I don’t consider myself well-versed in Squarespace, so I’m not really qualified to give a completely thorough and accurate comparison of the two platforms. But I recently had to maneuver around Squarespace for the first time, coincidentally when someone asked this question:
Also have you used the platform ‘Squarespace’? If so I’d love to hear your thoughts on it.
So, I figured I’d share my opinion, even if it is kind of limited.
I vote for WordPress, hands down
For me, the absolute biggest difference between WordPress and Squarespace is that WordPress is open source and Squarespace is not. Since WordPress is open source, that means you can view all of the WordPress code and build upon it. That’s what makes things like the Ultimate Book Blogger Plugin possible. One of the things that makes WordPress so popular and desirable are all the plugins and themes that are available. Now imagine WordPress without all those things.. suddenly it’s a lot less desirable. That’s Squarespace.
Squarespace is similar to WordPress.com in the sense that you don’t pay for your own hosting; you pay Squarespace to host it for you. As such, you don’t have FTP access, you can’t edit any files, you can’t do much custom coding.
That being said, Squarespace does have some perks if you’re a non-coder
For me, a coder, Squarespace has zero perks. But if you’re not a coder, then Squarespace arguably has some benefits. Many people aren’t satisfied with WordPress’s visual editor (I personally don’t use it at all, which is why this doesn’t apply to me). Squarespace, on the other hand, has a lot more of an extensive “what you see is what you get” approach. It has more of a drag and drop interface and you can edit things straight from the front-end of your site. Some people really like that
Because of this, people argue that Squarespace is quicker and easier to learn for new users, especially if they’re not coders or very tech-savvy.
My verdict: WordPress wins by a mile
There’s just no question about it. The beauty about WordPress is you can build your own code to customize WordPress however you want. Or if you don’t know how, at least you can hire someone to do it for you and make ANY kind of feature/website you can dream of. With something like Squarespace, that’s just not an option. You’re stuck with what you have.
I’ve seen Squarespace blogs before but I’ve never used it. For me, WordPress still wins, even if it is for all the plugins and themes.
Nothing beats OpenSource to me š
I’ve never used Squarespace, but after using WordPress (both .com and .org) for my own blog and my school’s news site, I can’t imagine that anything short of magic would be more user-friendly and visually appealing.
I am one of those non coders! And so Squarespace is, like, tattooed on my backside. (Not really, because that would be horribly commercial. And what if they changed their name?) But if you’re me, you need to be able to send their 24/7 support team questions like: “I can’t find the page I just made. Where did it go?” Or, “I want the box with the book cover in it to be skinnier. How can I make it skinnier?”
And some kind human, without laughing (at least that I can hear) will send a screen shot of MY OWN WEBSITE with arrows and shit which basically says CLICK HERE, YOU POOR HELPLESS DEAR!
Now, sometimes the reply is something like: “you can’t make that box skinnier, because that’s not how your template works. Unless you learn CSS, or even learn what CSS stands for. You are not a coder. And what’s more, you’ve been changing the fonts on your site for seven hours, and you should probably turn in for the night.”
I might be paraphrasing.
But I do love them.
You’re right, if you’re not a coder then I imagine it’s extremely useful to have a customer support team that you can turn to for help. š It all depends on what your needs are! Thanks for sharing your experience!