Are you looking forward to creating a website but cannot decide whether to go with WordPress or Squarespace? This is quite understandable due to the undeniable prowess of both website builders. As a result, it is quite necessary to find out about both solutions and pick the one that suits your needs and goals better.
To make this easier for you, we carried out a WordPress vs Squarespace side-by-side comparison in a lot of ways. Some of them include ease of use, pricing, designs, SEO capabilities, etc. That said, let us see whether WordPress or Squarespace will be better for your site.
Squarespace vs WordPress: General Info
Squarespace is a drag-and-drop builder that makes it easy for beginners with no web design or coding knowledge to create a website.
This website builder is an all-in-one solution that offers free templates, customer support, SEO features, blogging capabilities, and web hosting. Hence, it charges a flat fee monthly or yearly for its usage and the pricing depends on how many features you have access to.
WordPress, on the other hand, is an open-source software that you can use to build a website from scratch.
The CMS is free to use and requires coding knowledge for site creation and management. Nonetheless, it is still possible to use its built-in WordPress Editor to create pages using drag and drop.
WordPress doesn’t include hosting and customer support out of the box. Hence, you need to find a top WordPress web hosting provider to host your website with and get support from.
Squarespace vs WordPress: Ease of Use Comparison
Ease of use was the first aspect we had our WordPress vs Squarespace comparison in since it affects the experience of users, especially beginners. So, let us discuss how easy it is to create websites with them and see the easier one.
Building a Site with Squarespace
As we discovered in our review of Squarespace, this is an easy-to-use tool for creating a website.
This website builder uses point-and-click and drag-and-drop functions to allow users to link elements or sections together to create pages with ease.
It has many elements that you can add individually to your pages and some pre-made sections that make designs faster. So, in the end, your pages will look exactly the way you have designed them using elements and sections.
The website builder also has free templates that you can use to kickstart your web design and avoid starting from scratch. What’s more, if you don’t want to start from scratch or use an existing template, it has Artificial Design Intelligence (ADI) that can build a personalized website for you with some information you provide to it.
What’s more, if you create a particular section that you would like to reuse on another page, you can save it under Saved Sections. After you have added this section to the desired page, you can still modify it as you like.
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Creating a WordPress Site
Creating a site with WordPress follows a slightly different pattern. To create a WordPress site, you first need to install the software on a server.
Afterward, you will be able to log in to your WP website and choose a theme you would love to use.
WordPress themes are developed by different developers and they have distinct patterns for editing. So, if you choose a theme that you love, you may have to use either its built-in builder, WP Customizer, or the WordPress Editor to customize your pages. This lack of uniformity creates the need to learn many tools just to edit your website. Some themes even have built-in builders you have to use to customize them.
Nonetheless, if you are looking to get a theme that uses the Editor, building pages with it is somehow easy. The WP Editor is a drag-and-drop builder aimed at allowing beginners to create what they want visually without coding. It has a lot of blocks you can use to build pages and it’s quite feature-rich.
Further, the Editor has “Patterns” which are basically like pre-made sections. You can add them to your pages or even create new ones that you can reuse anywhere on your website.
Verdict on Squarespace vs WordPress: Ease of Use Comparison
After a thorough WordPress vs Squarespace analysis in terms of ease of use, we concluded that the latter is the easier option.
This is because it is better if you want to create a website very fast without having to worry about any advanced settings or tools. However, even though WordPress has the beginner-friendly Editor, there are times when you have to use plugins or even coding to get what you want.
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WordPress Themes vs Squarespace Templates: Compare and Contrast
Another important area we looked into for our Squarespace vs WordPress comparison was the themes or templates. Themes and templates help to make the process of creating a website easier. In addition to that, they determine how good your website looks. So, let’s see whether Squarespace or WordPress excels better in terms of templates/themes.
Quantity and Quality
Our findings have revealed that Squarespace has less than 200 website templates and they are all free. These templates are great-looking and contain a lot of features. However, in terms of modern feel or styles, most of its templates failed.
On the other hand, WordPress has more than 11,000 free themes. Most of these themes have modern looks and use the latest styles. Besides, they have a lot of features that make them unique and coveted.
Compared to Squarespace, you’ll have access to more and better themes with WordPress. This will give your website a more professional look.
Changing Templates and Themes
The most constant phenomenon in life is change and this applies to themes or templates too. This is because you may want to change the look of your website because of a rebrand or any other reason.
After a series of tests, we saw that it is not possible to switch your templates on Squarespace 7.1 without having to restart your website. Nevertheless, if you have an old website that is still using the 7.0 version, this is possible.
