WordPress Vs. Squarespace: 8 Crucial Differences

If you’re gearing up to create a swift website for yourself, discovering efficient methods is crucial. In your quest, you might encounter Squarespace, renowned for its user-friendly website-building features. However, before opting for Squarespace, it’s essential to weigh a few considerations. Comparing Squarespace with WordPress will aid in making a well-informed decision for your website-building journey.

This comparison will delve into eight pivotal distinctions between WordPress and Squarespace. By exploring these factors, you’ll gain comprehensive insights into both platforms, empowering you to choose the most suitable one wisely. This concise guide aims to prevent the potential frustration of selecting an ill-fitting platform. Hence, read through till the conclusion to gather valuable insights that can shape your decision-making process.

By understanding these aspects, you’ll be better equipped to select the platform that aligns best with your website-building goals and preferences, ensuring a smoother and more satisfactory website creation process.

1. Building a Website on Each Platform

Let’s dive into the process of using specific platforms to construct your website. What precise steps do you need to follow to build your site using WordPress and Squarespace?

How to Build A Website With Squarespace

Developing a website with Squarespace is a straightforward process. To begin, head to the Squarespace Homepage and initiate the procedure by clicking on the “Get Started” button.

Step 1: Choosing what kind of site you want to build

Start by choosing the type of website you aim to create. Based on your selection, Squarespace will provide relevant templates tailored to your needs. Alternatively, you have the freedom to skip this step and explore templates independently.

Step 2: Selecting Your Desired Template

Upon entering Squarespace, you’ll encounter an array of templates categorized for various purposes.

These templates cover diverse areas such as online stores, portfolios, business websites, professional services, communities, blogs, restaurants, events, weddings, photography, music and entertainment, health and fitness, travel & tourism and personal & CV sites. You can preview these templates before making a selection and are free to switch between templates at any point during the website-building process.

Step 3: Accessing Your Squarespace Account

After choosing a template, you’ll be prompted to log into your Squarespace account. Signing up is hassle-free, as you can easily use your Google Account credentials. Once logged in, you’ll be greeted with a welcoming screen.

Step 4: Customizing Your Chosen Template

The customization phase involves modifying the template according to your preferences.

Your website will be visible on the right-hand side. Here, you can directly click on any element and choose the edit option to make alterations. Tasks

such as replacing images, adding text, and rearranging elements can be performed seamlessly.

The left-hand side provides access to advanced settings, including:

• Pages
• Design
• Commerce
• Marketing
• Analytics
• Settings
• Help      

These options allow for comprehensive customization. For instance, under Design, you can edit the Iogo & title, Templates, Site Styles, Lock Screen, Checkout Page, and 404 Error Page. Commerce settings cater to online store functionalities, while Marketing allows the configuration of SEO and promotional settings. Analytics provides insights into your site’s performance via an Analytics dashboard.

Comparing Squarespace with Wix, some users might find Wix easier to use for website building. Squarespace demands fine-tuning of multiple elements, taking more time to achieve the desired website appearance.

However, Squarespace’s settings are not as extensive as WordPress, which offers superior customization options. Squarespace seems to strive for simplicity at the expense of flexibility, falling short in both aspects.

How to Build A Website With WordPress

Creating a Website Using WordPress: 

A Step-by-Step Guide

WordPress, being free software, does not include web hosting or a domain name by default.

For building a website with WordPress in 2023, you’ll need to arrange hosting and a domain name separately. Once you’ve secured hosting, you can proceed to install WordPress on your web server.

Here’s a breakdown of the steps to begin building your website with WordPress:

Step 1: Theme Selection

Similar to Squarespace’s templates, WordPress offers themes that significantly diversify its appeal. With over 20,000 free and premium themes, WordPress stands out in terms of variety. Explore the vast collection of free themes available in the WordPress themes repository. For insights into some of the best free themes, refer to our comprehensive list of the top 60 WordPress themes.

Themes in WordPress encompass a broad spectrum, categorized into areas such as blog, ecommerce, education, entertainment, food & drink, holiday, news, photography, and portfolio.

