Squarespace Vs WordPress: Which One To Choose?

Squarespace is one of the leading website builders out there. What sets apart Squarespace from other web development platforms is its ease of use and intuitive templates. This platform lets you create a beautiful-looking website, without much hassle.

Regardless of your business industry and the type of website you want to create (be it a blog, portfolio, membership, eCommerce, or one-page website), Squarespace has so many templates to choose from.

To start building a Squarespace website, make sure you select the right plan. Squarespace’s monthly plans include templates, tools, and essential features. Each pricing plan offers different features. Let’s say you want a simple, professional business website and don’t want to add any e-commerce functionality to it, the starter plan, i.e., the Personal plan is the right choice.

WordPress is an open-source CMS (content management system) platform. Unlike platforms like Shopify, Squarespace, etc., WordPress doesn’t have any subscription plans. As this is a self-hosted platform, the website created using WordPress can be hosted on desired web hosting service provider.

The good thing about WordPress is that it provides room for plenty of customization. If you are planning to build a website from scratch and add customization through coding, WordPress is definitely the right choice.

To help you select the right one between Squarespace and WordPress, here we have compared both based on different factors like ease of use, pricing, SEO features, etc.

As WordPress is a self-hosted platform, you will need to host your website on a third-party hosting service provider. For a newbie, it can be daunting to choose the right web hosting provider out of so many options available.

Squarespace on the other hand is a hosted platform. This means your website will be hosted on Squarespace’s server and you don’t have to find a third-party hosting provider to host your website. In a nutshell, setting up a Squarespace website is a lot easier than a WordPress website.

In terms of ease of use, Squarespace is a lot better than WordPress. With Squarespace, you don’t have to mess around with coding and other technical stuff. You can customize your website and give various functionality to it without touching code.

Talking about WordPress, it has a steep learning curve. If you have never used WordPress before, it will take some time to get used to it. In order to customize a WordPress website, you need to know HTML and CSS.

WordPress was originally created as a blogging platform. For eCommerce features on this platform, you need to install plugins. With the help of various e-commerce plugins (for example, WooCommerce), you can turn your WordPress site into an online store. Squarespace provides eCommerce features in-built. Depending on the eCommerce features you want on your website, you need to choose the right pricing plan.

Squarespace’s simplicity and easy-to-use interface make it ideal for small business owners. However, WordPress is ideal for medium to large businesses. To avail all the essential eCommerce features, it can be used with the top e-commerce plugins like WooCommerce.

Blogging is a great way to connect with the audience. Through blogging, you can share your company news, the latest deals, offers, product launches, and informational content. Though both, Squarespace and WordPress offer blogging tools, WordPress has more edge over Squarespace.

As we have seen, WordPress was originally built as a blogging platform. So, in terms of blogging and content management, WordPress is quite better. One of the essential blogging features of WordPress is version history restoration. You can easily restore posts and page revisions.

Currently, Squarespace has four pricing plans: Personal ($23/month), Business ($33/month), Basic Commerce ($36/month), and Advanced Commerce ($65/month). While Squarespace has fixed monthly/yearly pricing plans, this isn’t the case with WordPress. When creating a website using Squarespace, you don’t have to worry about finding the hosting provider, as your website will be hosted on Squarespace’s server. As WordPress is a self-hosted platform, the cost is based on various factors like the hosting provider you choose, plugins, themes, etc.

Before using any platform for building a website, make sure it has all the essential SEO features. This would help you optimize your website for search engines and get organic traffic. In terms of SEO, both Squarespace and WordPress cover basic SEO features. However, if you want to get access to advanced SEO features, WordPress is the right choice. WordPress has a large collection of plugins. For advanced SEO needs, you will find so many plugins.

Squarespace provides email and live chat support to its customers. On the other hand, WordPress doesn’t provide any support (as it’s an open-source platform). However, if you buy paid themes or plugins, the developer does provide the support.