIY website.
WordPress is the best website builder on the market. More than 43% of all websites on the internet use WordPress.
While WordPress is fairly intuitive and easy to use, there is a slight learning curve.
Beginners will need to familiarize themselves with WordPress terminology and concepts, such as the difference between posts and pages, categories and tags, and themes and plugins.
The default WordPress content editor is fairly easy to use.
It comes with blocks to add common content elements to your pages to build beautiful layouts with media-rich content.
Despite the slight learning curve, in our experience, most users quickly adapt to WordPress.
Need an even more flexible way to create pages?
WordPress gives you access to drag-and-drop page builder plugins like SeedProd. This allows you to create your own custom designs from scratch without writing code.
We use WordPress to build all our websites. To learn more, you can see our complete WordPress review and the reasons for using WordPress.
Squarespace
Unlike WordPress, Squarespace does not come with a lot of choices.
This lack of choice makes it very simple and user-friendly. We found it incredibly easy to use, and even beginners can quickly write and publish content.
Squarespace also uses a block editor similar to WordPress. Adding images, videos, and audio files is simpler than WordPress.
There are plenty of content blocks, and each block has multiple layout control choices.
Squarespace lets you customize your templates and pages using a visual editor.
However, you are limited to the options available in the customizer since it is a controlled environment.
Conclusion
We found Squarespace to be a little better than WordPress in terms of ease of use for beginners. However, its limited features might not be ideal for all business owners.
On the other hand, WordPress users will have many options right from the beginning. It might be confusing at first, but we believe it is much more flexible in the long run.
Winner: Tie
Costs of Using Squarespace vs. WordPress
Knowing how much each platform costs is important in making a business decision.
Let’s look at how much Squarespace costs vs. WordPress costs.
WordPress
WordPress itself is free. You are free to download, use, and build upon WordPress. It is an open-source software with a GPL license, which gives you all the freedom and control.
However, we are often asked by users why WordPress is free–There must be some catch.
The catch is that you can use it for free, but you will need a domain and a web hosting account to build your website with WordPress.
Depending on your needs, you can choose a shared hosting plan, VPS hosting, or even managed WordPress hosting.
Shared hosting plans work for most personal and small business websites.
For more on this topic, see our guide on choosing the best WordPress hosting.
The cost of web hosting and domain name vary depending on your hosting provider. You are in charge of how many resources you need for your website and how much you will pay for it.
For instance, you can start with Bluehost. They are offering WPBeginner users a huge discount and a free domain name with an SSL certificate.
Alternatives: We also recommend using Hostinger as your starter hosting plan. If you can spend a little more, then you can upgrade to SiteGround.
One reason WordPress is so popular is that the overall cost of building a website with it is very low.
In addition, you can change your hosting plan as your site grows. This means you will only pay for the resources you use, making it easier to control the cost of your website.
We have a detailed article on the cost of building a WordPress website and how to keep it under budget.
Squarespace
The personal Squarespace plan starts at $16 per month, and the business plan costs $23 per month. That’s a little more than a shared hosting plan for WordPress.
However, unlike a shared WordPress hosting service, this Squarespace plan has limited features.
You can only add only two contributors to your site, and you cannot sell products.
Whereas you can start an online store with WordPress for less than that.
Squarespace’s business plan starts at $23 per month (billed annually) or $36 per month.
It includes eCommerce support, but they charge a 3% fee on each transaction. This is separate from the fee charged by your payment processor.
The business plan has unlimited contributors, pages, and advanced features.
They also have separate plans for online stores starting from $28 per month with no additional transaction fee.
Conclusion
As an open-source platform, WordPress beats Squarespace with flexible pricing plans available from a variety of web hosting providers. Squarespace pricing is higher than WordPress and has less flexibility.
The cost depends on how many resources you use, and you get access to all WordPress features right out of the box.
Winner: WordPress
Design and Templates
WordPress and Squarespace offer ready-made templates and design tools, making it easy to create a custom website.
Let’s see which offers you more choices and tools to create well-designed websites.
WordPress
WordPress offers access to thousands of free and premium themes (website templates). These templates are highly customizable, allowing you to use your website logo and colors, upload your own images, and more.
Many WordPress themes offer multiple layout choices, a drag-and-drop editor, sliders, photo galleries, and many other features.
No matter what kind of web design you need, you will find hundreds of professionally designed templates for the job.
