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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Squarespace

    Score8.4 out of 10
    N/ASquarespace 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.

    $25

    per month

    WordPress

    Score8.7 out of 10
    N/AWordpress is an open-source publishing platform popular with bloggers, and a content management system, known for its simplicity and modifiability. Websites may host their own blogging communities, controlling and moderating content from a single dashboard.

    $3

    per month 6 GB storage

    Pricing
    SquarespaceWordPress
    Editions & Modules
    Basic
    $25
    per month
    Core
    $36
    per month
    Plus
    $56
    per month
    Advanced
    $139
    per month
    Personal
    $4
    per month 6 GB storage
    Premium
    $8
    per month 13 GB storage
    Business
    $25
    per month 50 GB storage
    Commerce
    $45
    per month 50 GB storage
    Enterprise
    Contact for pricing
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    SquarespaceWordPress
    Free Trial
    YesNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details28% to 36% discount available for annual pricing.Pricing for Business and Commerce plans vary on number of GB.
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    SquarespaceWordPress
    Considered Both Products
    Squarespace
    Chose Squarespace
    Each website platform has a place. Squarespace is great for simple informative websites, especially small or local businesses that are not ecommerce. Shopify is the leader for ecommerce website. WordPress is my favorite for website that need more features and flexability. My …
    Incentivized
    Chose Squarespace
    I like Squarespace better if you are starting from scratch. I was able to use WordPress when it was an existing site and I just had to make updates, but would have a difficult time starting from the beginning and building a WordPress site.
    Incentivized
    Chose Squarespace
    In my opinion, Squarespace beats Wix all day. We have used both for microsite development. We use WordPress for our main site as the featureset is open source and is considered the industry best practice. You can do a lot more specific features with WordPress that are sometimes …
    Incentivized
    Chose Squarespace
    Squarespace if much less work than WordPress, plus hosting and security are not an issue. GoDaddy and Wix are okay, but nowhere near the flexibility or advanced feature set that you can get with Squarespace. Compared to the other products that I have used, Squarespace …
    Incentivized
    Chose Squarespace
    Squarespace was quicker to set up and more accessible to manipulate the theme, pictures, and content. The page layouts are more versatile and fluid. With WordPress, more time-consuming efforts go into making a template work the way you want it to (because of the lack of the …
    Incentivized
    Chose Squarespace
    WordPress is for more advanced users and allows more functionality to be built into the website. However, Squarespace is easy to use and you will be able to get a functioning website up and running on your own. That is their main point and purpose for their mission. However, …
    Incentivized
    Chose Squarespace
    I would choose Squarespace over all the competition unless I wanted a website builder/host that had an online course portal. Squarespace has the easiest website builder. It's relatively cheap. It automatically updates. It is easy to integrate with third-party services such as …
    Incentivized
    Chose Squarespace
    Not even comparable. I was hacked within 2 years with WordPress in a brute force attack. Since going to Squarespace, I have had zero security issues. I feel the two platforms, though similar, are incomparable.
    Incentivized
    Chose Squarespace
    Squarespace's most attractive feature in comparison to WordPress and Wix is its library of themes available to use. WordPress has a neverending supply of options but that's WordPress, the industry-standard however the limited options for Squarespace is nice so you aren't …
    Incentivized
    Chose Squarespace
    I actually ended up going with WordPress's OShine theme. Squarespace just missed some of the SEO and API tracking that I wanted and Elementor was too slow and WP Rocket isn't compatible with it. OShine ended up fitting the bill so everything I wanted could work together, but …
    Incentivized
    Chose Squarespace
    I really like Squarespace's all-in-one concept vs. WordPress, where you add each piece individually. However, if you are building a much larger site, WordPress may be better. For our needs in terms of sales, Squarespace was great.
