Squarespace and WordPress provide a platform for you to build a website and they are massively different.
WordPress is used by more than 27% of all websites on the internet while Squarespace controls 1.2 million websites.
WordPress is available both as hosted and self-hosted versions while Squarespace is available only as a hosted version.
In this case study, you’ll get to know about two of the world’s leading web building platforms Squarespace vs. WordPress comparison in depth.
Squarespace vs. WordPress
What is Squarespace?
Squarespace is the all-in-one solution for anyone looking to create a beautiful website. It allows you to build a website from start to finish by yourself with no outside help and then have it hosted on Squarespace’s servers.
What is WordPress?
WordPress is a free and open-source content management system (CMS) based on PHP and MySQL. It also helps you create and manage your content in an effective way. It allows users to take full control of their website and customize it to make it truly their own.
Squarespace vs. WordPress Features
Squarespace Features
- Wide range of website designs available (more on that in a minute)
- Customize your content and the way it looks
- Edit the CSS of your site by hand (for advanced users)
- Integrated image editor
- Integrated social media features
- 24/7 support
- Hosting included in the main offer
- Built-in modules for blogging, e-commerce, and portfolio galleries
- True WYSIWYG editing
- Built-in SEO-friendly structure
- Built-in website traffic statistics
WordPress Features
- 1000s of free and paid themes and designs (more on that in a minute)
- 1000s of free and paid plugins to extend the basic functionality of your site
- Advanced user management
- Advanced content management abilities
- Customize your content using advanced styling options and manual HTML editing
- Integrated basic image editing
- Social media integration available through plugins
- SEO features available through plugins
- Traffic statistics available through plugins or external tools
- Endless possibilities for correcting the way your website performs and looks
Squarespace vs. WordPress Pricing
Squarespace Pricing
Website
- Personal: $16/month
- Business: $25/month
Online Stores
- Basic: $34/month
- Advanced: $52/month
WordPress Pricing
- Beginner: Free
- Personal: ₹ 200/month
- Premium: ₹ 575/ month
- Business: ₹ 1665/ month
Squarespace vs. WordPress Ease of Use
Squarespace
The latest version of Squarespace is much easier than its prototypes. Its interface is cleaner and less complicated. To create a website, users don’t certainly have to know how to code. Because the builder is completely code-free.
WordPress
WordPress is an in-built CMS. If you know what it takes to get a site online, WordPress can be a great option.
Squarespace vs. WordPress SEO
Squarespace SEO
In Squarespace, you’re dealing with ‘captions’, ‘descriptions’ and ‘extracts’ which, depending on the template.
They don’t have plugins for SEO functionality. You can’t add rich snippets simply in Squarespace.
WordPress SEO
WordPress has alt tags and Meta data are referred to by their proper names. It allows you to make use of a wide range of sophisticated SEO plugins – for example, Yoast.
You can add a rich snippet in WordPress is very easy. There are many plugins available which allow you to simply add the related data to your web pages with a minimum of worry.
Squarespace vs. WordPress E-commerce
Squarespace E-commerce
E-commerce plugins are limited to Squarespace. You can only use the line for payment processing which is only available in select few countries.
There is no other payment system available which limits your ability to accept payments from a larger global audience. For a growing business, starting with such limitations is not a great idea.
WordPress E-commerce
WordPress lets you integrate and use any payment processor or platform you want. There are many WordPress plugins that allow you to easily integrate PayPal, Google Checkout, Stripe, 2Checkout, Payoneer, Skrill, and even Bitcoin.
It has adequately of E-commerce plugins that can turn your website into an online store within minutes.
Squarespace vs. WordPress Data Portability
Squarespace
The export feature on Squarespace is very limited. You can only export certain parts of your content in an XML file. This includes your pages, galleries, and one blog page with all its posts.
Your product pages, album pages, text, audio, and video blocks will not be exported.
WordPress
WordPress comes with built-in tools to easily export all your data. Not just your content and images, but you can also backup your themes, plugins, and the entire database.
You can then easily move this content to any other Content Management System you want.
Squarespace vs. WordPress Customer Support
Squarespace Customer Support
Squarespace has an exciting knowledge base. They also offer live chat, support through email support and the Community Forum.
It provides you with a dedicated, 24/7 support team to answer your questions should you have any.
WordPress Customer Support
There are thousands of video tutorials, forums and other resources offering detailed guidelines on creating and maintaining WordPress-powered websites. But there’s no customer support phone number or email for help.
Conclusion
WordPress is significantly better than Squarespace as a web publishing platform for any kind of website.
Squarespace can be a good option for small sites that need limited practicality. It is also a little better in ease of use when writing posts. And, WordPress outpaces Squarespace in every possible custom scenario.
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