Many beginners find this abundance of choices a bit overwhelming. Here are some of our expert picks of the best WordPress themes for different kinds of websites:
- Best free WordPress blog themes
- Best WordPress themes for business websites
- Best WordPress magazine themes
- Best simple WordPress themes
For more on this topic, see our article on how to choose the best WordPress theme for your website.
Alternatively, you can start with SeedProd. It is a drag-and-drop WordPress website builder that allows you to design a custom WordPress theme from scratch without coding.
We have used SeedProd to build landing pages and complete websites. Our SeedProd review describes our experience.
Squarespace
Squarespace offers ready-made website templates neatly organized into different categories.
Squarespace templates are available for all popular website categories, with professional designs that look good on all devices. We like how Squarespace organized these templates.
You can easily select and modify a template for your Squarespace website using the built-in customizer.
However, this is a big area where Squarespace seriously falls behind.
The number of pre-made templates is very limited, and your design options are also limited to the set of features available in the Squarespace customizer.
Themes come with a limited number of layout choices with each template. You can still tweak colors, fonts, website logos, and other things, but these templates are not as customizable as WordPress themes.
Conclusion
We can confidently say that WordPress is the clear winner in terms of design choices, customization options, website-building features, and flexibility.
We like great-looking templates offered by Squarespace, but they are limited in numbers and are not very flexible.
Winner: WordPress
Extensions and Integrations
All website builders come with a collection of built-in features. As your website grows, you may want to add more features and connect your site to third-party tools and services.
Let’s see how WordPress and Squarespace perform in this regard.
WordPress
We believe that Plugins are the most powerful feature of the WordPress ecosystem. These plugins are like apps for your WordPress site that you can install to add new features or change the default behavior of your site.
More than 59,000+ free WordPress plugins are listed in the WordPress.org plugin directory alone. There are also thousands of premium third-party plugins available.
If you can think of a feature, there is a good chance that you’ll easily find a WordPress plugin that does it.
WordPress plugins are so robust that many are full-fledged platforms with their own add-on plugins and a thriving community built around them.
Then you have specialized plugins to create specific websites, for example:
- eCommerce sites
- Membership communities
- Selling online courses
- And all types of websites imaginable.
Because WordPress is the most popular website builder, most third-party services and tools have their own WordPress plugins.
These plugins provide seamless integrations to their services from a WordPress website. For instance, you’ll find plugins to connect with:
- Top email marketing services
- SEO tools
- Live chat software
- Google Analytics
- Lead generation software
- Social media platforms
To learn more, see our article on how to choose the best WordPress plugin or take a look at our expert pick of essential WordPress plugins every website should have.
Squarespace
We were not surprised to find out that Squarespace is not even close to WordPress in terms of extensibility and integrations.
They do offer a very limited set of extensions and integrations. However, unlike WordPress, Squarespace lacks powerful APIs upon which developers can build.
The available integrations are often limited in functionality, and you cannot use them as freely on Squarespace as you can do on WordPress.
For eCommerce, you can use their built-in platform, but you cannot extend it in any way.
We found it to be very limiting and can imagine how a business may struggle as it grows beyond what’s available on the platform.
Squarespace lacks the functionality to allow custom websites you might need for your online business idea.
Conclusion
WordPress is the clear winner in this category. We love its incredible ecosystem of thousands of plugins and integrations that empower businesses worldwide.
We liked that Squarespace is trying to grow its integrations. However, as of now, it has very few integrations, and many of them are very limited.
Winner: WordPress
eCommerce Comparison – Squarespace vs. WordPress
Are you building an online store? Let’s compare the eCommerce functionality of WordPress vs. Squarespace.
WordPress
WordPress allows you to integrate and use any payment processor or platform.
Many WordPress plugins allow you to easily accept online payments using credit cards via Stripe, PayPal, Google Checkout, 2Checkout, Payoneer, Skrill, and even Bitcoin.
WordPress has plenty of eCommerce plugins that can turn your website into an online store within minutes.
The world’s most popular eCommerce platform, WooCommerce, is a WordPress plugin. We use it on some partner companies, see our WooCommerce review for more details
WooCommerce comes with its own ecosystem of WooCommerce add-ons and thousands of WooCommerce-ready themes.
There is no limit on how many products you add to your website, how you display them, or how you sell them.
You can run your own affiliate program and use any marketing techniques to grow your sales without any restrictions.
Here are other ways you can sell on WordPress.
