Wix vs Squarespace, Which Is Better for Your Website and Blogging?

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You’ve set up a website for your small business and are now ready to start blogging. Business blogging can help you connect with customers, improve SEO, and establish authority in your niche. But when you open your blogging platform, you feel lost. Where do you start? How should you structure your posts? What should you write about? If you’re a small business owner, you’re not alone. This article will compare Wix and Squarespace to help you decide which platform is best for business blogging.

Feather's Notion to blog can help you organize your thoughts and get started. This tool lets you import your Notion notes directly into Wix or Squarespace, giving you a structured and efficient way to launch your business blog.

Wix vs. Squarespace at a Glance

Wix and Squarespace are website-building tools that let users create and customize websites without coding. They offer the following features to help you design your site and add the features you want:

Intuitive interfaces

Customizable templates

Robust app markets

Wix is known for its flexibility and creative control, while Squarespace stands out for its designer templates and blogging features.

Design: How Do Wix and Squarespace Compare?

Wix and Squarespace each offer attractive templates to help you build your site. But the overall design experience and flexibility differ significantly between the two. With Wix, you can indeed start from scratch.

Flexibility and Customization

The platform gives you a blank canvas to build a site that meets your specifications. You can also pick from hundreds of templates to help you get started. Once you’ve chosen a template, you can edit the site’s structure by moving around the layout’s sections and creating new ones. From there, it’s easy to customize the design of individual elements to your liking.

Structured Design and Visual Appeal

With Squarespace, you can access a library of quality templates to help you get started. However, the design process is more structured and organized. You can’t change the overall layout of a Squarespace template, but you can customize the style of individual sections to help achieve your desired look. Because of this, Squarespace is a favorite among creatives who care about visual appeal.

While both platforms can help you build an attractive website, Wix gives you more design flexibility and creative control.

What Is Wix?

Wix is a cloud-based website builder that includes web hosting and design services. Its user-friendly drag-and-drop tools and over 500+ ready-made templates help you build your website without having specialist skills or hiring a web developer.

Wix accelerates web development and gives you the creative freedom to build your desired website. It is an ideal website builder for small and medium e-commerce businesses. It has over 200 million registered users worldwide and is available in 17 languages (Wix).

According to Enlyft, Wix’s most extensive customer base is in the US (57%), followed by the UK (6%) and Canada (6%). Is Wix the best eCommerce platform? Wix ecommerce is an ecommerce website builder that lets you:

Create a custom online store

Sell products

Scale your business to the next level

It’s also an excellent ecommerce platform for small and medium businesses that’s easy to use, customize, and relatively affordable. However, whether it’s your best ecommerce platform will depend primarily on your specific business needs.

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What Is Squarespace?

Squarespace is a versatile and adaptable website builder that helps users craft professional-looking websites without writing a single line of code. Its powerful site-building tools and features have made it one of the top choices for web design enthusiasts.

The User-Friendly Web Builder

The beauty of Squarespace lies in its simplicity—even if you're not tech-savvy, this platform will transform your ideas into stunning web pages. It's like having an experienced architect who takes care of all technicalities while letting you focus on decorating your new house. With millions trusting their online presence to Squarespace, it has undoubtedly left its mark on the World Wide Web.

What sets it apart from other site builders? The answer lies within its commitment to provide easy-to-use yet highly effective tools suitable for beginners trying their hand at DIY projects or professionals looking to speed up their workflow. This service combines essential elements needed for modern websites, offering comprehensive solutions:

Content management

Social media integration

Email marketing campaigns

Combining these features provides a complete solution rather than just individual components. As of the end of 2023, Squarespace had 4.6 million unique subscriptions.

Wix vs Squarespace: Detailed Side-By-Side Comparison

The Editor: Choosing Your Adventure

The editor is the most significant difference between Wix and Squarespace. Wix offers an unstructured editor, allowing users to place elements anywhere on the page. You can drag-and-drop elements with pixel-perfect precision. While this sounds empowering, it can lead to design consistency, especially for users who need design experience. For instance, what looks good on a desktop might not translate well to mobile.

Ease of Use and Design Consistency

Wix requires many manual adjustments, such as repositioning elements on different device views, which can lead to frustration. Squarespace, on the other hand, uses a structured editor called Fluid Engine. This system restricts placement within defined rows and columns, ensuring your site looks clean and uniform across devices.