    Incentivized
    Chose Squarespace
    We use Squarespace to create small to medium informational websites for clients that want an easy-to-maintain site. Most sites we design use WordPress due to its extreme flexibility and countless templates and plug-ins. While we have used Wix and Shopify to create sites, we …
    Incentivized
    Chose Squarespace
    Each website or webstore backend that I've used has different purposes, so do not let me mislead you. Squarespace provides the best balance of website, blog and storefront for my purposes, and outright beats Weebly for a better appearance in your final product. Tumblr and WordPr…
    Incentivized
    Chose Squarespace
    WordPress is great for customization and extensibility but is much more of a hassle to maintain and secure. We opted for Squarespace to simplify all of those management aspects while upgrading our design. We never had much interest in going the ad network route with our blog, …
    Incentivized
    Chose Squarespace
    Squarespace has the simplest and most elegant WYSIWYG editor among these competitors. It's simple to understand the components and to move the elements around in a way that will look visually appealing - it's hard to make a Squarespace website look truly bad. WordPress is …
    Incentivized
    Chose Squarespace
    WordPress is great - it has a lot of intuitive features, and has grown over the years. However, it isn't really in the same league as Squarespace when it comes to simplicity. Squarespace allows you to craft beautiful websites quickly with little or not training and/or web …
    Incentivized
    Chose Squarespace
    Squarespace, like Wix and Weebly, is a closed-source platform - meaning that you don't have to deal with the security issues surrounding WordPress. You don't have plugins to update yourself, Squarespace takes care of all that for you. When compared to Wix and Weebly, …
    Incentivized
    Chose Squarespace
    Before switching to Squarespace in 2017, I had tried to build out websites on Weebly, Blogger, Wix, and WordPress. I am in no way well-versed in any any sort of code, but I love having total control of bringing my vision to life. Squarespace is the only website builder that has …
    Incentivized
    Chose Squarespace
    Wix was the number one contender against Squarespace when deciding on our website platform, but Wix felt too clunky when it came to formatting pages due to its highly customizable nature. Blogger and WordPress are definitely better as blog sites, which did not address our …
    Incentivized
    Chose Squarespace
    Squarespace doesn't offer as much flexibility as WordPress or Contentful (paired with something like GatsbyJS), but that's perfectly fine for 95% of small businesses. They don't need all the bells and whistles of WordPress and they certainly don't need a fully custom website …
    Incentivized
    Chose Squarespace
    Squarespace and Wix were the two webpage development utilities we trialed when switching from our hosted WordPress template. Both options were upgrades from what we were managing before, with quick, automated pages developed from each. Squarespace ended up being the most …
    Incentivized
    Chose Squarespace
    We picked Squarespace for a specific use case because it was easy to spin up the promotional content we needed.
    Incentivized
    Chose Squarespace
    Squarespace is the best option relative to other web hosting and design platforms we initially reviewed. It was a bit more expensive than some of the free models we looked at but those sites often came with hidden fees if we wanted to customize anything and Squarespace has …
    Incentivized
    Chose Squarespace
    Ultimately Squarespace was the easiest for us to use for our needs and allowed us to tie in our other ecommerce third party provider. It is competitive in costs and has good customer service.
    Incentivized
    Chose Squarespace
    Squarespace is by far the easiest option to use by non-technical staff, so we rely on it when we need to get something to market quickly, with minimal design and development time, in a way that is maintainable by Events and Marketing staff without support from web development …
    Incentivized
    Automattic
    Chose WordPress
    There are no other site builders/platforms that stand up to the ease and versatility (heavy custom coding and customizations included) as Wordpress. Drupal is clunky and outdated, as is Joomla, and while Wix or Squarespace may be sufficient for someone with very low web needs, …
    Incentivized
    Chose WordPress
    To work with WordPress your company needs a developer, no matter what. Unless you have the experienced developer in house, you will need one. Squarespace is superfriendly and easy to work. Has all the features for a simple and clean website. WordPress lacks this part.
    Incentivized
    Chose WordPress
    WordPress isn't as pretty or easy to use as certain competitors like Jimdo, Squarespace or HubSpot, but it makes up for it with its affordability, familiarity and the ability to find quality outside help easily. The same can't be said for certain competitors, as you might need …
    Incentivized
    Chose WordPress
    WordPress doesn't have the simplest deliverability options, especially for email and audio (podcasting), so Substack wins there. It's a lot cheaper and more customizable than Substack and Squarespace, though.
    Incentivized
    Chose WordPress
    Squarespace has terrible search capacities and tech support is missing.
    Incentivized
    Chose WordPress
    I used Wix and Squarespace for a few projects then I found WordPress, as a developer with programming background I needed the flexibility of adding a touch of code on my website be Wix did not allow me or give me that flexibility. WordPress gave me the room for customization …
    Incentivized
    Chose WordPress
    For most small businesses, Squarespace is a better option. It provides all of the basic and intermediate functionality a business owner could want (e-commerce, forms, media, blog, etc) without the plugin and hacking nightmares of WordPress. It's also easier for clients to …
    Incentivized
    Chose WordPress
    WordPress is the grandest of Wix and Squarespace just alone in how many theme and plug-in options you can have access to. Also SEO is another big role in comparison – better SEO with WordPress
    Incentivized
    Chose WordPress
    I found WordPress to be a bit easier to navigate through and better suited to an all around website creation. Squarespace is geared specifically towards eCommerce while Wix felt the most artsy of the three. WordPress feels like a middle ground with great customization options …
    Incentivized
    Chose WordPress
    Squarespace has far more options in regard to themes and design and can perform better as a traditional website. However, I feel Wordpress's tools and customization options are more robust
    Incentivized
    Chose WordPress
    I'm not a fan of being locked into the limitations of a single-use platform like Wix or Squarespace, and greatly prefer the portability of having a WordPress website.
