Squarespace Vs. Wordpress: Both Sides of the Story
Choosing a blog or other website publishing platform is a decision taken too lightly by far too many people. Your blog platform can greatly influence the size of your audience, the effort it takes to publish new content, and - if applicable - the amount of money you make online. This week, I invited Wordpress expert and Internet marketing entrepreneur Andy Brudtkuhl to engage in a conversation that compares Squarespace.com and Wordpress.org as blogging platforms/web publishing softwares.
I'll concede that the choice of blogging software is not an easy one. Wordpress is the perennial favorite. Squarespace is touted by tech names like Leo Laporte and the guys at Diggnation. Both products have devout users that swear by their respective web publishing tool. And these are just two of many options. It can be hard to get a clear perspective on the pro's and con's of each.
The site you are on right now is hosted on Squarespace (See my review of Squarespace here). Andy Brudtkhul, again, is a Wordpress consultant/pro/ninja. We both agree that there is no single best option and that the right blog or website publishing platform comes down to the one that best meets your goals, abilities, time lines, budgets, etc. We've put together this brief comparison based on Andy's experience with Wordpress and my experience as a Squarespace developer to help you make an informed decision on what's best for you:
Price
- Squarespace - Squarespace services include both web design tools and hosting. Basic packages start at $8/month. To host your site on your own domain, accounts start at $14/month. Coupon codes can save you around 10%. Squarespace provides an excellent value for their slightly higher monthly price tag.
- Wordpress - Free-ish - WordPress is completely 100% GPL open source however you still need to pay for hosting and domain name. The price ranges from ~$3/mo (GoDaddy) to $100/mo (Rackspace)
Search Engine Friendliness
- Squarespace - Squarespace is largely SEO-friendly. It's built on valid XHTML code. You have control of your page titles, alt tags, article links, etc. And while most of the important elements are covered, I'll admit Squarespace's proprietary system does fumble with SEO in a few minor areas. For example, you can't create custom page titles for some of the system-generated content (i.e., tags and categories). But overall, Squarespace will suit all but the most hardcore SEOs.
- Wordpress - Designed with SEO in mind. Everything from semantic XHTML markup to optimized URL's to on page elements and meta information is optimized for search. There are also themes and plugins that can help you along the way. There are even some plugins with built in keyword research tools that help you write better for SEO. It's easily the most optimized solution I have ever used out of the box.
Security
- Squarespace - Being a completely hosted system means Squarespace is not prone to the same security holes as open source systems like Wordpress and Drupal. I'll never have to pay someone to cleanse my hacked blog because I bought my domain on GoDaddy. Daddy. My site is just plain safe.
- Wordpress - You need to maintain your own updates and be careful with plugins. Also - a good host helps. Remember in hosting - you get what you pay for. We prefer to host at Rackspace - but you can still have problems if you don't keep your site updated to the latest version and security fixes.
Adding Features
- Squarespace - Squarespace may not have all the bells and whistles of Wordpress plugins, but they aim to be the best at what they do with the plugins they have. For example, the new Squarespace Twitter widget stores your tweets on their servers, so your site will never slow to a crawl when loading because Twitter is down. (And website load time is important.) Plus, Squarespace is compatible with all widgets on the web. The combined effect provides nearly all the extra features one could want in a blog.
- Wordpress - The reason WordPress has grown so popular is it's ability to scale functionality through custom themes and plugins. Themes and plugins can provide unlimited functionality through a "Actions & Filters" API that WordPress provides. This is huge because it allows you to extend WordPress without changing any core WordPress code - allowing for new functionality while maintaining easy management and upgrades. Because of this API and the open source code platform - the WordPress development environment has grown and now there are hundreds of thousands of plugins and themes available.
Visual Customization
- Squarespace - Squarespace starts off with over 60 professionally designed templates. Then, you can customize nearly every element of the interface using their WYSIWYG editor - no knowledge of CSS is needed. It's ridiculously easy to have a completely custom and unique look. And for hardcore designers, Squarespace does allow for full CSS control. I picked Squarespace in part because I didn't want "just another Wordpress Thesis blog."
- Wordpress - The common misconception (alluded to by Josh) with WordPress is all sites look like blogs. While this is true in many cases - it doesn't have to be since you have full control over your design. The theme market place is growing and dozens of free and premium WordPress themes are released on a daily basis. Themes like Thesis allow tons of design control from a WYSIWYG editor and if you really want it to look unique you can customize it to do so.
Ease-of-Use
- Squarespace - The usability of the Squarespace editor is outstanding. Creating stunning galleries, exceptional blogs and web pages that convert is easy. Getting used to their primary controls, the Content, Structure and Visual "editing layers," requires minimal ramp-up. Squarespace also provides an extensive collection of how-to's, videos and forums available on their site. Building a site with Squarespace takes a shockingly short amount of time.
