Last Updated on October 5, 2024 by Sunny Staff
Having a website is part of running a business, with audiences expecting to interact and transact on the devices they use every day wherever they are. The challenge many businesses face is finding a balance between something that’s easy to use, secure, and that gives the control needed to extend your website and its functionality without restriction. WordPress and Squarespace are two of the most popular content management systems (CMSs) that can be used to build your business website. But which one should you use?
In a Nutshell…
| Squarespace | WordPress.org | |
|---|---|---|
| Technical experience | Beginner-friendly, limited potential for customisation | Can be beginner-friendly, excellent potential for complete customisation |
| Functionality & Appearance | Predesigned templates and limited addons available. | Predesigned templates and many addons available. |
| Security | Fully-managed security | Managed by you or your WordPress Support team |
| SEO | Comes with some basic SEO features | SEO-ready with advanced features available via free and commercial addons |
| eCommerce | Built-in eCommerce | eCommerce addons available |
| Storage & Backups | No backups, potentially unlimited storage | Depends on your hosting service provider |
| Price | Between $16 and $52 per month | Free download, but you’ll have to arrange your own WordPress hosting |
What is WordPress?
WordPress is by far the most popular CMS in use today. It powers an estimated 43.4% of all websites, or 474 million websites globally. WordPress is available as a hosted service (wordpress.com) and as a self-hosted CMS (you can download WordPress from wordpress.org).
wordpress.com is a commercial entity owned by Automattic. It’s WordPress on fully managed hosting with built-in upgrades, security, and backups, and comes with 24/7 support (if included in your chosen package). It’s also easy to use, with a straightforward setup process that can get you up and running in just a few minutes.
But with that comes some limitations in terms of design and extensibility, such as access to plugins and themes. These limitations are removed with higher-tier paid plans. wordpress.com is recommended for personal blogs, as well as small personal and business websites.
The rest of this post will cover the differences between self-hosted WordPress (wordpress.org) and Squarespace.
Technical experience
One of the key differences between WordPress.org and Squarespace is that the former is self-hosted. Back in the day, this meant you’d need a fair amount of technical skill to get started. Nowadays, however, technical experience isn’t necessarily a requirement since many hosts provide point-and-click WordPress setups.
There’s also fully-managed WordPress, which is on-demand WordPress expertise that won’t just get your WordPress site installed, but that can also help with the design and subsequent maintenance. (See the SunnyHQ plans for more information).
Failing that, you can embrace the learning curve by following any of the thousands of available WordPress tutorials that can help you get your site set up and provide step-by-step design guidance.
Nevertheless, there is a learning curve associated with web design if you’re starting from scratch regardless of which platform you’re using. Then again, with the advent of AI (found in plugins like Elementor), you could get your basic site up and running in just a few minutes.
Also read: Tutorial: WordPress Website Building for Beginners
Functionality and appearance
One of WordPress’s biggest strengths is its flexibility and extensibility with regard to both design and functionality. The WordPress ecosystem is flush with all the tools you need to build and grow your WordPress website. Free themes can be downloaded from the theme repository while commercial themes are available for purchase from online marketplaces like Themeforest.
Similarly, plugins can be used to extend the functionality of your WordPress website, with free plugins available from the WordPress plugin repository. Commercial plugins are often available from the publisher’s website or from marketplaces like CodeCanyon.
Failing that, there is a healthy body of popular page builders, such as Elementor, to choose from. Here you only need to install a minimal theme, and use the page builder plugin to build any type of site.
Security
The WordPress core itself is highly secure. But, the WordPress ecosystem is huge, which means it has a big target on its back. Luckily there are a substantial number of security plugins, such as Wordfence, to choose from to add advanced security to your WordPress site for free.
Where vulnerabilities are discovered in themes and plugins, WordPress’s security team is quick to get in touch with plugin authors and provide assistance to get the vulnerability removed. From the WordPress Developer Resources:
“When a plugin vulnerability is verified by the WordPress Security Team, they contact the plugin author and direct them as to how to fix and release a secure version of the plugin. If there is a lack of response from the plugin author or if the vulnerability is severe, the plugin/theme is pulled from the public directory, and in some cases, fixed and updated directly by the Security Team.”
Also read: Essential WordPress Security Tips Every Site Owner Should Know
SEO
WordPress is built for SEO. It is lightweight and comes with all the tech features you need to ensure that your website follows key SEO best practices, such as speed and search engine-friendly HTML markup, custom link structures, optimized headings and titles, and optimized images.
Many free and commercial themes are developed to simplify SEO. There are also a number of hugely popular SEO plugins (such as Yoast, AIOSEO, and Rankmath) that provide advanced SEO features.
eCommerce
While WordPress doesn’t come with eCommerce functionality out of the box, plugins can be installed to turn an ordinary WordPress website into a fully-fledged eCommerce site. Among the available eCommerce plugins for WordPress, WooCommerce is the most popular and widely used, and comes with great community support.
It also comes with the most native addons for memberships, invoicing, courses, and invoices. However, it’s worth keeping in mind that many plugins that perform these functions (membership, eLearning, etc.) also come with built-in functionality that allows your site visitors to pay online. Even then, most of them integrate with WooCommerce, which can be a good way to keep all your sales in one place if you’re selling using different plugins.
Also read: WooCommerce for Beginners: Get Serious About Sales
Storage & backups
How much storage you have and whether backups are run automatically will depend on where you host your WordPress site. At SunnyHQ, for example, we typically give our customers the space they need to host their sites without worrying about space (within reason, of course), and provide daily backups and restores.