    Incentivized
    Chose WordPress
    We have considered and operated within Shopify and Squarespace. Both serve their purpose for niche clients, but we do recommend WordPress as being the superior option. We find that WordPress is easier to use and offers maximum scalability while the others are more challenging …
    Incentivized
    Chose WordPress
    I have never been a huge fan of platforms like Squarespace because a lot of the code is hidden behind locked doors, so from a speed and performance perspective, there's only so much you can do in order to optimize. On page speed insights, I haven't seen a Squarespace site do …
    Incentivized
    Chose WordPress
    WordPress has the most open abilities to change the technical foundations. Whereas, other platforms typically have their own niches of use cases; e.g. focusing on page builders, drag and drop, more static code, themes etc... WordPress offers a bit more flexibilities as it can …
    Incentivized
    Chose WordPress
    I like that WordPress sites can be backed up and moved to new servers if needed. Some of the other template sites lock you in because their back-end code is what makes it run.
    Incentivized
    Chose WordPress
    DIY builders have their place for people that don't have technical ability or support. But Wordpress opens a world of custom options to anyone with the ability to learn/create those things. even if you're not a back end developer / use No-code options
    Incentivized
    Chose WordPress
    We've tried a decent variety of other platforms throughout the years, and all-in-all we still consistently use WordPress for all kinds of business solutions. We have found while others excel in specific areas, WordPress excels in almost every area pound for pound. We highly …
    Incentivized
    Chose WordPress
    WordPress offers reliability which is very important for our business.
    Incentivized
    Chose WordPress
    I have only used Shopify as an alternative website/e-commerce builder. Whilst Shopify has better functionality, particularly for an online store, WordPress has more capability to build a comprehensive website with large volumes of content and integrations with other platforms.
    Incentivized
    Chose WordPress
    WordPress is by far the best website CMS available on the market. It is an open-source free solution with endless possibilities of websites that you can build. You don't need to be a developer to build a site, but there are options to use code to take your website to the next …
    Incentivized
    Chose WordPress
    It is the best and free platform if you compare others and if you will use WordPress you don't have to know how to code. Basic information will be more than enough to start. Creating pages and editing posts you created is so easy to manage. If you use other platforms, it will …
    Incentivized
    Chose WordPress
    I think WordPress is a superior platform compared to others because of the vast number of plugins and themes. Developers are always creating more plugins and functionality for WordPress as well, so it is constantly being improved upon. There are limitless possibilities for what …
    Incentivized
    Chose WordPress
    Not as user friendly, and much more bloated than these other lighter-weight CRMs, but the available integrations and total customization available from WordPress is unmatched in the industry.
