Wix vs Squarespace vs WordPress — Which is Better?
Style Factory
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In this post, I’m going to look at Wix vs Squarespace vs WordPress. These are three of the most popular website builders on the market, and it can be hard to choose between them.
So in what follows, I’m going to zoom in on their key pros and cons, and help you work out which one is the best option for your project.
Before I begin though, a few quick things to note.
First, I’d like to point out that in this comparison I am comparing Wix and Squarespace to hosted WordPress (available at WordPress.com) rather than the self-hosted version that you install on your own server (available at wordpress.org). That said, many of the observations I make on WordPress apply to both versions.
If you’re interested in learning specifically how the self-hosted version of WordPress stacks up against Wix and Squarespace, check out the resources section at the bottom of this post, where you’ll find links to relevant comparisons on our blog.
Ok, let’s start off with a bit of background about these platforms.
Please note: we independently review all products in our comparisons. But when you buy through our links, we may earn a commission (at no extra cost to you). View editorial policy here.
The background
They all started life in the 2000s, with the aim of letting people build a website without needing coding skills.
And all three platforms work in broadly the same way — you access them in a web browser and use drag and drop editing tools to build your site or store. There’s no software to install anywhere, and you don’t have to worry about buying hosting.
But which platform is best for you? Well, I’m going to look at a few key areas that you need to focus on when deciding between Wix, Squarespace and WordPress, and highlight which product wins in each.
The first thing to consider is templates.
Templates
When it comes to the number of built-in templates on offer, Wix offers the largest selection of them — it gives you a selection of over 830 free templates. WordPress comes second with around 300 built-in themes (of which around half are free). And Squarespace offers the smallest selection — 178.
So on the surface it looks like a win for Wix here.
But it’s important to note that WordPress users on its Business or Commerce plans also have the option to install custom themes from external suppliers like ThemeForest, Elegant Themes and StudioPress. They can also make use of a library of over 12,000 themes on the wordpress.org website.
(The themes on the wordpress.org site are designed for the self-hosted version of WordPress, but can be installed on the more expensive WordPress.com plans too.)
So in terms of the total quantity of available themes, it’s definitely a win for WordPress.
As for template aesthetics, this is a subjective area — but there’s a lot to be said for Squarespace’s template offering.
Its themes arguably feature the slickest page layouts, along with a really contemporary approach to typography, images and color schemes.
One important thing to watch out for with Wix’s site templates is that unlike Squarespace and WordPress’ templates, they are not fully ‘responsive’. Responsive templates are website designs that automatically adjust and optimize their layout and content to look good on any device type.
Because Wix themes aren’t 100% responsive, users often have to spend extra time editing the mobile version of their site to make sure it displays correctly on smartphones. There’s an SEO dimension to consider here too: Google prefers responsive templates.
Overall, we’d say that WordPress and Squarespace win the template battle. WordPress offers by far the biggest selection of templates, and Squarespace themes have a real ‘wow’ factor that you won’t always find in Wix.
If you’ve got any thoughts or questions about templates, just drop them in the comments.
Now, let’s take a look at ease-of-use.
Free Trial Links: Wix free trial | Squarespace free trial | WordPress free plan
Ease-Of-Use
For me, the winner in the ease-of-use department is Squarespace — it’s got the cleanest, most intuitive interface of the three website builders we’re comparing here.
It gives you easy-to-use, sophisticated style controls, along with a ‘fluid engine’ content editor that lets you position content around your site exactly the way you want to.
Wix offers a reasonably good drag-and-drop editor, and one that gives you a lot of flexibility over where you position content. However, it can sometimes feel a bit clunky or sluggish by comparison to Squarespace’s editor.
As for WordPress, its ‘Gutenberg’ editor provides a block-based editor that is a bit more basic in nature than the Squarespace and Wix equivalent.
It’s okay, but doesn’t always give you an exact picture of how your changes are going to look on your live site.