Structured Editor: Pros and Cons

Although it limits some flexibility compared to Wix, Squarespace’s editor is more intuitive, resulting in fewer design mishaps. The structured approach minimizes errors, making Squarespace a smoother experience for beginners.

Winner: Squarespace's structured editor is more user-friendly and delivers cleaner results, especially for beginners.

Templates: Quality vs. Quantity

Wix boasts over 900 templates, an overwhelming number of options in terms of templates. However, quantity doesn’t always equate to quality. Many Wix templates are outdated, and the inconsistency in design can make it hard to find a modern, polished template without sifting through many that feel dated.

Wix doesn’t remove old templates, so there’s a wide gap between the best and worst options. In contrast, Squarespace offers around 160 templates, but their quality is consistently high. Squarespace’s templates are known for being:

Sleek

Modern

Professional

These qualities make Squarespace ideal for portfolios, e-commerce stores, and blogs. It’s also designed to be highly responsive across devices. If aesthetics and consistency are your priorities, Squarespace has the upper hand.

Winner: Squarespace, for the quality and consistency of its templates.

Template Customization: Make It Your Own

Both platforms allow for template customization, but Squarespace handles it more elegantly. You can apply a color palette across the entire site, making it easy to maintain brand consistency.

Ease of Use and Complexity

Squarespace’s customization tools are designed to simplify the process, ensuring that even complex customizations like color schemes are intuitive. Wix, while offering more freedom, can make customization feel overwhelming. With so many options, it's easy to make your site look inconsistent unless you’re skilled in design. Adjusting colors across the site isn’t as streamlined as in Squarespace, and simple tasks can sometimes become more complicated than necessary.

Winner: Squarespace, for its simplicity and focus on maintaining a cohesive brand look.

Features: It’s All About Quality

When it comes to features, Wix leads in volume. It offers:

More apps

Integrations

Out-of-the-box features

Wix supports a broader range of capabilities, including:

Multilingual sites

Live chat

Forums

Third-party fonts directly from its App Market

App Marketplace and Feature Comparison

Wix’s app marketplace is robust, with over 500 apps, compared to Squarespace’s more limited selection of around 30 extensions. However, Squarespace often delivers a higher-quality experience for the features it does offer. Take restaurant menus, donations, and podcast syndication, for example.

Squarespace outshines Wix with features that are easy to implement and highly effective. Squarespace’s donation system is superior, offering a complete set of tools tailored to non-profits, while Wix only provides an essential PayPal integration.

Squarespace is the only website builder that allows for podcast syndication, a necessary feature for anyone looking to distribute their podcasts across platforms like:

Spotify

Apple Podcasts

Wix only offers a primary podcast player without syndication capabilities.

Winner: It depends. If you need a large variety of features, Wix is your choice. However, Squarespace excels in certain use cases, such as podcasts and donations.

Flexibility vs. Simplicity: What’s Your Preference?

Wix thrives on offering maximum flexibility to its users, making it a great tool if you need more niche features or want total control over your site’s layout. It can be powerful for advanced users or those who need specific integrations. Squarespace, on the other hand, focuses on simplicity and aesthetics.

While you won’t get as much flexibility, you will get a platform that’s easier to use, especially if you value a streamlined design process without making manual adjustments for different devices. Winner: Squarespace for ease of use, Wix for flexibility.

Ecommerce: Who’s Got the Goods?

Wix and Squarespace both provide solid ecommerce functionalities, covering basic features like:

Inventory management

Discounts

Taxes

Product variations

Squarespace has more sophisticated features in specific areas:

Digital Products: Both platforms support digital product sales.

Custom Email Receipts: Available on both platforms.

Print On Demand Services Integration: Both support this feature.

Point of Sale System: Both offer POS integrations.

Instagram Shop Tagging: Available on both.

Automated Cart Recovery: Both platforms have this essential ecommerce feature.

Recurring Payment Products: Supported by both Wix and Squarespace.

Gift Cards: Available on both platforms.

Back in Stock & Low Stock Notifications: Both platforms offer notifications.

Squarespace's advantage is its ability to attach sophisticated forms to products, which allows businesses to ask for additional customer information during checkout. Wix allows only primary text fields in this regard. Squarespace provides a better experience for:

Inventory management

Tax settings

Shipping options

It also offers a whole-page product editor for customization, while Wix's features in these areas are more limited. Winner: Squarespace Squarespace's ecommerce capabilities are more advanced and refined, making it a better option for sophisticated online stores.