    Incentivized
    Chose WordPress
    Unless you have a very small e-commerce store, WordPress is a much better option. A WordPress site integrated with WooCommerce is a powerful shop tool, and if you aren't selling online, then WordPress is assuredly the way to go. Their WYSIWYG editor makes things as easy as can …
    Incentivized
    Chose WordPress
    WordPress was an excellent balance between allowing options for customization and giving us reasonable efficiency in development and content administration. We still use other tools for certain cases, such as when we need to launch a smaller site quickly or when we need very …
    Incentivized
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    97%
    Would buy again
    35 Answers
    95%
    Would buy again
    108 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    35 Answers
    98%
    Delivers good value for the price
    109 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    94%
    Happy with the feature set
    34 Answers
    96%
    Happy with the feature set
    109 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    97%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    31 Answers
    96%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    95 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    97%
    Implementation went as expected
    33 Answers
    95%
    Implementation went as expected
    100 Answers
    Features
    SquarespaceWordPress
    Security
    Comparison of Security features of Squarespace and WordPress
    Feature
    Squarespace
    8.4
    67 Ratings
    2% above category average
    WordPress
    8.1
    159 Ratings
    2% below category average
    Role-based user permissions8.467 Ratings8.1159 Ratings
    Platform & Infrastructure
    Comparison of Platform & Infrastructure features of Squarespace and WordPress
    Feature
    Squarespace
    6.6
    58 Ratings
    17% below category average
    WordPress
    7.9
    134 Ratings
    1% above category average
    API7.051 Ratings7.9124 Ratings
    Internationalization / multi-language6.237 Ratings7.8103 Ratings
    Web Content Creation
    Comparison of Web Content Creation features of Squarespace and WordPress
    Feature
    Squarespace
    7.6
    99 Ratings
    3% below category average
    WordPress
    8.1
    166 Ratings
    3% above category average
    WYSIWYG editor9.284 Ratings7.8151 Ratings
    Code quality / cleanliness6.878 Ratings7.3152 Ratings
    Admin section7.398 Ratings8.3164 Ratings
    Page templates7.099 Ratings8.7160 Ratings
    Library of website themes7.296 Ratings8.7162 Ratings
    Mobile optimization / responsive design8.195 Ratings8.5161 Ratings
    Publishing workflow8.386 Ratings8.1154 Ratings
    Form generator6.580 Ratings7.1131 Ratings
    Web Content Management
    Comparison of Web Content Management features of Squarespace and WordPress
    Feature
    Squarespace
    6.1
    89 Ratings
    21% below category average
    WordPress
    8.2
    164 Ratings
    9% above category average
    Content taxonomy7.376 Ratings8.1142 Ratings
    SEO support6.380 Ratings7.9148 Ratings
    Bulk management5.851 Ratings7.5125 Ratings
    Availability / breadth of extensions5.565 Ratings9.2152 Ratings
    Community / comment management5.567 Ratings8.2152 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    SquarespaceWordPress
    Small Businesses
    Umbraco CMS
    Score7 out of 10
    Umbraco CMS
    Score7 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    Square Online
    Score7.7 out of 10
    Square Online
    Score7.7 out of 10
    Enterprises
    RWS Tridion Sites
    Score9 out of 10
    RWS Tridion Sites
    Score9 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    SquarespaceWordPress
    Likelihood to Recommend
    8.6
    (100 ratings)
    8.6
    (203 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    10.0
    (4 ratings)
    3.8
    (38 ratings)
    Usability
    8.5
    (14 ratings)
    8.1
    (50 ratings)
    Availability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.5
    (3 ratings)
    Performance
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.6
    (2 ratings)
    Support Rating
    10.0
    (2 ratings)
    10.0
    (11 ratings)
    In-Person Training
    -
    (0 ratings)
    7.0
    (1 ratings)
    Online Training
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.0
    (10 ratings)
    Configurability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    Ease of integration
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    Vendor post-sale
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    Vendor pre-sale
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    SquarespaceWordPress
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Squarespace
    Squarespace is one of the best solutions out there for building a website or web experience that looks good, has great functionality and is cost-effective, even for smaller businesses. Although most people in marketing will find most of the elements intuitive, if the creator is struggling with any of the functionality, there are many, many support options and other users who can offer assistance.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Automattic
    Wordpress is a great solution for a website of nearly any type. It may not be as suitable if a fully custom solution or app is needed, and it does have some limitations when it comes to connecting it to external products (especially if the product doesn't have any support from a native system), and it does require a lot of testing. Multiple plugins in one install are common but also increase the risk of conflicts, and when those do occur, it can be exceptionally time-consuming and tedious to identify what is causing the issue. As third parties create many plugins, you're also at risk with each potential security breach, which needs to be kept in mind. I would be cautious to use WordPress to store any sort of sensitive PPI. That said, it's a wonderful, easily customizable solution for many, many different types of websites and can allow even inexperienced client users with low-tech knowledge to update basics.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Pros
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Automattic
    • Easy to use User Interface
    • Coding / Plugin Implementation is awesome
    • There's always a solution available for the platform
    • Security is easy to use and robust
    • Implementation with 3rd party platforms, such as Google's variety of tools
    • Can download and host on your own server or use their hosted servers
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    Squarespace
    • 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
    Read full review
    Automattic
    • WordPress breaks often so you need to have someone who understands how to troubleshoot, which can take time and money.
    • Some plugins are easier to customize than others, for example, some don't require any coding knowledge while others do. This can limit your project if you are not a coder.