- Easy Digital Downloads – For selling digital goods like file downloads, software, and ebooks. (We use it to sell software on our partner websites, see our Easy Digital Downloads review to learn more)
- MemberPress – To sell subscriptions and online courses. (We use it on our WordPress Video Course website. See our complete MemberPress review)
- WP Simple Pay – Don’t need a full-fledged eCommerce platform? WP Simple Pay lets you sell individual products and services by adding a payment form to your site. Here is our WP Simple Pay review.
Squarespace
Squarespace’s eCommerce features are quite limited. You can only use Stripe and PayPal for payment processing, which are only available in select countries.
No other payment system is available, which restricts your ability to accept payments from a larger global audience.
Starting with such limitations is not a great idea for a growing business.
You can also only sell products in Business or Commerce plans. Due to transaction fees, Squarespace users need to upgrade to an eCommerce plan to save on that.
Let’s say you want to sell only one product. You will still have to pay for the Business plan, and the yearly costs of hosting a site with just one product to sell will be way higher than a shared hosting plan or VPS for WordPress.
As for third-party services, there are very few external services that you can integrate with your Squarespace site.
This affects how you promote your website and the things you can do to make more sales and grow your business.
Conclusion
WordPress is way ahead of Squarespace when it comes to running an eCommerce website. We found Squarespace’s limitations to be a hurdle for growing businesses.
The neat part about WordPress is that you can also use it alongside Shopify. See our comparison of Shopify vs. WooCommerce.
Winner: WordPress
Data Portability
When signing a business agreement, you always have safety clauses such as, if you’re unhappy, you can leave without any hassle.
This concept extends to online businesses as well, and it is called data portability.
We strongly believe that If you’re unhappy with a platform, you should be able to take all your work and move it elsewhere. You should have full ownership and control over your data.
Let’s look at how WordPress and Squarespace handle data portability and the freedom to switch.
WordPress
We love that WordPress comes with built-in tools to easily export all your data.
You can also back up your themes, plugins, and the entire database, not just your content and images. See our list of the best WordPress backup solutions.
You can then easily move this content to any other Content Management System you want. You can store your content anywhere else and change web hosts at any time you want.
Squarespace
Just like everything else, the export feature on Squarespace is also very limited. We were not surprised as most proprietary platforms use data as leverage to keep you on their platform.
You can only export certain parts of your content in an XML file. This includes your pages, galleries, and one blog page with all its posts.
Your product pages, album pages, text, audio, and video blocks will not be exported.
Conclusion
The content you create on your site is yours, and you should have the freedom and tools so that you can move it elsewhere.
WordPress again beats Squarespace with easy-to-manage tools to export your entire site.
Winner: WordPress
Languages and Internationalization
We live in a global world, and many businesses cater to a multilingual audience in different geographical locations.
Let’s see how Squarespace and WordPress handle languages, multi-lingual content, and geographical locations.
WordPress
WordPress is fully translated into dozens of languages. Users on a WordPress site can choose their language from their profile settings.
Most WordPress themes are translation-ready, and all popular WordPress plugins are also translated into many languages.
You can build a WordPress website in any language you want. You can even translate WordPress for your own website if your language is not yet available.
WordPress does not come with multi-lingual functionality out of the box. However, there are excellent plugins to create multilingual websites that are SEO-friendly and incredibly feature-rich.
Squarespace
The Squarespace platform is fully translated into six languages (English, German, French, Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese). It also partially supports a few more languages.
You can change your site language and choose a different timezone/country.
You can only use currencies supported by Stripe or PayPal for your store products.
You can create multilingual pages by basically duplicating your pages. You will have to manually create a site structure or different sites for each language (You will be billed for each site separately).
Alternatively, you can pay for Weglot, a third-party service to manage translations. Pricing for Weglot starts at $9.99 per month for one language. See our Weglot review for more details.
Conclusion
WordPress is way ahead in terms of languages and localization options. Squarespace again comes out as very limited and unsuitable for creating multilingual websites.
Winner: WordPress
Summarizing Squarespace vs. WordPress Comparison
WordPress is a far superior platform to Squarespace when it comes to building a website. Our CMS market share report shows that WordPress powers over 43% of all websites, while Squarespace is only used by 2.1% of websites.
Here is a quick breakdown of the pros and cons of both platforms.
Pros of using Squarespace
- Easier to use for small websites
- Polished user experience
- Hassle-free website setup
- Customer support via Twitter, live chat, and email support.