Blogging: The Definitive Winner

Squarespace excels in blogging, offering core and unique features:

Tagging

Categories

Drafts

SEO tools

Essential features of Wix and Squarespace include:

Tagging, Categories, Drafts, and Comments: Wix and Squarespace support these essential features.

SEO tools (Slug, Title, Description): These are available on both platforms.

Google AMP Support: Both platforms offer this for faster mobile loading.

User Roles and Social Sharing: Supported on both.

Squarespace's extra features include:

Multiple authors on a single post

Separate social media sharing images

More robust blog editor that lets you embed Instagram feeds, galleries, and other elements like restaurant menus or event tickets.

This flexibility adds to the aesthetic appeal of blog posts. Wix offers fundamental blogging features, but its editor could be more advanced and visually appealing than Squarespace.

Winner: Squarespace Squarespace excels with its more feature-rich and visually sophisticated blog editor, making it the superior choice for bloggers.

Mobile Apps: On-the-Go Management

Both Wix and Squarespace provide mobile apps that allow users to manage their websites and businesses on the go, with access to essential features like:

Analytics

Store management

Blog management

Wix Mobile App

Users with this app can do the following:

Chat with visitors

View reports

Send email campaigns

Manage blogs and stores

Wix’s unstructured editor prevents users from building or editing web pages through the app.

Squarespace Mobile App

Squarespace's structured editor allows users to manage their store, check analytics, and build and edit web pages directly from their phone. Winner: Squarespace While both apps offer comprehensive site management, Squarespace's app allows users to create and edit web pages—something Wix’s app cannot do.

User Reviews: What Are People Saying?

Wix and Squarespace have mixed reviews from users, with various pros and cons depending on the needs of the individual or business. Wix is often praised for its ease of use and flexibility, making it ideal for users without coding experience. However, web developers criticize its performance issues, prolonged site speeds, and limits on creativity due to the templates provided.

While Wix offers more freedom in design, users have reported glitches, such as unexpected layout shifts. Some have also expressed frustration with Wix’s high hosting costs, especially compared to cheaper alternatives.

Customer Service and Support

Customer service also has mixed reviews, with some users experiencing difficulties obtaining refunds or resolving issues. Squarespace is considered more rigid in design than Wix, making it easier to customize with coding. However, it is often preferred for its more polished templates and reliability.

Design Flexibility and Ease of Use

Some users find it less user-friendly but appreciate its streamlined experience. Others who switched from Wix to Squarespace have reported fewer technical issues but still find it less flexible for certain features like scheduling. Overall, Wix is better for beginners or those needing design flexibility, while Squarespace might suit those who prefer more polished templates but can handle a more rigid platform.

Security: A Draw

Both Wix and Squarespace are closed platforms, meaning they take care of all the security and maintenance aspects of the sites hosted on their platforms. This provides a secure environment for users:

SSL Certificates: Both platforms automatically provide SSL certificates, ensuring secure data transmission.

PCI DSS Compliance: Both comply with the highest payment card industry standards.

Rigorous Development Process: Both platforms follow strict security protocols during development.

Third-party App Security: Wix and Squarespace have tight controls to ensure no harmful apps are published.

Security Monitoring and Bug Bounty Programs: Both companies actively monitor their platforms for vulnerabilities and encourage independent security experts to find bugs.

Winner: Wix and Squarespace offer top-notch security, ensuring protection from vulnerabilities and hacks.

Customer Support: Who Has Your Back?

Responsive customer support is crucial when building and maintaining a website, and while both Wix and Squarespace offer great support options, there are a few key differences. Here’s how they stack up against each other:

Wix Customer Support Offers

Callback support (24/7 for English speakers)

Live chat (EN live chat available Monday through Friday, 2 a.m. to 6 p.m. ET; also available in other languages)

Ticket submission

Help Center (FAQ and forum)

Knowledge-base articles with video tutorials

Squarespace Customer Support Offers

Email (24/7)

Live chat (available Monday through Friday, 4:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. ET; hours may differ for Australia and New Zealand) X (24/7)

Facebook Messenger (24/7)

Help Center (FAQ, knowledge-base articles, videos, webinars, forum)

Bottom line: Both platforms have thorough support systems, but Wix's 24/7 callback phone line and support for additional languages give it an edge.

