Today, I want to talk to you more about the choice between WordPress and Squarespace. This is a question I often get asked when I’m helping people to start their website or to redevelop their existing website. The choice between WordPress and Squarespace can be kind of baffling, because they basically do the same thing, you can use them to make your website, but ultimately the experience of using them is quite different.

I have broken it down into a couple of different points and maybe it could help you to make the decision between WordPress and Squerespace:

• Flexibility
• Getting started
• Ongoing use

Flexibility

Both WordPress and Squarespace have the ability to do many things, but if it comes to down to ultimate flexibility in design and functionality I would go with WordPress.

Statistics say that WordPress runs 32% of entire internet. If you think about it, that is huge.

The sheer number of sites out there means that many ideas have been explored and developed for WordPress. Tools are readily available and easy to add. 

While Squarespace has a lot of flexibility, it has a lot of design limitations. This is a deliberate feature of Squarespace sites. Unless you’re getting into a custom build your site will stay true to a well considered design template. In essence it’s designed to be easy to setup and easy to run by anyone.

Getting started

The flexibilty of WordPress comes at a cost. It requires more maintenance and the learning curve to use it is much steeper. 

In terms of getting started with either tool, you’ll have to learn the basic features. WordPress has a wider range of features so is a bit more intense in terms of technical learning. With Squarespace, you can just get in there and start making pages. It’s all drag & drop and very easy. You can’t go wrong because it won’t let you go wrong! That goes back to flexibility – There are some layouts options that are not available to you without learning custom coding. But if you accept the preexisiting templates to get started, custom coding isn’t required.

So, in terms of learning it as a tool, Squerespace wins, because it’s very easy to get your head around where things are. They also offer you support, so if you are paying for Sqaurespace, you can use this support at any time, which is not the case with WordPress. It’s because WordPress is an open source. There’s no support team there, there are thousands of forums though.

Conclusion: In terms of learning curve, WordPress is much more steep learning, while Squarespace you can get started and get stuck in.

Ongoing use

The ongoing use of either Squarespace or WordPress, it comes to down to a couple of factors. By the ongoing costs – Squarespace is more expensive.

With WordPress you are basically paying for hosting. So the hosting of WordPress tends to be cheaper than Squarespace.

The ongoing maintenance is a completely different story.

You can basically make a Squarespace website and then totally forget about it. It doesn’t need your love so much. With WordPress you need to come and check things at least once a month. Just to make sure that everything is running smoothly. WordPress does need you to pop in there and run updates. Even with that in mind, in terms of being visible and using your website as a real business tool, you’d need to get in there anyway. WordPress maintenance services are available, so you should factor that into your budget if you won’t be working on the site regularly.

You’ll need to add stuff all the time if you want to be ranked well on Google if you are using social media and your website is your online hub, you are going to need to be getting in there regularly if you really want to get the most from your website as a business tool.

So, in terms of ongoing, Squarespace is easier to maintain, but it’s more expensive. WordPress is more involved in terms of maintenance but it tends to be cheaper.

If you’re wondering which site building platform to use, consider your budget, your requirements and the future of the site as a business tool!