The Big Fight: WordPress vs Squarespace
At Gatorworks, we answer calls and emails all the time from people who want to know why they should custom build a website through WordPress instead of using one of the cheaper options. Through Wix, Weebly, and Squarespace, you can create a site yourself for very little money or even free. The reality is that with a website, much like a vehicle or a home, you get what you pay for. So, WordPress vs Squarespace or any of the other options…who wins?
So, if you’re making a personal blog, a photography website, or a webshop to sell hand-crafted items, you likely want to use Wix, Weebly, or Squarespace. The cheaper/free options can be very appealing in that situation. However, if you are running a small business, corporate, or non-profit website, you likely need to look harder at a custom-built WordPress website.
We don’t want to give you generalities though. Let’s get into the specifics of the WordPress vs Squarespace comparison.
WordPress Is Widely Used
The strongest endorsement of WordPress’ superior system is that it is the most widely used content management system (CMS) in the world. More than 27% of the websites worldwide use WordPress, by far the most of any one system. This isn’t because it’s the cheapest option or because it’s the easiest to use. It’s because WordPress is the right blend of secure, user-friendly, and search engine optimized.
Squarespace brags about having more than 1 million sites in its network. Wix, being a public company, has revealed the exact number: 2.9 million. Considering Weebly is smaller than those two companies, it’s likely used on fewer websites. Estimates for WordPress back in 2014 were that it was used to build more than 74 million sites. In 2017, we don’t have solid numbers, but the platform has continued to grow, so it’s safe to say WordPress is more popular by a great deal.
It’s also open-source. That means that anyone can contribute to the platform by improving the code and thousands of people do so on a daily basis. It also means there are thousands of plugins that can do all different kinds of tasks. These have become as integral to the website design, development, and optimization process as the foundation of WordPress.
Design Flexibility
When it comes to the design capabilities, Wix, Weebly, and Squarespace all tend to look alike, setting them far behind WordPress. If you spend a few minutes looking around, you can find that each of these types of websites have a “look”. They run on the same themes and look very similar to one another. WordPress sites, on the other hand, have a much wider design spectrum simply because of the open source nature of the site. There are pre-built, publicly available themes for download or purchase with WordPress, or you can have a one designed just for your business, which is what most should consider if they want to remain unique and original in a world of themes and templates. The designs can be as varied as we want them to be–and it shows. You can use a parallax (scrolling) website or a site with numerous pages. Despite making up the plurality of websites in the world, WordPress doesn’t have a particular “look”.
Squarespace on the other hand, has a certain look. Along with Wix and Weebly, they will not allow web developers (that’s us) to poke around the code and reverse engineer or change certain things. That means we cannot make the site more effective, fast, or to accomplish a particular marketing goal. The flexibility just is not there.
Security Matters Online
In this age of hacking and security concerns, it’s important to businesses and their users that a website be secure. The last thing you want is to wake up to an email that your website has been hacked. WordPress continually updates its core and plugins, with help from a massive online community thanks to the fact that more developers are constantly trying to create a more secure project. Whereas Squarespace, Weebly, and Wix, have a limited number of employees working on these tasks.
Search Engine Friendliness
WordPress has gone out of its way to ensure its foundation is search engine friendly. Without getting into the weeds too much, this boils down to the fact that there are well-crafted plugins to optimize sites and that the foundation of WordPress itself is very search-friendly. That includes the creation of search engine friendly URLs automatically.
Due to the open-source nature of WordPress, the community is able to solve problems and adapt to search engine algorithm changes much faster than a company like Wix, Weebly, or Squarespace.
Work With WordPress
You need a website that is going to attract search engine traffic, look unique and interesting, and be as secure as possible. So, work with a custom-built WordPress website. It is, far and away, the most popular platform for building and managing websites. That boils down to cost, flexibility, and the wide range of plugins that can be used to augment its abilities at no extra cost.
WordPress powers some of the most well trafficked websites in the world. Gatorworks has built websites on this platform for government agencies, schools, financial institutions, and major restaurants in addition to numerous other industries. When it comes to WordPress vs Squarespace, Wix, and Weebly…it’s no contest.