Wix vs Squarespace: Pricing Comparison

Wix and Squarespace offer tiered plans to cater to various budgets and needs. Wix's pricing plans are structured to provide flexibility and scalability. It has options for individuals, businesses, eCommerce, and agencies. Squarespace offers similar plans with additional features tailored to creative professionals and online merchants.

Wix Pricing Plans (Annual)

Free plan ($0): Limited features and ads

Light ($17/month): Basic plan for simple sites

Core ($29/month): Basic eCommerce features and marketing suite

Business $36/month): Geared towards growing your brand

Business Elite ($159/month): Unlocks unlimited storage and scaling capabilities

Enterprise: Custom plan for large corporations.

With each plan, you’ll get a free domain for one year. The amount of storage space increases with each plan, along with how advanced the eCommerce and marketing features are. When it comes to payments, you’ll be able to take online payments with the Core plan and above.

Wix Free Plan and Upgrading Options

You can use Wix’s free plan for as long as you like. This is a great way to get familiar with it without spending a dime, but we recommend upgrading your plan to remove the Wix ad banner. An upgraded plan will allow you to use your domain and unlock more marketing, eCommerce, and analytics features with larger storage space.

Squarespace Pricing Plans (Annual)

Personal plan ($16/month): Ideal for bloggers and portfolios with basic features.

Business plan ($23/month): Ideal for small businesses. Products and services can be sold but with a 3% transaction fee.

Basic Commerce plan ($28/month): This plan is ideal for small businesses with essential eCommerce features. Products and services can be sold with a 0% transaction fee.

Advanced Commerce plan ($52/month): This plan is tailored for larger stores and includes advanced eCommerce functionalities like shipping and discounts at checkout.

Enterprise: Custom plans for larger businesses.

With each Squarespace plan, you’ll get free domain registration, a mobile-optimized site, and the ability to send invoices for free. Regarding eCommerce, you can sell products and services starting with the business plan, though you’ll have to pay a transaction fee unless you upgrade to a Commerce plan. Commerce plans and the above come with the following:

More merchandising features

Subscriptions

Advanced shipping and more

Squarespace plans include a 14-day free trial and essential features like support and mobile optimization.

Which Is Cheaper?

Wix and Squarespace offer cost-effective plans, though Wix offers a free plan for the future. You get what you pay for; in both cases, the better the plan, the more you get.

What Are the Downsides of Wix and Squarespace?

Wix is famous for its flexibility and ease of use, but that comes at a cost. The most significant issue people talk about is performance. If you care about fast-loading pages or getting high-performance scores, Wix tends to fall short.

Wix Limitations and Upselling Tactics

Another problem is that while Wix gives you much design freedom, it can feel clunky. Glitches, like random layout shifts or odd spacing, are common, which can get frustrating. Wix also upsells quite a bit, meaning you'll often pay more for features you thought were included. Plus, you're stuck if you want to move your site elsewhere. Exporting or migrating your content is not as easy as on other platforms.

Squarespace: Aesthetics vs. Flexibility

Squarespace, on the other hand, is known for its beautiful templates and more polished look. But that polish comes with some rigidity. Customization is more complex; unless you know some coding, you might feel limited in what you can do.

User Experience and Ease of Use

Squarespace can be frustrating if you're used to more design flexibility. It’s often seen as less intuitive than Wix. Some users also complain that editing and updating quickly is hard, which is not ideal if you’re regularly tweaking your site.

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Which Is Better Squarespace or Wix?

Regarding design, Squarespace and Wix have different strengths and weaknesses. Squarespace is renowned for its stunning, professional templates, which are hard to beat. The platform caters to creatives and visual industries, offering beautiful designs to help you create a polished website to showcase your work.

Design Aesthetics and Flexibility

The template designs have a unique flair you can’t find on other platforms. They are fully responsive, so your site will look great on any device. Squarespace’s Fluid Engine Editor gives you enough flexibility to customize layouts without needing advanced skills. You can easily create a beautiful website on Squarespace, making it perfect for anyone who wants a clean, elegant design that stands out without much effort.

Squarespace vs. Wix: A Design Showdown

On the other hand, Wix has made great strides in design. It offers hundreds of fully customizable template options. Still, the real standout is the Wix Editor, which allows you to drag and drop elements anywhere on your site for complete creative control. Wix is great for building visually appealing websites and lets you create something with more functionality, like e-commerce or interactive features.