    • WordPress can be easily hacked, so you also need someone who can ensure your sites are secure.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    Squarespace
    Unless our website requires significantly more functionality in the future, I can't see us terminating our contract
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Automattic
    The complications we have and the lack of support. Every plugin has a differente team of support in charge and make one plugin work with the other one always affects the website performance. It's a thousand times better to have only one provider with all functionalities included unless you are an expert web developer or have a team dedicated to it
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Usability
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Automattic
    Extremely easy to use and train users. It took very little time to get everyone trained and onboarded to start using WordPress. Anytime we had any issues, we were able to find an article or video to help out or we were able to contact support. The menu options are well laid out so it is easy to find what you are looking for.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Reliability and Availability
    Squarespace
    No answers on this topic
    Automattic
    Anyone can visit WordPress.org and download a fully functional copy of WordPress free of charge. Additionally, WordPress is offered to users as open-source software, which means that anyone can customize the code to create new applications and make these available to other WordPress users.
    Read full review
    Performance
    Squarespace
    No answers on this topic
    Automattic
    Mostly, any performance issues have to do with using too many plugins and these can sometimes slow down the overall performance of your site. It is very tempting to start adding lots of plugins to your WordPress site, however, as there are thousands of great plugins to choose from and so many of them help you do amazing things on your site. If you begin to notice performance issues with your WordPress site (e.g. pages being slow to load), there are ways to optimize the performance of your site, but this requires learning the process. WordPress users can learn how to optimize their WordPress sites by downloading the WPTrainMe WordPress training plugin (WPTrainMe.com) and going through the detailed step-by-step WordPress optimization tutorials.
    Read full review
    Support Rating
    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
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Automattic
    I give this rating, which I believe to be a great rating for a community based support system that's surrounding it. Most platforms and products have their own, and as WordPress does have their own team that help here and there, a lot of it's handled by community involvement with dedicated users who are experts with the system who love to help people.
    Read full review
    In-Person Training
    Squarespace
    No answers on this topic
    Automattic
    Varies by the person providing training. High marks as it's incredibly easy to find experienced individuals in your community to provide training on any aspect of WordPress from content marketing, SEO, plugin development, theme design, etc. Less than 10 though as the training is community based and expectations for a session you find may fall short.
    Read full review
    Online Training
    Squarespace
    No answers on this topic
    Automattic
    It is very easy to find online resources to learn how to do just about anything with WordPress.
    Read full review
    Implementation Rating
    Squarespace
    No answers on this topic
    Automattic
    WordPress is not a great solution if you have: 1) A larger site with performance / availability requirements. 2) Multiple types of content you want to share - each with its own underlying data structure. 3) Multiple sites you need to manage. For very small sites where these needs are not paramount, WordPress is a decent solution
    Read full review
    Alternatives Considered
    Squarespace
    Squarespace was quicker to set up and more accessible to manipulate the theme, pictures, and content. The page layouts are more versatile and fluid. With WordPress, more time-consuming efforts go into making a template work the way you want it to (because of the lack of the drag-and-drop grids that Squarespace has).
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Automattic
    WordPress isn't as pretty or easy to use as certain competitors like Jimdo, Squarespace or HubSpot, but it makes up for it with its affordability, familiarity and the ability to find quality outside help easily. The same can't be said for certain competitors, as you might need to find an expert and it could get costly.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Scalability
    Squarespace
    No answers on this topic
    Automattic
    WordPress is completely scalable. You can get started immediately with a very simple "out-of-the box" WordPress installation and then add whatever functionality you need as and when you need it, and continue expanding. Often we will create various WordPress sites on the same domain to handle different aspects of our strategy (e.g. one site for the sales pages, product information and/or a marketing blog, another for delivering products securely through a private membership site, and another for running an affiliate program or other application), and then ties all of these sites together using a common theme and links on each of the site's menus. Additionally, WordPress offers a multisite function that allows organizations and institutions to manage networks of sites managed by separate individual site owners, but centrally administered by the parent organization. You can also expand WordPress into a social networking or community site, forums, etc. The same scalability applies to web design. You can start with a simple design and then scale things up to display sites with amazing visual features, including animations and video effects, sliding images and animated product image galleries, elements that appear and fade from visitor browsers, etc. The scaling possibilities of WordPress are truly endless.
    Read full review
    Return on Investment
    Squarespace
    • The cost is reasonably decent. My client says they spent about $20 a month or $240 a year. I asked her if she could add Google AdSense to her blog one day, and they believe they can. They said a custom site would cost them $3000-10,000 depending on who does it. And I agreed, but I found the website they created was on the lower end of that range.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Automattic
    • Allowed us to being all websites under a single umbrella, saving costs on similar products.
    • It's increased our website turn time and made us faster and more efficient at launching websites.
    • Edits and tweaks happen much faster as we have a customized environment.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    ScreenShots