Jekyll vs. Squarespace

Jekyll is great for people who aren't intimidated by editing HTML, CSS, and Markdown files, people who are on a shoestring budget, and people who want a blazing fast website. Jekyll may not be the best option for people who aren't interested in editing their websites in a text file and would rather have a WordPress-esque back-end from the beginning.

Incentivized

We've found Squarespace perfect for quick, well-designed websites that you can literally design and launch in a day. However, if you want to get more complex with your website, including custom backend integrations or code, Squarespace presents a bit more of a challenge when it comes to what they will allow you to modify on their platform (especially using third-party integration apps).

Incentivized

• Content stored in Git with the website code
• Free to use
• Easy to deploy to cheap/free hosting solutions
• Produces super fast static websites

Incentivized

• 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.

Incentivized

• Complicated for non-technical users
• Can be difficult to enter in new content
• Implementing dynamic components can be challenging

Incentivized

• Customizing the sites can be highly UN intuitive
• Navigation for editing the sites can be difficult and frustrating
• Squarespace has different versions and it's hard to know which version you're on. You can't switch after you start making a site with one version.

Incentivized

Unless our website requires significantly more functionality in the future, I can't see us terminating our contract

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

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

Incentivized

Jekyll is integrated into GitHub Pages, which made it an easy choice. Using Jekyll was also easier as there's not really a server or a database to configure and you can just get things started from day one. Running and verifying content changes locally for developers is super efficient as Jekyll runs locally, too.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

• Jekyll has kept our costs low, very low, on all the projects I've used on it. Think $10 a year low.

Incentivized

• 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.

Incentivized