We, the Newtlabs team, are in love with WordPress. It’s our favourite content management system, and we can’t image the Internet without it. We intend to show you how to create a website with WordPress and how to get the most from it after you’ve had a website built.
Perhaps we are biased, and we might have lost sight on other alternatives. WordPress is mighty and multipurpose, but there are certainly other interesting platforms. To be completely fair with you, now and then we publish comparisons of WordPress and its rivals. This time, it’s about Squarespace!
Squarespace is a drag-and-drop website builder powering more than one million websites. From a technical point of view, comparing Squarespace and WordPress is like comparing apples and oranges. But from a practical point of view, Squarespace vs WordPress makes sense and might be helpful for many users.
Enjoy our review and let us know what you think about it and which platform you like the most.
In this article, we are referring to WordPress only as a self-hosted platform. Depending on your input, we will publish a Squarespace vs WordPress.com review in the near future.
Setting Up
Squarespace
If you don’t have any coding skills and don’t have time to invest in creating a website, Squarespace is what you need. The interface is intuitive, and building a website with Squarespace is similar to playing a strategy video game. It’s like you are doing something fun and not crafting a website.
There is no learning curve – anyone can create a website the first time using the platform. It could be called love at first click!
WordPress
WordPress is also a user-friendly platform, but it lacks Squarespace’s super intuitive approach. A user needs a short preparation period before using WordPress. I am in doubt that someone with no prior knowledge is capable of creating a functional WordPress website.
The terminology is pretty simple, but it discourages less experienced users.
Setting Up Conclusion
Squarespace targets people with no coding knowledge or time. WordPress covers a larger area of users and needs. WordPress is easy to set up and use, but Squarespace is even easier and more beginner-friendly.
Price
Squarespace
Squarespace comes with four pricing plans. It’s £9/month billed annually or £12/month for a month-to-month plan to create a simple website with a limited number of pages and unlimited bandwidth and storage.
It includes SSL encryption and the possibility of selling unlimited products.
A business website costs £14/month billed annually or £20/month for a month-to-month plan. You benefit from unlimited pages, bandwidth, and storage, amongst other perks. As a bonus, you get a £75 Google AdWords credit.
A basic online store costs £20/month billed annually or £23/month for a month-to-month plan. If you want more features such as abandoned cart auto-recovery and automatic discounts, expect to pay more.
WordPress
Launching and managing a WordPress website is more complicated than with Squarespace, but you have unparalleled options. To start a site, you need a domain name, a host, a theme, and eventually, some plugins.
The price of a domain name varies, but you can get a decent domain name starting around £7.50. The hosting providers’ pricing plans are diverse, but you can get good starter hosting by paying a monthly fee of around £3.
The WordPress directory contains good free themes, but you may want to buy a premium one to get more features. It comes with a price, which is usually around £20 – £60. The prices of plugins vary, but a website runs satisfactorily with free plugins.
Price Conclusion
It very much depends on your project to decide which platform is cheaper. The simplest method is to determine which type of Squarespace account you need and calculate how much money you have to pay for a year.
To determine the price of a WordPress site, simulate the purchase of a domain name and the hosting services for a year, a theme, and a few plugins. If this amount of money is smaller than the cost of Squarespace, go for WordPress. Otherwise, choose Squarespace.
Templates
Squarespace
Currently, Squarespace has 84 templates available for users. You can create websites starting from a template and customise it to reflect your brand. The positive aspect is that all of these templates are great. The downside is the small number of templates. Squarespace has millions of users (the exact number of users isn’t disclosed), so it’s tough to create an original site.
The unlimited customisation options compensate for the small number of templates. Each item on each web page is highly customisable. Squarespace’s WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) editor makes the changes instantly, and you control everything with your mouse. You don’t have to know HTML or CSS; all you need is a fertile imagination and an aesthetic sense.
WordPress
The adjective “endless” labels WordPress perfectly. You have endless themes, and some of them have endless options. Additionally, plugins add extended functionality. The sky’s the limit when you own a genuinely multipurpose theme.
Styling a theme to suit your needs is simple, but a newbie might find it daunting. It depends on the theme; the more complex it is, the more difficult is to customise. Either way, almost anyone can tailor a WordPress theme through trial and error.
Templates Conclusion
If you are a visually oriented person and would rather use a WYSIWYG editor, go for Squarespace. The main flaw is that your site might look similar to many others.
A WordPress theme is more complicated and requires a lot of effort from the user. Stylizing a theme is not rocket science, and you can get an outstanding design by investing a few hours of creative work.
Functionality
Squarespace
Squarespace is a robust platform, and you can create almost any website you want with it. It’s a good fit for not only minimalist personal blogs but also complex online stores. However, unlike WordPress, Squarespace isn’t an open-source product. An in-house development team creates the new tools and features. It limits Squarespace’s functionality, but you can be certain that any new update is carefully designed and tested.
WordPress
WordPress isn’t the leading CMS by accident. WordPress conquered the world because it is the best platform to design any type of website. Do you want to create an Amazon-like store? Use WordPress. Do you want to create a forum or a social media network? Use WordPress. Do you want to build a portfolio, a landing page, or a wedding or a business site? Confidently use WordPress.
WordPress is open source, and millions of people contribute to polish it. Signs show that this situation won’t change anytime soon, so stick with WordPress.
Functionality Conclusion
WordPress is unrivalled in this respect. Squarespace is a real competitor, but the involvement in making it better is entirely negligible compared to the WordPress community. In this category, the Squarespace vs WordPress battle has a clear winner.
Support
Squarespace
Squarespace provides 24/7 support, and you will get an email response within an hour. This fact says everything about its respect for customers. Additionally, you can check their user guides, the forum and use live chat. It’s only a matter of time until you get a solution to your issues.
WordPress
Users having troubles with WordPress can consult WordPress.org’s support section. Here you will find useful information, but the filtering system isn’t efficient, and you could waste a lot of time trying to find a topic with an issue similar to yours.
Usually, theme and plugin creators offer support for their work, but their availability differs from a few hours to a few days. Before purchasing a theme or a plugin, check the quality of the support offered.
Fortunately, many companies and design agencies (including Newt Labs) offer WordPress support at reasonable prices. You won’t suffer headaches because your website is in the hands of WordPress experts.
Support Conclusion
Squarespace is a perfect model in terms of support; you know that they care about your site. WordPress lacks this support, but you have tons of alternatives. The WordPress community is friendly, and most likely, someone will give you valuable tips to resolve your issues. WordPress support businesses are for people who don’t have time and want professional services.
Conclusion
In this article we discussed the setting up, price, templates, functionality, and support aspects of Squarespace vs WordPress.
I hope that this article will help you to make the right decision for your new project.
My purpose wasn’t to suggest a winner of the Squarespace vs WordPress battle; all I wanted, was to give you enough data to choose the best platform for you.
Do you have a favourite? Leave a comment and let me know what you think about these two platforms.
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