Step 2: Theme Customization

WordPress facilitates extensive and potent customization options. Almost every aspect of your website can be tailored through comprehensive customization settings. These settings vary with each theme. As an example, let’s consider the “dapza” theme. While specifics may differ, these settings typically include:

• Site Identity: Adding site title, logo, and icon.
• Theme Settings: Various theme-specific settings.
• Colors: Choosing background colors and color schemes.
• Background Image: Setting up a background image.
• Menus: Creating and positioning menus for your site.
• Widgets: Selection and placement of widgets like search, recent posts, comments, archives, categories, etc., in different widget locations.
• Homepage Settings: Choosing between a static or dynamic homepage.
• Additional CSS: Customizing the theme’s style through CSS.

Step 3: Incorporating Plugins

WordPress offers functionality extension through plugins. With over 54,000 plugins available in the WordPress Plugin Repository, you’ll likely find a plugin for almost any purpose. Enhance your website by adding specific features using WordPress plugins.

Congratulations! Your website is now ready to go live. Feel free to modify it as many times as needed. WordPress grants immense flexibility and a wide array of choices for customizing your website, including easy theme switching.

2. Functionality Assessment

When designing a website, it’s essential that it performs the required functions. Sometimes, the default features in your website’s template or theme might not cover all the functionalities you desire. It’s crucial to explore additional functionalities that can be incorporated into your website.

Squarespace Blocks 

Squarespace lacks an app store where third-party apps can be installed, limiting users to the platform’s provided functionalities, primarily offered as blocks.

WordPress Plugins

In contrast, WordPress allows extensive customization through plugins. With over 54,000 free plugins in the WordPress Plugin Repository and numerous premium options available, users can add various functionalities or even create custom plugins.

Essential Sets of WordPress Plugins

For creating the desired website, consider utilizing different sets of plugins available on WordPress:

• SEO Plugins: Optimize your website’s SEO with specialized plugins.
• Lead Generation Plugins: Boost traffic and effectively collect leads for business growth.
• Security Plugins: Ensure site security with dedicated security plugins.
• Social Media Plugins: Expand your social media presence using relevant plugins.
• Backup Plugins: Maintain regular backups of your website’s data for security.
• Analytics Plugins: Analyze website traffic to make informed decisions.
• Help Desk Plugins: Simplify customer communication by adding a help desk.
• Contact Form Plugins: Include essential contact forms on your website easily.
• Donation Plugins: Manage on-site donations seamlessly with dedicated plugins.
• Directory Plugins: Create and manage directories without coding.
• Real Estate Plugins: Enhance a real estate website’s functionality with specific plugins.
• Download Manager Plugins: Manage downloads on your website effectively.
• Mobile Plugins: Optimize your website for mobile devices to enhance user experience.

3. Ease of Use Comparison between Squarespace and WordPress

When evaluating website platforms, ease of use becomes a crucial consideration. Understanding how user-friendly the interface is for creating and managing a website is essential. Both Squarespace and WordPress possess their distinct advantages and drawbacks in terms of user-friendliness.

Squarespace

Squarespace’s user-friendliness might not be as intuitive as Wix. While it employs a drag-and-drop website-building approach, Squarespace operates on a section-based structure, which may necessitate a bit more acclimatization time.

With Squarespace, your edits are visible in real-time, facilitated by its WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor. Any changes you make appear exactly as you edit them. Its interface offers a clean design that enables quick adaptation for making modifications.

WordPress

WordPress is acknowledged for its learning curve. It may take some time to grasp terms like posts, pages, categories, tags, plugins, etc. However, once these nuances are understood, navigating WordPress becomes relatively straightforward.

Certain reviewers emphasize the necessity of coding skills when using WordPress, which is misleading. Even beginners with no coding knowledge can successfully create and manage a WordPress website. Understanding HTML or CSS isn’t mandatory for website creation with WordPress.

One drawback of WordPress is the absence of live edits like Squarespace. Changes occur in the backend, requiring a preview before finalization.

4. Design Options Comparison between Squarespace and WordPress

When selecting a website builder, the availability of design options holds significance. Squarespace and WordPress offer a variety of designs tailored to specific needs, albeit the quantity of these options differs significantly between the platforms.

Squarespace Templates

As previously mentioned, Squarespace provides templates catering to diverse industry needs and purposes. However, the options are somewhat limited, comprising just over 60 templates.

Customization options within Squarespace templates are extensive. Users can manipulate various elements, such as adding images and text, managing pages, and adding or deleting sections. Unlike Wix, you have the flexibility to change your template even after your website is live.