In contrast, you will be able to switch your themes on WordPress without losing your content. However, if there are some pages that depend on the features of the theme, they may look distorted or be completely wiped out.
Design Flexibility
In terms of design flexibility, WordPress takes the win against Squarespace. Unlike Squarespace which is limited to the built-in features like sections and elements or even what you can add using code, WP supports third-party plugins. With these plugins, you can add almost any functionality or design to your website designs without even writing a line of code.
Verdict on Squarespace vs WordPress Regarding Themes and Templates
Squarespace templates work best if you are looking for a way to get a ready-made standard website with the essential features without much design flexibility.
In contrast, for more powerful themes that will give the flexibility to customize your website to your taste, WordPress is better than Squarespace. However, using WordPress themes may increase your site’s overhead costs since some features are sometimes paywalled.
WordPress vs Squarespace: Blogging Tool Comparison
Blogging is a great way to get your voice heard and share your opinions or experiences with a larger audience. However, despite most website builders and CMS supporting blogging, not all of them provide great tools and features for it.
So there is a need to get a tool that will make blogging easy and enjoyable for you. Now, let us discuss the blogging prowesses of both site builders to see if Squarespace or WordPress is better.
Squarespace for Blogging
Blogging with Squarespace is very easy and straightforward. Once you have created your website, you will be able to add a blog page that contains the list of all your posts. In terms of layouts, the blog posts have the same look irrespective of the template in use.
From our findings, we saw that its blogging tool lacks a lot of modern features that could make a blog more interesting. But that is not to say it doesn’t have outstanding blogging tools at all because it does. Editing your blog posts is quite straightforward and you can customize them any way you want.
WordPress for Blogging
The default state of your WordPress website is a blog. So, in most cases, or unless you are using a custom theme, you can just start writing your blog posts. WordPress has a lot of built-in tools and features that make your blogging journey very intriguing.
Like pages, you will be able to design your blog post however you like. Writing blog post content with its feature-rich Block Editor or the Classic Editor is also smooth. In addition to those built-in features, you can use plugins to add more functionalities to your website as well.
Should You Blog with Squarespace or WordPress?
Judging from Squarespace’s tool and its general approach, it is not ideal for serious blogging with a long-term goal. Conversely, WordPress is a much better choice for blogging and it is suitable for building and managing very big blogs.
With WordPress plugins, your blog will have access to limitless features. So the winner of the WordPress vs Squarespace comparison in this aspect is the former.
Squarespace or WordPress: Which is Better for SEO?
Search engine optimization (SEO) is crucial to your website if you want to have any chance at attracting organic traffic. Otherwise, your website will struggle on search engine results pages (SERPs) and you will have to look for another source of traffic.
In our opinion, that could be more expensive and stressful with a need for more commitment. Since it is the builder or CMS that determines how far you can optimize your website, let us see whether WordPress or Squarespace is superior in terms of SEO.
WordPress
WordPress has a few built-in SEO features that users can use to optimize their websites. However, since using these features alone won’t be enough, you will be able to install SEO plugins on your website in order to add more optimization options. The built-in SEO features include image alt texts, featured images, and SEO-friendly URLs.
WordPress, from our firsthand experience, has a lot of SEO plugins for different purposes. So, if there is any particular optimization you want to do easily, WP will most likely have a plugin for it. The plugin may, however, be premium, requiring a one-time or recurring fee, if not free.
As a result, optimizing your WP website for SEO is very enjoyable and highly flexible. However, without the plugins, improving SEO is quite arduous and almost impossible.
Squarespace
Squarespace has a lot of SEO features; basic and advanced. All of these features are built-in and there is no way to add any SEO tool it doesn’t have using third-party services or plugins.
With Squarespace’s SEO features, you will be able to get a website ready for the struggles of the SERPs.
Some of the features are meta description, title tags, image alt texts, schema data markup, Open Graph meta tags, 301 redirects, sitemap.xml, robots.txt, and individual on-page SEO control. You will also be able to link your website to Google Search Console and Analytics.
Verdict on Squarespace or WordPress SEO Comparison
In terms of built-in SEO features, Squarespace crushed WordPress since the latter does not have many ways of optimizing a website on its own. So, if you are looking for a way to quickly set up your website and optimize it, Squarespace is your tool.
Nonetheless, the availability of SEO plugins like Yoast for WordPress makes it more powerful than Squarespace. You will be able to optimize every part of your WP website which isn’t possible on Squarespace. Yet, you may have to spend a lot of money on plugins and other SEO tools on WP.
