So you’re trying to decide between
The TL;DR (Too Long, Didn’t Read) Version
Squarespace is a great beginner blogging platform. You will be limited in add-ons and fancy stuff. You can increase the site speed up to a certain point (not fast enough in our eyes). You get access to great support if you ever get stuck or frustrated.
WordPress is for serious bloggers. If you want to make money with your blog, you will eventually move to WordPress. Access to plugins and themes that can help you leverage your website will be paramount to growing. But learning WordPress can be like drinking from a fire hydrant at first.
Now onto the showdown!
Let’s go over a brief history of both
History of Squarespace
Squarespace was originally founded and coded into creation by Anthony Casalena in 2004 while he was still in college at the University of Maryland. He first created
In college, he noticed that his classmates were in a similar situation. So over the next 3 years, while still in college mind you, Anthony was the sole employee of
From there Anthony moved
History of WordPress
Now the history of WordPress is wildly different from that of
WordPress was first released into the wild in 2003 by the creator’s Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little. The first few versions of WordPress gained traction quickly in the then weblog (blog) community.
In 2006, Matt’s company Automattic filed a trademark registration for WordPress and the WordPress logo.
But then in 2010, Automattic transferred ownership to the WordPress foundation. This was HUGE because now WordPress was able to grow with the community vs relying on a company to keep things moving.
By 2013, WordPress had become the most popular CMS (content management system) in the world. See an expanded history of WordPress here.
Pros and Cons
Everyone loves a good pro & con list, right? A simple way to compare!
Pros for Squarespace
- Built-in drag and drop interface for creating your website.
- Super easy to use, you won’t need any coding skills or knowledge of CSS/HTML.
- Offers unlimited bandwidth, so no matter how much traffic your website gets
Squarespace will scale with it. - Decent SEO-ablity out of the box (good for low competition).
- Includes SSL encryption, which is a great security feature.
- Over 100
Squarespace themes to choose from, and they are all mobile-friendly as well! - Award-winning chat support.
- When
Squarespace goes down, their team works around the clock to get back up and running.
Cons for Squarespace
- You will be limited in add-ons or plugins you can use on
Squarespace . It’s not impossible but it will take some coding knowledge. - Site speed will be limited just by the nature of
Squarespace ‘s backend code. - Squarespace doesn’t offer an easy way to create backups or manually export data from
Squarespace . (IfSquarespace suffers a catastrophic event, all content is lost). - When
Squarespace goes down, you have zero control to get your site back up and running.
Try Squarespace Free for 14 days Risk-free trial, no credit card required.
This is a great way to get some hands-on experience with Squarespace to find out if you should build your next website on Squarespace.
Pros for WordPress
- The best choice for SEO when looking to grow with organic traffic.
- WordPress is currently the website platform of choice for over 43% of the internet, which means that there is plenty of resources dedicated to the growth.
- Access to over 30k themes, either paid or free if you know where to look. (we recommend Carbonate for speed and simplicity)
- As
Squarespace ‘s add-ons and plugins are limited, WordPress has an unlimited supply for you to choose from (and even create yourself). This lets you really customize your website to do exactly what you need it to do. - WordPress is open source software which means the code is available for anyone to view, learn from, and improve on. This community aspect is one of the reasons WordPress dominates as a CMS.
- You have control over every aspect of your website when using WordPress – hosting, design, functionality, etc. If something goes wrong with your site or you want to make changes, you hold the power!
Cons for WordPress
- Requires some technical knowledge in order to use correctly (although there are plenty of tutorials around that can help you get up and running).
- Can be overwhelming and confusing at first (which is why we offer 1-on-1 coaching).
- There is a very steep learning curve, so it’s harder for non-technical people to get into. This also means
Squarespace has an advantage over WordPress becauseSquarespace is easier for beginners but lacks some of the advanced features that WordPress offers. - You will need hosting (we recommend SiteGround) and a domain name (recommend NameCheap).
- There are so many plugins available that you can easily bloat your website and slow things down.
WordPress Hosting - Fast and Secure Managed by Experts - SiteGround We only use SiteGround for hosting our website along with our clients WordPress sites. They have an easy to use platform, great support, daily backups, and stagging so that you can work on your website without screwing up your live site!
Let’s see some examples!
So now that you understand some of the basics between these two platforms, we’ll go over a few real-world examples to help illustrate
Squarespace website examples
WordPress website examples
Which one is right for you?
Like I mentioned above,
Client Case Study
Our client, Will Gibbons, had started out on
Now what?
First, make sure that you purchase a domain name (that’s your .com like svarenwebstudio.com is our domain name). We highly recommend purchasing that with a service like NameCheap, that way if you ever change website platforms, you will have a much easier time.
If you have decided to use
On the other hand, if you have decided to use WordPress, then we recommend starting out with SiteGround, they will lay out every step you need to get started. SiteGround will even walk you through connecting your domain name so that you can get started right away. Once you have installed WordPress, we highly recommend getting the Carbonate Theme and following the setup that is included in that theme bundle.
Try Squarespace Free for 14 days Risk-free trial, no credit card required.
This is a great way to get some hands-on experience with Squarespace to find out if you should build your next website on Squarespace.
WordPress Hosting - Fast and Secure Managed by Experts - SiteGround We only use SiteGround for hosting our website along with our clients WordPress sites. They have an easy to use platform, great support, daily backups, and stagging so that you can work on your website without screwing up your live site!
Carbonate: A Lightweight WordPress Theme Built For Speed If you are a blogger looking for a super-fast platform, then you better be using the Carbonate WordPress Theme! These is a lean machine that will make your website load in well under 1 second and be passing all of Googles Core Web Vitals with flying colors!
Still need help?
Reach out to us and we would be happy to lend a hand! We offer a range of services including coaching so that you get the help you need when you need it. Get started with a free 20-minute coaching session!
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