Squarespace vs. Wordpress: Which One is Right for Me?
We get to meet with dozens of business owners each month to help them determine which website builder is the right fit for their website. One common question we get asked is about the differences between two website platform contenders: Squarespace and WordPress.
We know choosing a website platform is a big decision, so here are 8 considerations to help you determine whether Squarespace or WordPress is the right fit for your website.
1. Ease of Use
In terms of ease of use, Squarespace takes the prize when it comes to user-friendliness. With its drag-and-drop, clean interface, you’ll be able to change text, swap out an image, add a blog post (and more!) with little-to-no experience.
WordPress, on the other hand, offers a bit more flexibility and customization on the development-side but will likely take more effort, especially for beginners.
2. Design and Templates
Both Squarespace and Wordpress can get you to the desired outcome of a beautiful looking site. Squarespace’s templates make it easier to build a nice looking site, even with limited experience. While WordPress has lots of themes to choose from, they’ll likely require a bit more of a learning curve and technical skills to get it to the finish line.
If you’d like to see a quick demo of Squarespace’s editor and some new features, here’s a video we recorded for our clients.
3. Functionality and Features
WordPress is famous for its extensive plugin library. From eCommerce to SEO, Wordpress offers a vast variety of plugins to help you enhance your site’s functionality. Keep in mind, you will have to manage and keep these plugins up-to-date, so there is a little more maintenance that comes with the additional features.
Squarespace, on the other hand, keeps it simple and offers built-in features. They also have a growing extension library of third-parties that can be easily integrated. We like to understand clients’ needs when it comes to functionality and features to make sure Squarespace can do what they need.
4. Flexibility
WordPress wins when it comes to flexibility, allowing you to modify the code and integrate all kinds of third-party features and plugins. This is often why developers will prefer Wordpress over Squarespace.
With Squarespace you’re limited by the built-in tools and features provided in the all-in-one platform (unless you want to go rogue by turning on Developer Mode, which we don’t recommend unless you’re a developer). More often than not, we find that the build-in tools offer plenty of flexibility to get custom-looking results for our clients, but it’s important to identify special features you need to have before choosing a platform.
5. Maintenance and Security
We consider Squarespace a more low-maintenance option, providing a bit more peace of mind for busy business owners. Squarespace will handle all the behind-the-scenes tasks like updates, security, and backups.
WordPress, on the other hand, requires a bit of DIYing to ensure your site and plugins stay up-to-date and functioning. For example, your security certificate needs to be purchased separately and your plugins need to stay updated to continue working.
6. Cost and Pricing
Let's talk pricing! For most of our clients, the annual Business plan subscription works perfect for their site, which currently is $276/year. WordPress’ pricing will depend on the theme you choose and additional plugins. Hosting for WordPress starts at $240/year, while themes and plugins will range in price depending on your site needs.
7. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
If you’re not familiar, SEO is the process of optimizing your website so that it appears higher in search engine results pages (like Google) when people search for relevant keywords or phrases.
WordPress offers powerful and effective plugins, like Yoast SEO, to help your website get found, but will require more work upfront. It’s open-source platform also provides endless opportunity for optimizing your website. The downside: it will require work and technical knowledge to optimize your WordPress site for SEO.
Squarespace, on the other hand, offers more built-in tools upfront that are easy to use, but are a bit less flexible.
Ultimately, the success of your website's SEO relies on lots of factors, including the quality of your content, how well you optimize your keywords, your backlink strategy, and ensuring a positive user experience. These factors are possible and important regardless of the platform you choose for your website.
8. Mobile Responsiveness
In today's world, having a website that looks great and functions well on mobile is essential. Squarespace is well-known for its mobile-responsive designs, ensuring your website looks greats on any device. While WordPress also offers mobile-responsive themes, you’ll need to make sure you choose a responsive theme to ensure your website is optimized for mobile users.
Well there you have it! Whether you prefer the user-friendly nature and all-in-one simplicity of Squarespace or the flexibility and extensive customization options of WordPress, both platforms have their strengths.
Meet with a designer to discuss your website project
Considering Squarespace for your website? We’d love to meet with you to hear your goals and determine if we’d be a good fit.