Bluehost vs. Squarespace

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Bluehost
Score 5.6 out of 10
N/A
Bluehost, headquartered in Orem, Utah, offers website hosting. Bluehost also offers managed WordPress hosting, with optional SEO and marketing tools for WordPress plans.
$19.95
per month for 36 month term
Squarespace
Score 8.4 out of 10
N/A
Squarespace is a CMS platform that allows users to create a DIY blog, eCommerce store, and/or portfolio (visual art or music). Some Squarespace website and shop templates are industry or use case-specific, such as menu builders for restaurant sites.
$12
per month
Pricing
BluehostSquarespace
Editions & Modules
Shared WordPress Hosting
$3.95-$16.99
per month
Shared Web Hosting
$3.95-$26.99
per month for 36 month term
eCommerce - WooCommerce Hosting
$15.95-$49.95
per month, 1 month to 36 month terms available
Managed WordPress (beta)
$19.95
per month for 36 month term
VPS Hosting
$19.99 - $119.99
per month
Blue Sky Live WordPress Support
$29.00-$149.00
per month
Dedicated Hosting
$79.99-$209.99
per month
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
BluehostSquarespace
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsPersonal: $12/month (paid annually) $16/month (paid monthly) Business: $18/month (paid annually) $26/month (paid monthly) Basic Commerce: $26/month (paid annually) $35/month (paid monthly) Advanced Commerce: $40/month (paid annually) $54/month (paid monthly)
More Pricing Information
Features
BluehostSquarespace
Security
Comparison of Security features of Product A and Product B
Bluehost
-
Ratings
Squarespace
8.5
59 Ratings
6% above category average
Role-based user permissions00 Ratings8.559 Ratings
Platform & Infrastructure
Comparison of Platform & Infrastructure features of Product A and Product B
Bluehost
-
Ratings
Squarespace
8.3
51 Ratings
8% above category average
API00 Ratings8.044 Ratings
Internationalization / multi-language00 Ratings8.733 Ratings
Web Content Creation
Comparison of Web Content Creation features of Product A and Product B
Bluehost
-
Ratings
Squarespace
7.8
88 Ratings
3% above category average
WYSIWYG editor00 Ratings9.076 Ratings
Code quality / cleanliness00 Ratings8.069 Ratings
Admin section00 Ratings8.387 Ratings
Page templates00 Ratings7.188 Ratings
Library of website themes00 Ratings7.185 Ratings
Mobile optimization / responsive design00 Ratings6.784 Ratings
Publishing workflow00 Ratings9.076 Ratings
Form generator00 Ratings7.569 Ratings
Web Content Management
Comparison of Web Content Management features of Product A and Product B
Bluehost
-
Ratings
Squarespace
8.2
78 Ratings
11% above category average
Content taxonomy00 Ratings8.966 Ratings
SEO support00 Ratings7.171 Ratings
Bulk management00 Ratings8.044 Ratings
Availability / breadth of extensions00 Ratings8.058 Ratings
Community / comment management00 Ratings8.958 Ratings
Best Alternatives
BluehostSquarespace
Small Businesses
Cloudways
Cloudways
Score 9.5 out of 10
Divi
Divi
Score 9.8 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
WP Engine
WP Engine
Score 9.2 out of 10
Image Relay
Image Relay
Score 9.5 out of 10
Enterprises
Pantheon
Pantheon
Score 8.4 out of 10
Tridion
Tridion
Score 9.0 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
BluehostSquarespace
Likelihood to Recommend
5.0
(19 ratings)
8.3
(88 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(4 ratings)
Usability
9.0
(2 ratings)
10.0
(4 ratings)
Availability
4.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
8.1
(6 ratings)
10.0
(2 ratings)
Product Scalability
3.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
BluehostSquarespace
Likelihood to Recommend
Newfold Digital (Endurance + Web.com)
Bluehost is a decent all-around choice for web hosting with professional web development and domain management features that are particularly ideal for WordPress websites and blogs. They have a good reputation within the industry as a company that invests heavily in new technology and platform innovation. Bluehost has made a lot of improvements to customize their back-end administration (AMP & control panel) by working to improve the usability and design of the browser interface. Bluehost is primarily focused on customers who use WordPress and we would recommend either their hybrid cloud or managed WordPress platform, which provides everything that you need to build and maintain a popular website. All in all, Bluehost is a well-established brand that continually improves its hosting products, regularly upgrades their data center hardware, and is generally considered a leader in the development of new cloud hosting platform services.
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Squarespace
I have a gorgeous website that I made myself, thanks to Squarespace. I'm able to integrate marketing emails, SEO, analytics, online carts, pretty much instantly. If you want to get started fast, it's really great. I think if you want to customize square space and you're having trouble, it would be most helpful to hire a square space designer. That's what I would have done in retrospect.