In most cases your host will allocate a set amount of storage space to your hosting account (e.g. 10GB) to do with as you see fit, with virtually no limit on file sizes. Most of the time, you’ll find that weekly or monthly backups are included – if you need backups run more frequently you’ll likely have to do it yourself or upgrade your hosting account.
What is Squarespace?
Squarespace is similar to wordpress.com in that it’s a fully managed CMS that can be used for personal and business websites, as well as blogs. According to WPZoom, Squarespace has cornered 2.1% of all websites, which is not an insignificant number.
Squarespace is known for elegant design templates aimed at creative professionals and artists, perhaps more so than businesses that may have custom functionality requirements (e.g. systems integration, etc.). But that doesn’t mean that businesses are totally excluded; Squarespace has templates for various industries including real estate, construction, and marketing.
Technical experience
Much like wordpress.com, you don’t need any technical expertise to get started with Squarespace. It’s point-and-click website creation, with some advanced options for more experienced users (such as custom CSS and javascript scripts).
That, at least, is the theory. What you’ll find is that website design, especially if this is your first foray into the world of padding and margins, styling, and hex color codes, can be downright intimidating. Given that there’s no free option to familiarize yourself with the basics of website design using Squarespace, you’ll have to hit the ground running or risk wasting your subscription fee.
Functionality and appearance
Squarespace provides templates to simplify the website design process. This means you can get the pages of your site published without knowing a lick of code.
The same applies to website functionality; add-ons can be integrated into your website to extend the functionality. It should be kept in mind that the Squarespace ecosystem isn’t as well developed as WordPress, which means you’ll have to check the availability of plugins you may want to use as your website grows.
Security
Since Squarespace is fully managed hosting, server security is included from the get-go. Although the included SSL does add to security, it should be kept in mind that SSL is now a ubiquitous part of just about every commercially available hosting package. Squarespace also comes with two-factor authentication, Denial of Service (DDoS) protection, login activity logging, and password-protected pages.
Password security is therefore an absolute must, since it’s the most likely point of entry to your site and Squarespace account. Again, it’s important to keep in mind that Squarespace does not include backups – ensure that you always have a copy of your recent site data stored away.
SEO
Squarespace comes with a few handy tools to simplify SEO. You won’t have to worry about generating or creating XML sitemaps since these are automatically generated, and you get a free SSL certificate – both of which contribute toward a better Google rank.
Squarespace also comes with a few options that let you optimize your content – from meta titles and descriptions to custom clean URLs. Google Analytics is available with all plans. With social media increasingly important for SEO, you’ll also be happy to know that Squarespace integrates with all the big social media platforms.
eCommerce
Squarespace has different eCommerce features that vary between packages. The most basic package (Personal) can be used to send invoices, and monetize content and memberships. Customers can create accounts for faster checkouts. However, unless you are on the Business plan, your customers won’t be checking out on your domain.
The more advanced eCommerce features range from 0% transaction fees (from the Commerce Basic package) to abandoned cart recovery, selling subscription products, and access to the Commerce API (Commerce Advanced).
Storage & backups
Unlike wordpress.com, backups are not included with Squarespace. This means that, if you accidentally delete a page or lose site data (and you don’t have your own backup readily available), you’ll have to start from scratch. Luckily, however, a handy export feature is available for certain content types.
If you’re looking to store files on Squarespace, you’ll find that there’s a limit of 300MB per digital product. At the time of writing there aren’t any overall storage limitations regardless of your account type.
Conclusion
When it’s WordPress vs Squarespace, one key consideration is your goal with your website. If you just want a basic website to use as a digital business card or maybe sell a few products, both Squarespace and WordPress.com are good options. Security and updates are taken care of and you’ll be provided with a number of options in terms of extending your site’s functionality and managing its appearance. But this is also its greatest limitation.
If you need more control over the design and functionality of your website, self-hosting WordPress (WordPress.org) could save you some time and money in the long run. Here, too, you don’t need any technical expertise when you sign up for WordPress Website Maintenance.
FAQ: WordPress vs Squarespace
What are the main differences between WordPress.com and self-hosted WordPress (WordPress.org)?
WordPress.com is a fully-managed WordPress. Hosting is included and virtually all the technical tasks are taken care of including security, backups, and updates. WordPress.com is ideal for sites that do not require extensive customization.
WordPress.org is where you can download WordPress files for free, customize your site, and host it with a provider of your choice. You’ll have to manage your site’s plugins, themes, security, and backups yourself, or sign up for WordPress support.
Is Squarespace suitable for eCommerce websites?
Yes, Squarespace offers eCommerce features, starting with its most affordable plan. Advanced plans (such as the Commerce Basic and Commerce Advanced plans) provide features such as 0% transaction fees, abandoned cart recovery, and subscription product options, making it suitable for small to medium-sized online stores.
How do WordPress and Squarespace handle SEO?
WordPress is geared for SEO out of the box with options to manage your URL structure and easily optimize headings and titles. It also includes SEO-friendly HTML markup, and image optimization for fast page loads. Easily install popular SEO plugins to manage large volumes of content and media with ease.
Squarespace includes built-in SEO tools that automatically generate XML sitemaps, provide SSL certificates, and allow customization of meta titles, descriptions, and URLs.
Which platform is better for beginners with no technical experience?
Both Squarespace and WordPress.com are suitable for individuals with little or no technical experience. However, you’ll need a grip on the basics of website design (e.g. headers, footers, navigation, etc.) to get started with any of these platforms.
What should I consider when choosing between WordPress and Squarespace for my business website?
Take a moment to consider your technical expertise, budget, need for customization, SEO requirements, eCommerce needs, and whether you prefer a managed solution. WordPress offers greater flexibility and control, especially for larger or more complex sites, while Squarespace provides an easier, all-in-one solution for simpler websites with elegant designs.