So, best for polished design? Squarespace wins. But if you want more creative freedom and functional flexibility, Wix is the more vital option.

The E-Commerce Plug-In Battle: Squarespace vs. Wix

There’s an app for everything, and if you want to run a successful online store, you’ll likely need to rely on these third-party integrations to get the job done. On the other hand, Squarespace has all the built-in features you need to start selling right away. You can:

Create a professional online store with beautiful product pages

Organize your items into categories

Start selling within minutes

Squarespace: E-commerce Features and Aesthetics

There’s no need to worry about finding and installing numerous apps to handle essential e-commerce functions on Squarespace. The platform even comes with sample images to visualize your online store's appearance before you start customizing it. Best of all, Squarespace's e-commerce features are very aesthetically pleasing, so you can create a visually appealing store to impress your visitors.

Templates and Design: Squarespace vs. Wix

Design Aesthetics and Flexibility

Squarespace vs. Wix: A Design Showdown

On the other hand, Wix has made great strides in design. It offers hundreds of fully customizable template options, but the real standout is the Wix Editor, which allows you to drag and drop elements anywhere on your site for complete creative control. Wix is great for building visually appealing websites and lets you create something with more functionality, like e-commerce or interactive features.

So, best for polished design? Squarespace wins. But if you want more creative freedom and functional flexibility, Wix is the more robust option.

The E-Commerce Plug-In Battle: Squarespace vs. Wix

If you’re looking to build an online store, both Squarespace and Wix offer solid e-commerce features. However, if you want the best for your business, Squarespace is the way to go. While Wix does a decent job of helping you create an online store, it’s pretty clear that the platform focuses more on design and functionality than e-commerce. There’s an app for everything, and if you want to run a successful online store, you’ll likely need to rely on these third-party integrations to get the job done.

On the other hand, Squarespace has all the built-in features you need to start selling right away. You can:

Create a professional online store with beautiful product pages

Organize your items into categories

Start selling within minutes

Squarespace: E-commerce Features and Aesthetics

Which Is Cheaper Than Wix?

Weebly: The Affordable Wix Alternative

Weebly shines as a budget-friendly alternative to Wix. Weebly has a free plan, and its paid plans start at just $10 per month when paid annually. It also has a drag-and-drop interface, making it a solid choice for users who want an affordable, user-friendly website builder.

Shopify: The Quick Start-Up Option For E-commerce

If you're looking for an e-commerce platform, Shopify offers a tempting deal: $1 per month for the first three months. After that, it jumps to $39 per month, so it's a great short-term deal for those who need to test the waters. It also comes with a drag-and-drop interface, making online store setup easy.

WordPress: The Flexible, Cheap Option for Blogging

WordPress is free, but you must pay for third-party web hosting. Depending on the hosting provider, this can be very cheap, sometimes around $3-$5 per month. It's more technical but offers a drag-and-drop interface through plugins like Elementor.

Web.com: The Super Cheap Starter Rate

This platform starts at $4.95 per month for the first month but jumps to $15.99 after. It's still cheaper than Wix's premium plans and has a drag-and-drop interface for building an accessible website.

Feather's Notion: The Next-Gen Business Solution

If you're seeking more design flexibility and a powerful CMS to run your blog, newsletter, and other aspects of your business, consider Feather's Notion to blog and newsletter concept. With Feather, you can use Notion as your CMS while having your blog published on Feather.

By running all your business on Notion, you can enhance productivity and have to switch between tools to run your blog and newsletter. You can have the Hubspot experience with Notion and Feather, which beats Ghost's expertise.

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Go From Notion to Blog With Ease Today With Feather

Feather is an SEO-friendly blog and email newsletter service that integrates seamlessly with Notion, offering features such as:

No coding or design skills needed: Publish blog content and newsletters directly from Notion.

Automatic publishing: Write on Notion and have it published to your Feather blog automatically.

Subfolder blog setup: Use domain.com/blog (better for SEO) instead of blog.domain.com.

HubSpot experience in Notion: Manage your CRM and website blog all in one place.

Custom design options: Modify designs with custom CSS.

Email collection: Easily gather and manage subscriber emails.

Team collaboration: Collaborate on content with your team during the publishing process.

Supercharge your interactions with Feather's AI customer support. Simplify your blog and newsletter management while boosting your SEO performance today!