- Wordpress - Another reason for WordPress' rise in popularity is the ease of use factor. It's easy to setup, customize, and start producing content. Any average web user could setup a new site and be blogging within 10 minutes. There is a thriving online community with blogs, videos, howtos, podcasts and more on how to use, manage, customize, and publish in WordPress.
Hosting
- Squarespace - You get the web publishing software and hosting with Squarespace. And not just any hosting. Squarespace uses grid hosting, which distributes your website traffic evenly across an entire network. If you get on Digg, your site won't go down. If you get on CNN, your site won't go down. It's some heavy duty hosting.
- Wordpress - In hosting, you get what you pay for. If you choose to host your site for $3/mo at GoDaddy don't expect to get great support or the fastest server out there. However you can scale at your own needs. Four years ago we were hosting WordPress at GoDaddy and by now we are hosting on the super duper fast Rackspace Cloud. It's not cheap - but it's fast, secure, and reliable.
Support and Maintenance
- Squarespace - Squarespace boasts a 99.98% uptime. And because there is no Squarespace free plan, they only have to support paying customers. Their email ticketing system is amazingly fast. Their service level is 30 minutes, 24 hours a day. Submit a ticket, get a coffee, come back and get your response. And you'll never have to worry about upgrading your blog with the endless patches and upgrades of an open source platform. Squarespace takes care of all of that.
- Wordpress - WordPress support and maintenance is DIY... If you are uncomfortable with technology than you should have a WordPress guru (or me... wink, wink) in your contacts for those times when you need them. However WordPress does make upgrades and maintenance EXTREMELY easy through it's administration interface. It is imperative that you keep it updated (I mean c'mon it takes 1 click of a button) to avoid any security issues that may be fixed.
Bottom Line
Ultimately, both Squarespace and Wordpress are great web publishing tools and can most likely meet the needs of your blog or website. Andy and I hope this post has given you the perspective you need to make your choice based on your own personal goals, skills and resources.
Are you in the process of starting a blog? What questions do you have about Squarespace or Wordpress? If you've already selected your platform, what has your experience been like so far? Leave your thoughts in the comments below.
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Reader Comments (23)
Thanks for collaborating on this one! Also loved using Google Wave for it!
Squarespace is Apple. Closed system but everything is taken care of for you. It's simple, easy, and reliable.
WordPress is Android. It's open source and you can do anything with it - but ultimately you are responsible for it ... from updating it to keeping it secure.
I think that analogy works, Andy. Thanks again for lending your expertise and time!
Hey guys - as Andy knows, I'm a SquareSpace guy.
I started blogging on Blogger and planned to migrate to Wordpress. However, I hesitated due to the frequent reports of security issues (whether just or not) and the fact that hosting a Wordpress implementation was above my comfort level. I wanted the easy customization and feel of a "grown up blog" and felt that SquareSpace - at ~$14/mo was the better option (for me).
I do 99% of my work on a netbook and the combination of SquareSpace and hosted tools like Picnik allowed me to create a site that I was proud of and could administer on the go.
Check it out: http://www.geoffreyhwood.com
Geoff,
Thanks so much for sharing your story. I switched to Squarespace from Drupal because of the same hosting/security issues you feared during your transition. It's a key part of the decision and I thank you for highlighting it with your comment. Also, great looking blog!
Thanks for the great summary- I am in the very early stages of starting an online business with a blog and lots of good content. I will supplement the site with a few relevant products. Is it possible to sell directly from squarespace platform? Seems like I read that they do not have any "shopping cart" plug ins currently.
I have no experience in website development- so ease if use is really important! Oh, and I am on a shoestring budget!
Dawn,
Squarespace doesn't have an ecommerce widget of their own yet, but does integrate with many ecommerce solutions. Foxycart seems popular with many folks. Ecwid is newer product that appears to be very easy to use. At the very minimum, you can always integrate with Paypal or a Google Checkout. Try reading this article from the Squarespace User Manual for more information.
I was a Blogger blog for over 2 years, sampled Wordpress, not a good fit for me. Sampled SquareSpace - LOVE IT! Just wish I could have kept all my subscribers and fans with the move!!(hee hee)
That's the hard thing about platforms like Blogger where you don't end up with your own domain. It's like building a house on rented land. I'm like you, T & T. I made the move (from Drupal) to Squarespace and haven't looked back.
Josh & Andy,
Thanks so much for putting this together.
I've designed a few sites for clients in Squarespace and they are delighted. It is so easy to teach and for them to understand and adopt.
I had a wordpress.com blog back in the day so I'm also somewhat familiar with Wordpress.
I'm closing in on the launch of a new blog and have been vacillating between these two platforms. Most blogs I read are Wordpress blogs and in a recent blogging workshop I attended the instructor was adamant about using Wordpress. So I was kind of feeling like I *should* use Wordpress because, well, everyone else does, and for good reason.
Yet I've had so much fun and success with Squarespace, was looking for every excuse not to leave the platform. In your comparison, I think I found it.
I'll move forward using Squarespace with greater confidence.