Cons of using Squarespace
- Costs higher than a website on shared hosting
- Limited design choices
- A limited set of features
- Limitations put you at a disadvantage in growing your business
Pros of using WordPress
- Easy to use with a slight learning curve
- Incredibly flexible to create any kind of website
- Massive collection of themes and plugins
- Truly powerful eCommerce platform
- Can be started at a very low cost
- Community support via online forums
Cons of using WordPress
- You’ll have to install updates and make backups
- You’ll have to manually scale resources by upgrading your hosting as your business grows
- You’ll be responsible for managing your website security
Weighing the pros and cons, we can confidently say that WordPress is a better platform to start a website.
The freedom to grow your website as you see fit is important for all businesses.
You should not trade that for any cost. WordPress provides this freedom at a much lower cost than all other platforms.
Squarespace or WordPress – Which One Should I Choose?
We recommend using WordPress over Squarespace for all users. We found it to be more flexible, powerful, and enabling for small businesses.
We believe that with the current features, we cannot recommend Squarespace for any type of website at that price point.
However, because of its ease of use, Squarespace could be suitable for personal websites or portfolios if you are willing to pay a premium for limited features.
Frequently Asked Questions About Squarespace vs WordPress
Following are some of the most commonly asked questions about Squarespace vs WordPress.
1. Is WordPress better than Squarespace?
Yes, WordPress is better than Squarespace because it gives you more freedom and flexibility to build any kind of website.
Squarespace is easy to use, but it offers a free, limited set of features and flexibility. It is comparable to platforms like Wix or Weebly, which are also fully hosted site builders with similar limitations.
2. Is WordPress better for SEO than Squarespace?
Yes, WordPress is better for SEO (Search Engine Optimization) than Squarespace. With WordPress, you can use SEO plugins like All in One SEO for WordPress or Yoast SEO. This makes it easy to optimize your site for better search rankings, even for beginners without the technical know-how. It comes with powerful sitemaps, schema markup, SEO titles, meta descriptions, and more.
With Squarespace, you are limited to the SEO functionality available in the backend platform and cannot extend it.
3. How can I switch from Squarespace to WordPress?
Squarespace offers limited export options, but you can still switch from Squarespace to WordPress. See our tutorial on how to easily move from Squarespace to WordPress for step-by-step instructions.
4. Which one is better for bloggers, Squarespace or WordPress?
WordPress is the better platform for bloggers. It started out as a blogging platform and still has the best blogging tools than any other site builder on the market.
We hope this article offered you a side-by-side comparison of WordPress vs. Squarespace. You may also want to see our complete WordPress review for a detailed overview of the platform.
If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.
Dennis Muthomi
Love this comparison of Squarespace and WordPress!
As a someone who recently switched from Squarespace to WordPress for one of my client I can vouch for the difference is huge. One tip I would add is when switching to WordPress start with a few essential plugins and add more as you go. This way I didn’t feel overwhelmed by all the options and still got to enjoy the flexibility of WordPress.
Jiří Vaněk
In my opinion, WordPress is a much more flexible tool and ultimately cheaper if one can secure quality and faster hosting. Regarding migration, it’s easier to migrate WordPress, and in terms of functional flexibility, WordPress also fares better. Where WordPress might lag is in speed, but that is always a matter of optimization and user experience. For me, the clear winner in this comparison is WordPress.
Mrteesurez
When we are talking about price or cost, I can see WordPress is a winner. that a point.
The main point is that, apart from using WordPress for free, you can create custom theme and plugin to also make money off WordPress itself.
But Squarespace, they charge you for woocomerce functionalities and also collect 3% commission.
Jiří Vaněk
That is exactly one of the disadvantages, the commission, that you mentioned. WooCommerce is perfect in that the only commission you face is for the payment gateway, if you choose to use one. Otherwise, it’s a purely fee-free system. Moreover, thanks to external plugins, I have a much better setup in my country compared to SquareSpace, which doesn’t support local carriers or review systems. So, if someone is considering the costs of their shop, WordPress might be more expensive initially, as you need to pay for a developer, but afterwards, it’s essentially a low-cost system with plenty of benefits.
Moinuddin Waheed
wordpress has a clear edge in every aspect when compared to square space.
wordpress is affordable, it has tons of customisation options to choose from and has integrations with almost everything you will need to run a successful website or blog.
The best part about wordpress is, it has hand holding support in every step of the way in terms of its large community and large resources database.