So, the results of our WordPress vs Squarespace SEO comparison would be a tie. If your website is okay with the SEO tools available at Squarespace, that is great. However, if you need more features and you have the budget to fund it, go for a WordPress site.
See our Wix vs WordPress SEO duel to see how they compete against each other.
WordPress vs Squarespace: Which One is More Secure?
Another factor we considered during our WordPress vs Squarespace comparison was website security.
No matter the kind of website you want to build, ensuring its security is very important. Now, let us see whether WordPress or Squarespace is more secure.
Squarespace
Squarespace is a closed-source software. This means that its code is not visible to the public and people are not able to modify it or exploit its vulnerabilities. Because of this, Squarespace websites are quite hard to attack successfully. In most cases, the only way to hack your website is if an attacker gets your password or the creator itself gets attacked.
Yet, it provides security measures such as free SSL certificates, anti-DDoS protection, login logs, 24/7 server monitoring, data privacy, Two-Factor Authentication (2FA), and password-protected pages. These measures ensure that your website is always secure.
The best part of this is that you don’t need to make any effort in order to access or set up these measures. You, however, need to set up 2FA and password-protected pages.
WordPress
Because WordPress is an open-source software, it is more vulnerable and attackers have found many ways to exploit its weaknesses. Aside from being open source, the CMS allows people to install plugins and themes from third parties. Some of these themes and plugins were not coded correctly and they create loopholes or backdoors for attackers. While the software has a few security measures, the threats to it surpass them. Hence, it is imperative to invest greatly in the security of your website.
From our experience, the most affordable way to ensure that your site is secure is by hosting it with a great web host. SiteGround and Hostinger are two web hosts that provide your website with commercial-grade security features at affordable prices but at no extra charge.
Conclusion on WordPress vs Squarespace for Security
If you want a solution that will ensure that your website is secure out of the box, we recommend Squarespace. However, if you want to make your website more secure on WordPress than it will be on Squarespace, consider getting a hosting account from SiteGround or Hostinger.
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Which is Better for Multilingual Sites? WordPress vs Squarespace
Having a multilingual website is a necessity when your content is available to users of different nationalities speaking distinct languages. A multilingual website allows you to provide your content to users in their native languages in order to allow them to connect or understand better. Would Squarespace or WordPress be better for building a multilingual website? Let’s find out!
WordPress
WordPress doesn’t have a built-in option for creating a multilingual website. Instead, it has a multi-site function that allows you to manually create multiple language versions of your website using the same domain name.
However, in order to simply create a multilingual site, you can install a plugin. These plugins usually integrate Google Translate into your website and give users a language switcher button they can use to translate your content automatically.
Some of the plugins are also powerful enough to automatically redirect users to the versions with the default language of their browser as long as you have it enabled.
Squarespace
Squarespace doesn’t have a built-in feature for creating a multilingual website either. Instead, it provides an extension that integrates with a third-party software called Weglot.
Weglot automatically translates your web pages and provides a language switcher too. The catch here, however, is that Weglot is quite expensive since the number of languages and words you can translate is capped. So, in the long run, you will be spending a pretty penny on translating your content.
Verdict on Using WordPress or Squarespace for Multilingual Sites
In our opinion, the winner of the WordPress vs Squarespace comparison in this aspect is the former.
Unlike Squarespace, creating a multilingual website with WordPress plugins is totally free. Although, you may opt for the paid versions of the plugins if you want advanced features. Besides, in terms of features, Weglot lacks what you can achieve with WordPress plugins at even cheaper rates.
Which is Better for eCommerce, Squarespace or WordPress?
Nowadays, eCommerce is one of the major reasons for building a website. So, if you are looking forward to building an online store, you must consider the features you need and choose the best tool that provides them.
Fortunately, it is possible to build an eCommerce site with both creators. So, let us see whether WordPress or Squarespace is better for the task.
WordPress
WordPress is one of the best eCommerce website creators in the industry. You can create any type of eCommerce website on WordPress and integrate any features of your choice. In a nutshell, if you think of any eCommerce functionality and it exists, you will most likely get it on WP.
Nevertheless, it will be important to note that WordPress doesn’t have any eCommerce features of its own. Rather, it depends on the plugins, APIs, and eCommerce-compatible themes to do the job. Because of this reason, running an eCommerce site can be very expensive since you may have to purchase some plugins to access certain features.
Squarespace
Squarespace, on the other hand, has its eCommerce features built-in. As a result, it doesn’t depend on any third-party services for a smooth operation.