WordPress Themes

Discovering WordPress Featured Themes: A Comparison with Squarespace

Irrespective of your requirements, finding a WordPress theme that perfectly aligns with your needs is feasible. Each theme offers extensive customization capabilities, enabling you to modify every aspect and design a website that authentically represents your brand.

Should you desire further customization beyond the available options, the inclusion of additional CSS is an option. WordPress themes grant users the ability to modify their code, facilitating the implementation of custom styling to tailor the website appearance according to specific preferences.

5. E-commerce Capabilities

Building a website involves considering an E-commerce store, allowing online product sales, payment acceptance, and revenue generation. E-commerce has seen significant growth in today’s digital landscape, prompting individuals to consider future online store possibilities even if they currently don’t intend to operate one. Evaluating the E-commerce offerings of website-building platforms like Squarespace and WordPress becomes essential. Here’s a comparative look:

Squarespace E-commerce

Squarespace offers E-commerce functionality in two premium plans, providing features like inventory management and abandoned cart recovery. Users can sell unlimited products, incorporate product videos, and customize their online store. Additionally, options for coupons and shipping are available.

Integration options include MailChimp for mailing lists and Xero for accounting, among others. The supported payment gateways encompass Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Discover (for US merchants only), Diner’s Club, JCB, and Apple Pay. Utilizing PayPal necessitates a connection to a PayPal Business Account, with support for limited currencies.

However, Squarespace lacks per-product shipping rules and the ability to sell premium digital content behind a paywall, restricting membership program implementation.

WordPress E-commerce

WordPress offers E-commerce capabilities through plugins, mainly WooCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads (EDD). WooCommerce, a prominent player in the E-commerce sector, powers thousands of online stores. It’s a free plugin available in the WordPress Plugin repository, boasting over 4 million active installations.

WooCommerce provides extensive E-commerce functionality, enabling the sale of physical and digital goods with worldwide shipping options and a wide array of over 100 supported payment gateways. The platform also offers numerous add-ons, fostering an ecosystem with a robust community providing support and discussions.

For those focused solely on digital products, Easy Digital Downloads is an alternative WordPress plugin to consider.

WordPress encompasses a vast array of plugins tailored to enhance online businesses, from landing pages, contact forms, and exit intent pop-ups to increasing conversions and addressing cart abandonment issues, ensuring various needs are catered to within the platform.

In summary, while Squarespace offers convenient E-commerce features within premium plans, WordPress, particularly through WooCommerce, presents a highly versatile and scalable solution with a diverse plugin ecosystem catering to diverse business requirements.

6. Data Portability Features

Data portability stands as a critical feature for any website, ensuring flexibility and ease in transitioning between different hosting platforms. As website owners, it’s essential to have the capability to transfer our data seamlessly, especially when contemplating a switch to a new hosting service.

Key considerations for data portability include:

1. Can I migrate all my data?

2. Is the transfer process lossless for all data types?

3. Does the platform support automated data transfers?

4. What are the costs associated with data migration?

5. Are there any limitations in terms of data portability?

Different platforms offer varying responses to these queries. Evaluating these responses becomes pivotal in choosing the right platform for your needs.

Squarespace Data Portability:

Squarespace enables the export of select data into a .xml file format, encompassing elements like Project Pages, Layout Pages, Gallery Pages, blog content, and various blocks. However, certain data, such as product pages, folders, and specific blocks, cannot be exported completely, limiting the seamless transition of content.

WordPress Data Portability:

WordPress grants users complete ownership of their content and ensures ease of data transfer, especially when migrating to a new host. Premium-managed WordPress Hosts like Nestify facilitate secure data migration without causing downtime. WordPress offers robust backup features through plugins, ensuring greater control and flexibility over your data.

7. Maintenance Requirements

“Maintaining a website is essential as it functions as a digital entity requiring regular care and attention. The ease of maintaining your website and the responsible party for this upkeep are crucial considerations. Different platforms have distinct advantages and disadvantages in terms of maintenance protocols.

Squarespace, for instance, streamlines maintenance tasks by handling updates and ensuring website security. Users need not worry about these aspects as Squarespace takes care of them.

On the other hand, WordPress doesn’t provide a dedicated maintenance service. Users are responsible for managing updates, security measures, and backups manually. However, WordPress offers various plugins that automate security measures and backup processes, alleviating some of these concerns.