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Pros
Newfold Digital (Endurance + Web.com)
  • Customer service/tech support is simply top-notch. Being able to pick up the phone, get help, and not get charged for it is rare in the tech-support world.
  • Their Dashboard/C-panel has a wide selection of popular tools and options to make website design and all that goes with it very easy. Lots of choices; they are more than a simple hosting service.
  • Keeping their tools up-to-date. I never have to worry about upgrades or having the latest features; it just happens automatically!
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Squarespace
  • Stupid simple to use. I know very creative people who cannot code and this is probably the easiest ever platform for them!
  • Pretty website templates and great functionality with showing off portfolios.
  • They've already figured out what are the problems that non-coding people have when creating websites and they've figured out a simple solution for all of it.
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Cons
Newfold Digital (Endurance + Web.com)
  • Setting up wasn't difficult but I think for some having tutorial videos would have been better than screenshots.
  • Provide more than one free domain on the Plus plan.
  • Offer site migration - not an option I saw when I signed up.
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Squarespace
  • As a wine company it would really love it if Squarespace had an easy plugin for wine club subscriptions.
  • Squarespace would be awesome if it could automatically take your photos that you upload on the site and optimize them for the web and for the website.
  • I do wish we could have more than two contributors for the basic website costs.
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Likelihood to Renew
Newfold Digital (Endurance + Web.com)
No answers on this topic
Squarespace
Unless our website requires significantly more functionality in the future, I can't see us terminating our contract
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Usability
Newfold Digital (Endurance + Web.com)
I use Wordpress for my website on Bluehost, so I already know how it works and happy with it. I gave it this rating as I love the fact that If you do plan on creating multiple websites on Bluehost you'll be able to create specific login access for each website sites making it less likely to enter into the wrong website accounts. Which makes it even easier to manage client websites if you plan to create and host websites on behalf of your clients.
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Squarespace
It's simple to use for someone who is really good with computers as well as those who are not. I've been using my personal squarespace for years and have also helped clients build a starting page which they are later able to manage theirselves.
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Support Rating
Newfold Digital (Endurance + Web.com)
They are quick, easily reached, and can usually solve problems on the first try. However I noticed I had to go to customer support more often than with other providers, whether that was things breaking more often or if their customer support couldn't fix things on the first try. But in most scenarios, they are fine.
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Squarespace
Help is available directly from the back end and uses full sentence searching to find answers to questions others may have asked before. With a ton of articles and support questions documents, it is very likely that your question has been answered. If not each page has the ability to open a direct email to support. Each case has a number and can be followed. Responses are often quick and have links and directions clearly stated
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Alternatives Considered
Newfold Digital (Endurance + Web.com)
Bluehost did not stack up against HostGator; in fact, HostGator was where we ended up migrating after we realized Bluehost was not for us. Bluehost is not geared toward businesses, especially ones like ours that have a very customized site. HostGator allowed us the customization that we needed, and their prices were terrific.
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Squarespace
Overall, as a designer, it makes perfect sense for small to large businesses to use a site such as SquareSpace. Costs are relatively reasonable with the ability to go in and do custom code.
The issue is certain aspects of it, depending on the plan, you can't do. So, if you want to do API to the site, you need to use the top-tier program to do so. Even at custom code, you won't have access to the API section.
As well, like all templates and themes, everybody is using the same style too.
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Scalability
Newfold Digital (Endurance + Web.com)
The website is slow. The speed is not reliable. Sometimes, sites would go down without warning. You would have to get a VPS to get consistent speed. If you have small website as a hobby, then Bluehost will be sufficient. Otherwise, I recommend looking for something more fast. Storage is good, but speed is lacking
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Squarespace
No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
Newfold Digital (Endurance + Web.com)
  • It allowed me to get my website up and running and sell services.
  • It is fairly low cost, so it was easy to recoup my investment.
  • Having to pay for a whole year upfront made it take a little longer to get the return on my investment.
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Squarespace
  • The key positive impact on my overall business objectives is how simple Squarespace sites are to implement new information. Whenever our services change, we can quickly update pages or even change how the website flows, in a very short window of time. This allows me to get back to more urgent work sooner.
  • Our Squarespace site for Club Swim Show helped present our web series to potential partners; Club Swim Show went on to partner with a popular swimming magazine and reach a larger audience through that magazine's hosting thanks to the professional design of our original website.
  • Squarespace does not bring in customers to my storefront, which is fine for me, since I sell things infrequently and it is not my main business, but might work against someone who is expecting a Shopify or Etsy level connection with buyer markets.
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ScreenShots