Discounts, multiple payment methods, appointments, scheduling, POS, multiple sales channels, and advanced shipping, are some of the eCommerce features you will find on the creator. What’s more the builder provides memberships/subscriptions, inventory & order management, marketing automation, and abandoned cart recovery as well.
Aside from the built-in features, it lets you connect some third-party services for more functionalities and improved workflow. While the built-in features are free, you may have to pay recurring fees to use Squarespace Extensions.
Verdict on Creating an eCommerce Site with WordPress or Squarespace
As with SEO, Squarespace is a better option than WordPress if you care more about built-in features for your online store. With only WordPress, you won’t be able to build an eCommerce site or even receive a payment. However, if you want to build a very powerful online store with a lot of features, WP can help you achieve that.
While many may think otherwise, we will have to give the victory of the WordPress vs Squarespace eCommerce comparison to the former due to the window of opportunities.
Squarespace vs WordPress: Pricing Comparison
Affordability is one of the most important determining factors of a good product or service. By affordability, we are not only referring to the price but also the value for money. So, let us see whether Squarespace or WordPress is more affordable to build a website with.
WordPress Pricing
WordPress is a free-to-use software that costs nothing to download and install. However, this doesn’t mean you won’t have to spend a dime to use the software.
Despite the fact that WordPress is free, there are other things you need to pay for in order to build a WP site. Some of these are hosting, security, domain names, etc. Optionally, you could also have to purchase premium themes and plugins to use for certain features. Besides, you may have to pay a developer thousands of dollars too if you want a website with custom features.
So technically, the pricing and cost of building a website using WordPress depends on a lot of things including but not limited to your goals. This means, there is no way to say what exactly the price of a WP site is.
If we are to consider using one of the most affordable WP web hosts, Hostinger, then hosting a WordPress site should cost at least $2 per month.
Here are some other top hosting providers and their pricing:
- SiteGround: starting from $3 per month and a minimum renewal pricing of $18 monthly
- InMotion Hosting: minimum of $3 and $10 monthly for starting and renewal pricing, respectively
- A2 Hosting: at least $3 starting price and $12 for renewals monthly.
Squarespace Pricing
Conversely, Squarespace is not a free software. The website builder costs between $16 and $49 per month, depending on the features you want.
One great thing about this is that every plan comes with web hosting and other relevant features you may need. So, somehow, you will be consolidating all your expenses. Besides, the cost of building your website is quite certain.
Here is a breakdown of Squarespace plans with their pricing and purposes;
- Personal: costs $16 monthly. It is the ideal plan for blogging or building personal websites that do not require payment functions.
- Business: costs $23 per month. This plan works best for those businesses or sites looking forward to accepting payments from clients for the sales of services or products.
- Commerce Basic: costs $27 monthly. It is a great plan for online stores that want to have more eCommerce and marketing features.
- Commerce Advanced: costs $49 per month. It is an excellent choice if you want to build a powerful online store and have access to all the advanced eCommerce tools.
Conclusion on the Pricing Comparison of Both Tools
In our opinion, Squarespace is the cheaper option of the two website builders. This is because even though a lot of WordPress hosts are cheaper than Squarespace, the pricing of the latter is certain since it has most features built-in.
So if we consider that there may be a need to buy premium plugins and themes or even pay a developer a handsome amount, it becomes clear that WordPress can be costlier. Now that doesn’t necessarily mean it will be. It’s possible to do very well with free themes and plugins, for example.
WordPress Plugins vs Squarespace Extensions
There are times when the features of a website builder are just not enough or what we are looking for. When this happens, we may need to integrate the features we want into our website using third-party tools.
So far, our findings have shown that both Squarespace and WordPress support third-party integrations. So, let’s have a quick Squarespace vs WordPress duel in that aspect.
Squarespace Extensions
Squarespace Extensions are vetted third-party integrations that the website builder has deemed safe for use on users’ websites. At the time of writing this, it has less than 100 extensions that can be used for certain purposes.
After a lot of research, we concluded that most of the Squarespace Extensions are for eCommerce purposes. There are no extensions that help to add more functionalities to the design ability of the builder. Moreover, you cannot add or upload any extensions.
What’s more, 90% of the extensions are not free. While you may be able to get a free trial, you will have to pay a recurring fee to keep enjoying the services eventually.
WordPress Plugins
In contrast, WordPress has thousands of plugins in its repository. The plugins were developed by independent developers and uploaded to the repository for public usage. Because of the quantity of the plugins, you will find one for any feature or task you want to accomplish if you look hard enough.