Andy, the Apple/Android comparison was exactly what I was thinking when I got to the end of the post.
Nice job, fellas!
There are definitely plus/minus with any platfom like this - and it's always good to experiment and find the best fit for you. Honestly - WordPress is not for everyone... which is why there's a market for technology like Squarespace, Posterous, and others.
I am a Squarespace gal, no questions asked. I started out on Wordpress (because that's what you do) and quickly realized that someone without HTML or CSS experience (like myself) had to contact a pro every time I wanted to update my header or any visual aspect of my site (I hired a pro in the beginning because I didn't want that "Wordpress-y" feel). With Squarespace's WYSIWYG editor, "BAM!" it's done.
I still have A LOT to learn, but I think my site looks pretty darn tootin for someone with limited experience and limited time available.
And their tech support! One word: AMAZING!!!
One things I miss, though... The Wordpress tag cloud (the one that floats) I used to have. Can't find one that will work with my Squarespace site. Any suggestions?
Here's my Squarespace site: http://ilovecda.com
Thanks, Maryellen! You have a great looking site. I'm not sure I've seen a floating tag cloud but it looks like you've managed to implement the Squarespace tag cloud without issue. I still have to implement it but I have to clean up my taxonomy first!
This is a great and fair comparison! I was on Blogger for YEARS. Then I just stopped blogging due to spam issues, boredom, etc. Until I met Squarespace and fell in love with blogging again. There's only one issue that I find that was not discussed in this article and that's the issue of storage space for photos. Although I did create a blog very fast on Squarespace - I haven't made it "live" yet because I have a feeling if I use their gallery feature to host my travel phots, etc. - I'm going to run out of space. For $14/month all I get is 2GB of storage. Does this mean I have to count on hosting my images elsewhere AND paying an additional monthly fee? Even at $50.00 a month (which I won't pay as just an average everyday blogger) the most Squarespace offers is 5GB of space over the life of your site.
Thoughts on this?
Thanks again for a great article.
Fellow square space user. Love it...learning to enhance it"s ability....great choice!
Jin - Storage can be a potentially confusing subject but I think you'll be happy to hear that you have some options here. You don't need to upgrade your entire package. Just pick the one that gives you the features you need, then pay an additional $1/GB per month, up to 20 GB. Storage can be purchased a la carte within your Account Center.
Michael - Couldn't agree with you more!
Great article - I'm trying to do something with squarespace that I think should already be a feature as I really hate the idea of having to learn and maintain Wordpress to do it. But, as your article mentioned - it's not possible and can pose a problem with SEO.
For example, you can't create custom page titles for some of the system-generated content (i.e., tags and categories)
I need my category pages to have a page title to them or at least have the category name in the title first for SEO. I'm basically make squarespace work as a wedding directory, but was hoping I can have the category name show up in the title since google does not like the same title used over and over. Wondering if something with jquery can make this happen? Anybody know?
I was ready to turn my html site into wordpress... But now I am hesitant! Thanks for the info. I will further investigate Squarespace, from which until today I was completely unaware off. (I wonder if it will be as membership friendly as Wordpress is).
@Valentin - No I don't think it will be as membership friendly as WordPress... WordPress is easy to build into a community / membership site however I think Squarespace is more for a standard website...
Josh - correct me if I'm wrong!
Also for membership sites - check out WildApricot... You can skin that as well
Actually, with Squarespace you can create community/membership sites. You'll need to go a bit further than the Pro package though. The extra features do cost a bit more but they are there.
Hi Josh,
I just started an ecommerce site, built from Dreamweaver, that sells up to 50 products. A lot of people have told me to convert my site to Wordpress since it will help with my page rank and SEO. But I love Squarespace and intend to incorporate my Squarespace blog to my website as a subdirectory. I'm new to the SEO world, so your post on the comparisons has deepened my considerations, but then I am still fluctuating between the two. Do you think the SEO strengths of Wordpress over Squarespace would be compelling enough to skip Squarespace and go with WP? There are WP ecommerce themes out there that look nice, and the plug ins that go with them, but I am so not ready to go through laborious conversion process to WP.
Any advice you can give would be very helpful. Thanks!!
Hi Squarele - I've never built an ecommerce offering with Squarespace but have seen some folks pull it off. Some ecommerce solutions will just require a simple link on your product page (e.g., PayPal) while others host your product catalog some place else and serve it up on your site through Javascript (e.g., Ecwid). In order to get all of the SEO benefits from ecommerce, your product content has to be on your site - every product deserves its own URL, optimized with keywords and links to drive traffic.
I really hope Squarespace comes out with a more robust ecommerce offering in the future, but for now our tools are a bit more limited. If you can use PayPal or a similar technology and be ok with that, you'll probably be just fine sticking with Squarespace. Also, check out the Squarespace Manual for more info on the topic.
Thank you, Josh! You've cleared some confusion I have had. Really appreciate your blog and the great information!