Mrteesurez
I couldn’t agree more! When I first started out, I was overwhelmed by the choices, but WordPress made it so much easier with its vast customization options and integrations. The affordability was a big plus, but what really stood out to me was the supportive community. Whenever I hit a roadblock, there was always a forum or tutorial that had the answer. It’s like having a team of experts at your fingertips, which is something I didn’t find with other platforms like Squarespace and others. WordPress truly empowers you to build the website of your choice.
Tony
What about security and maintenance for WordPress?
WPBeginner Support
We mention that in the summary at the end of the article.
Admin
Linton Hale
Another great article! One little thing I think you could do better. Please don’t say “the slight learning curve”. I think it would be best to use simply “the learning curve”.
I realize you want to encourage people, and to let them know that if they are a capable computer user they can get this, no problem. But you don’t know about your readers’ learning curves. For some folks, depending upon what they want to do, WordPress can be a huge learning curve!
Thanks for all your excellent work!
WPBeginner Support
Thanks for the feedback, we’ll look into improving that in future articles
Admin
David Cornish
Great article! I used to use Wordpress but have been using Squarespace more and more recently. Finding I can really push the design a lot with some custom CSS and javascript, and clients really like the Squarespace admin experience.
WPBeginner Support
Each user has their own needs, while we prefer WordPress if your users prefer Squarespace they can certainly use it
Admin
Ray
Good article – but I might add – Wordpress can be extremely complex or simple – but that is the beauty of it. You can create a wordpress custom (which takes lots of coding experience) or you can create a simple site using a pre made theme. Wordpress may take more to learn – but learn it once and you can use it on many different types of websites for a long time. Learn squarepace – and you can only build squarespace sites. You wont have a clue how to run a wordpress or other opensource platform – which MAY limit you in the future. Also read squarespace terms – there is NO GUARENTEE of protection on your site. If your squarespace site disappears for whatever reason (employee error etc) there is no guarantee you can get it back. The backup system is crude – No REAL backups you can take offsite and hold in your hand and limited snapshots.
Having said that, I find the cost of hosting irrelevant when comparing the cost of creating content, layout, graphics and branding. When considering labor it costs the company many many thousands to do it RIGHT and there is the SEO campaigns. It doesn’t make sense to invest all the above into a platform you don’t own. With wordpress – its yours. With squarespace – its theirs and you cannot move it.
WPBeginner Support
Thanks for adding your feedback on this
Admin
Marita de Villiers
I have a question on this topic that I don’t see mentioned in your article. The SSL certificates are included with Squarespace, but I’m not sure about WordPress. Maybe you know if it is, because I helped a friend on a completely different builder and we had to figure out the process of getting those certificates and it was not easy.
WPBeginner Support
Hi,
Please see our article on how to get a free SSL certificate for your WordPress website.
Admin
Ashton Stradling
I would definitely recommend using Wordpress. The argument against it is that it is more complicated to use, but I slightly disagree. With all of the restrictions and higher prices from Squarespace, I think it is better to watch a few YouTube tutorials to better understand Wordpress. After all, I don’t think it is very difficult to use, and it allows users more access into code-editing and provides more plugins.
Cherry McCarthy
I guess it comes down to preference and what your specific site needs are. I’m not too sold on the limits Squarespace has, but that’s probably because I love WP. All of our clients’ sites are built in WordPress and I love how custom you can make the sites. Yes, it does take some back-end knowledge, but hey, knowledge is power!
Graham
Why are people getting so flustered over the two! It’s personal preference and what your requirements are at the end of the day.
Nicola Yap
I was doing research on whether or not to move my personal blog site from Squarespace to WordPress. A lot of my clients used WordPress, so I thought I may have been losing a big opportunity to adopt what I’ve learned from an agency for my own use. After reading this, I think I am going to stick to Squarespace. I’m not planning on throwing more money into buying expensive plug-ins for my simple blog, so I think the standard features are good enough for me. For more complex projects, though, I’d definitely go to WordPress.
tobias
Seems ridiculous that of all the things you wrote this article but never thought to go in to; image quality and page speeds.
Doug
That’s because image quality has nothing to do with your CMS and page speeds are to do with your server, which you have many options to pick using WordPress. Both these things are either irrelevant or impossible to do in a review like this!
Chris Salvador
Hello All,
Please advise. When setting up your site, what legal business structure do you use? (llc, sole proprietorship, s-corp etc.) This site is an LLC, but under LLC’s it says that you can’t pay yourself a wage. I am confused by this.