In case you don’t see what you need, you can also upload yours to add the features to the site. Moreover, WordPress plugins come in free and paid versions. Basically, the free versions usually restrict some features that will require an add-on or an upgrade to access.
Verdict on the WordPress Plugins vs Squarespace Extensions Comparison
Through and through, WordPress takes the win against Squarespace in this round. WordPress plugins make your website more powerful and flexible. I mean, you can create custom plugins to add features you want to your website. Conversely, even though Squarespace extensions are limited, you still won’t be able to create one for your site.
WordPress vs Squarespace Customer Support Duel
The last but crucial aspect we considered during our research for the WordPress vs Squarespace analysis was customer support.
With customer support, you will be able to get assistance whenever you have an issue with your website or any technical aspect. Having a reliable website builder that ensures you can get assistance is crucial. But is WordPress or Squarespace better in terms of customer support? Let us find out!
WordPress
WordPress is an open-source software and technically doesn’t have a customer support department. The only way to get support from humans is via the community forum.
Other times, you will have to look for answers yourself by searching Google or checking the documentation for the builder. That said, you can have access to better human support through your hosting provider. So, the quality of support you will receive will depend on the web host you have chosen. Besides, the scope of support of the builder can vary.
Squarespace
Squarespace, unlike WordPress, provides customer support through emails and tickets, 24/7, and via live chat from 4 AM to 8 PM EST from Monday to Friday.
From our trials, the support agents of the builder are very responsive, professional, and helpful. This means you always have experts to rely on if you have an issue with your site or the builder. If you need to speak with any support agent, you can request a callback as well. The creator also provides a Help Center filled with DIY articles and a community of like-minded for easy collaboration.
Verdict on Squarespace vs WordPress Customer Support Comparison
Squarespace is obviously better than WordPress because it offers a reliable customer support system. In addition to that, it is easier to get help in fixing issues with Squarespace than with WordPress.
For instance, if there is a bug, it can take the WordPress community a long time to release the fix or suggest a workaround. In contrast, Squarespace will be able to fix the bug since there are more dedicated experts available for the project.
Squarespace vs WordPress: Which One is Better?
Even after this thorough Squarespace vs WordPress comparison, the winner is to pick based on what we uncovered.
Nevertheless, we will recommend Squarespace over WordPress for anyone who wants to create a website very fast without missing out on great customizations and ease of use.
WordPress, on the other hand, is better if you have a powerful site to build and you need full customization power with access to server configurations and management.
Here is the summary of the Squarespace vs WordPress comparison;
| Yardsticks | Winner | Remark |
|---|---|---|
| Ease of Use | Squarespace | Squarespace's editor is a lot easier to use. It has little to no learning curve and requires no coding. WordPress, on the other hand, has many editors, making the customization of its theme a bit tasking. Besides, with WP, coding knowledge is necessary but not required. |
| Pricing and Value for Money | Squarespace | Even though the software is free, the cost of running a WordPress website is higher than that of Squarespace in the long run due to the several features you may have to pay for. Besides, the cost of running your Squarespace site is usually certain, unlike WP. |
| SEO | Squarespace | Squarespace has more built-in SEO features than WP. Thus, you can optimize your site on the former better. This is neglecting the fact that there are many WP SEO plugins you can use to optimize your content better. |
| ECommerce | Squarespace | Only Squarespace has eCommerce features between the builders. While it is sufficient to build an online store without any third-party app on Squarespace, WP relies on several plugins. |
| Blogging | WordPress | In terms of features and general setup, WordPress is a better tool for blogging out of the box. Additionally, unlike Squarespace, there are a few plugins you can use to enhance WP's blogging features. |
| Multilingual Support | WordPress | Both creators do not have free options for multilingual site creation. Nonetheless, not only is WP more affordable, but it is more efficient too. |
| Design Flexibility | WordPress | WP is a lot more flexible to design with than Squarespace. This can be linked to the availability of so many plugins and designs tools which you can integrate into your site. It is more flexible to code on too. |
| Customer Support | Squarespace | WordPress doesn't have any reliable support channel where you can go to get issues resolved very fast. Whereas, Squarespace has several channels that can serve you at almost every time. |
| Templates | WordPress | WordPress has more templates than Squarespace. While some of them can be a bit expensive, you can find some really cool free themes too. |
| Third-party Integrations | WordPress | While WP has thousands of plugins that can be used to add more features to your site, Squarespace has less than 100 extensions. |
| Security | Squarespace | It is a lot easier to have a secure site on Squarespace since the builder provides the measures and the system is less vulnerable. The security of your WordPress site, on the other hand, depends on your web host and it is more vulnerable. |