Opting for managed WordPress hosting, such as Nestify, offers a solution to these maintenance challenges. With Nestify, all technical aspects of your WordPress site are managed, including security, updates, backups, and maintenance. This allows website owners to direct their focus towards their business activities without worrying about the technical intricacies of their site.

8. Pricing Structures

When evaluating different website-building platforms, pricing becomes a pivotal factor. It’s important to consider the expenses as you’re essentially investing in the service. Let’s delve into the cost breakdown for both Squarespace and WordPress.

Squarespace Pricing

Squarespace offers distinct plans for websites and online stores.

For websites, the Personal Plan is priced at $12 per month for annual billing or $16 per month for a monthly subscription. Meanwhile, the Business Plan costs $18 per month for annual billing or $26 per month for a monthly subscription.

Regarding online stores, the plans include:

• Basic: Priced at $26 per month for annual billing or $30 per month for a month-to-month subscription.
•  Advanced: Available at $40 per month for annual billing or $46 per month for a month-to-month subscription.

Each plan boasts unlimited bandwidth and storage, along with a complimentary custom domain with an annual purchase.

WordPress Pricing

WordPress offers substantial pricing flexibility as it doesn’t confine users to specific web hosts.

Users have the liberty to select any web hosting service they prefer. Costs may vary, with inexpensive hosts available for less than $4 per month, while Managed WordPress hosting providers like Nestify can cost around $8 per month.

The pricing disparity among hosting services is contingent on the features provided by each host. Whether it’s shared hosting, managed hosting, VPS hosting, or cloud hosting, each option comes with its distinct advantages and pricing.

Additionally, users need to consider expenses associated with domain name acquisition, as well as the costs of premium themes and plugins they may choose to purchase. 

Conclusion

Opting for a closed platform like Squarespace has its perks. It allows for a quick start without the hassle of worrying about security, updates, or maintenance. Moreover, managing an online store directly from the platform sans the need for additional plugins is a convenient feature.

However, the drawback lies in the lack of flexibility to integrate third-party apps or plugins, offering only limited choices for payment gateways and themes. To delve deeper into this aspect, consider exploring detailed Squarespace reviews available.

On the other hand, WordPress stands as an open-source platform with robust community support. It provides users with data control and an extensive array of plugins catering to virtually every conceivable functionality. The level of flexibility and customization that WordPress offers surpasses what is available (or, rather, what is not available) on Squarespace.

Choosing between these platforms largely hinges on your priorities. If your aim is to swiftly establish a website without the burden of maintenance and prefer sticking to a single platform, Squarespace could be a suitable choice.

However, if you prioritize having absolute control over your website, aspire for growth, and seek flexibility, then WordPress is undoubtedly the platform that aligns with your needs.

FAQs

What makes WordPress different from Squarespace?

WordPress and Squarespace differ fundamentally in their structures. WordPress is a Content Management System (CMS) and it is open source. It allows extensive customization and flexibility. In contrast, Squarespace is a closed platform that offers a more streamlined and user-friendly approach but comes with limitations in customization.

Which platform offers more customization options, WordPress or Squarespace?

WordPress provides a higher degree of customization compared to Squarespace. With WordPress, users have access to an array of themes, plugins and the ability to modify code, allowing for extensive customization of website design and functionality. Squarespace, while user-friendly, has more limited customization options within its closed ecosystem.

Are there differences in the ease of use between WordPress and Squarespace?

Squarespace is generally considered more user-friendly and straightforward due to its easy-to-use interface and drag-and-drop editor. Conversely, WordPress may have a steeper learning curve initially, but it offers more control and flexibility once users become familiar with its interface.

How do WordPress and Squarespace differ in terms of scalability?

WordPress is highly scalable, allowing users to expand their websites extensively. It accommodates various needs, from small blogs to large e-commerce sites, owing to its vast plugin ecosystem. Squarespace, while capable of handling smaller to medium-sized websites efficiently, may present limitations in scalability for more complex or extensive web projects.

Which platform is more suitable for e-commerce, WordPress or Squarespace?

Both platforms support e-commerce functionality, but with differences. Squarespace has built-in e-commerce features that are easy to set up, making it suitable for smaller online stores. WordPress, through plugins like WooCommerce, offers more advanced e-commerce capabilities, allowing users to create highly customized and scalable online stores.