Lise
I am starting an online blog-business and I happen to come across this article. The thing I like the most about squarespace is no coding. Since the already-made templates have simple font change and other stuff. I just hate coding. But I still have to use wordpress since I plan to sell on the website…yeah.
Editorial Staff
You can use one of the drag & drop page builders to mitigate that issue.
Admin
Dave
Things may have changed since this article was written. Beyond the personal plan, Squarespace offers unlimited products, they can handle other payment processors such as Paypal and Apple Pay.
I think the rest of the article holds up. it will be a matter of preference – all of the easy to use online website tools sacrifice flexibility for that ease of use, but many won’t require more than that. I use Wordpress personally, usually with Elementor front end page builder, which has a free and Pro version, or the almost completely free Live Composer.
There are lots of other page builders out there, and more on the way, however. Wordpress has a ton of options for all kinds of functions.
Maury Brooks
I have been a squarespace user for 2 years and have explored WP and concrete in the past. Why I paid for SS is the simplicity was beautiful, with a minimal learning curve. Support was very quick earlier on which meant I had questions answered within the hour usually at no extra cost. I was on an annual plan which cost about $155-180 range per year from what I recall.
With WP I would have needed to hire someone to help me and paid so much more once I added in this cost.
Now I am at a next step point and will need a CMS so am looking at WP, Concrete and others as a next step.
James Katt
Squarespace is fantastic. But it is missing one important core capability: It is totally unable to do secure membership websites. This kills the deal for many professionals.
Membership websites are an important source of business for professional writers, bloggers, businesses. They are even important for non-profits like churches who want to keep in contact with their members.
Squarespace allows you to sell digital and real products. But it absolutely cannot securely allow you to sell memberships. Sad.
But that is a strong reason for choosing WordPress or other platforms like Rainmaker who allow you to create a membership business.
Paul Allen
Wow what a great unbiased neutral article that isn’t complete garbage because it honestly compares the two without ads from either Squarespace or Wordpress alongside the article.
Oh wait.
Thomas Nordman
What can you expect on a site called “wpbeginner”, this site is made for people beginning in WordPress.
Michael Einstein
I recently decided to move from WordPress to Squarespace. I looked at some other platforms (such as Blogger), but they just didn’t offer quite enough functionality for what I wanted).
I had been using self-hosted WordPress for over 2 years, but was just finding I was spending most of my time solving site, technical, and performance issues, instead of building content, which was always my goal.
I never went into this to become an expert is CSS, Caching software, or CDNs.. just to put some ideas and thoughts out there to try to help people.
Time will still tell if it was the right switch, since it is still early in the process.
You can learn about my thought process as to why I made the switch in a recent post I made to my site:
My reasons may not make sense for everyone, and its still early in the process.
But for many “hobby bloggers”, I do believe that Platforms such as Blogger, Wordpress.com or Squarespace are viable solutions, given that you can work within their limitations (which so far, I can).
Regards,
Michael
Nate Maingard
I’d love to hear how this goes for you!
vidzbegin
Squarespace is premium, wordpress is free.
Ray
On the contrary wordpress will cost you more to develop. But it absolutely kills squarespace with features. With great power comes great responsibility. There is a reason why not many medium size businesses use squarespace or other template builders.
Bryan Cork
Comparing them doesn’t make much sense either. SS is clearly meant for those unwilling or unable to learn the little you need to know about WP. My grandma would be fine with SS for sure.
Borja Obeso
And yet, the guys over at weebly, squarpace and wix spend a ton of money on advertisement (even tv ads) which will result in more WordPress users once the people expose to those ads start doing some research
Emanuel Ravelli
“While WordPress is fairly intuitive and easy to use, there is definitely a slight learning curve.” That is a biased understatement!
Darko Novak
As you steated:”WordPress outperforms Squarespace in every possible usage scenario.”
If you have decided or are in a need to build a web site using content management system, or you are just starting to conquer “The Web” with your new GREAT IDEA for a blog, then my advice to you would be not to limit your self by using other CMS solutions and stick with WordPress.
It’s not perfect but it’s the best solution!
Kristijan
Squarespace is premium, wordpress is free. Nothing much to say here…
Kar Yung Tom
Do you still feel this way?
Mulyadi Subali
Comparing Squarespace with WordPress is like comparing apple with orange. It’s just not fair. WordPress has more freedom and cost effective, it wins hands down.
Squarespace should be compared with Wordpress.com, as both have nasty limitations.
Olaf Lederer
Right, I was very surprised too. No Kudos from me