Consequently, WordPress users often find themselves switching between the back-end editor and the front-end view to see the impact of any changes made.
Overall, we’d say the winner in the ease-of-use department is Squarespace. It’s definitely the best option for total web design novices.
Let’s move on now to something that’s usually very important to site owners: ecommerce features.
Ecommerce Features
Although Wix, Squarespace and WordPress are more ‘general’ website building platforms than the likes of Shopify and BigCommerce, you can absolutely use all three to create an online store with.
One thing to note however is that with WordPress.com, you’ll need to be on one of its more expensive plans to access ecommerce features, and if you are, these will be provided via the WooCommerce plugin.
Each platform handles a few ecommerce tasks better than its rivals — I’ll walk you through these now.
1. International ecommerce
Wix and WordPress.com are the best options for selling to an international audience. In addition to their multilingual features, both platforms also let you display product prices in local currencies. This is something you can’t currently do in Squarespace.
2. Digital products
If your focus is selling digital products, I’d opt for Squarespace.
Despite the fact that it’s a bit more restrictive than the others in terms of the file sizes of digital products you can sell, this is more than made up for by the quality of its specialized features for selling online courses, subscription content and membership sites.
3. Point of sale
If being able to sell in-person is important to you, I’d probably go with Wix — it’s the only one to provide a fully-integrated point-of-sale system with a wide range of selling hardware.
Note however that Wix’s full POS system is restricted to US and Canadian users for now.
4. Large catalogs
If you want to create an ecommerce store with a very large product catalog, WordPress.com is probably the best choice for you.
Its product import and export functionality is more powerful than Wix and Squarespace’s, it lets you sell as many products as you like, and it’s the only one of the three to let you work with an unlimited number of product options (for example, size, color or material).
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5. Dropshipping and print on demand
All three platforms let you sell with reputable dropshipping and print on demand companies but WordPress ultimately gives you a greater choice of suppliers than Wix and Squarespace.
To sum up my take on ecommerce, it’s probably fair to say that WordPress gives you access to the most sophisticated ecommerce features, but there are situations, especially where digital products are concerned, where Squarespace may be the more suitable, and certainly more user-friendly choice. Wix is worth considering seriously if point-of-sale features are important to you.
Next up: blogging
Blogging
When it comes to blogging, WordPress wins easily.
It started life as a tool for creating blogs, and has by far the most comprehensive blogging features of the three.
It provides a really flexible categorisation system, lets you work with industry standard SEO tools like Yoast, and boasts the best content revision system of the three.
The blogging features on the other two platforms are fairly similar, and reasonably good. But because it offers autosave features and Squarespace doesn’t, Wix has a slight edge over its rival.
Now, let’s take a look at a feature that is increasingly being added to website building platforms: email marketing.
Email marketing
Sending email newsletters is a vital part of running a digital business, especially if you’re running an online store. E-newsletters continue to provide a really good return on investment.
And Wix has the edge over Squarespace and WordPress.com here, because it provides a free email marketing tool, while the other tools don’t.
This feature lets you send up to 200 emails per month for free — not an enormous number, but enough to get started with. And the pricing for the premium version of its email marketing tool is reasonable.
Squarespace does give you access to email marketing features too — they’re easy to use and let you capture data and create stylish e-newsletters with ease. But unfortunately, you’ll always have to pay for these tools, and they’re more expensive than the Wix equivalents.
WordPress doesn’t offer any built-in email marketing features at all, but plugins do let you connect your site to popular email marketing solutions like Mailchimp and GetResponse.
Next up I’m going to discuss something fairly vital to the success of any website: search engine optimization.
Search engine optimization
When it comes to SEO, Wix and Squarespace are pretty decent, but WordPress ultimately offers the most extensive SEO functionality of the three.
Wix and Squarespace both make it easy to handle the basics of SEO, giving you full control over URLs, meta descriptions, alt text and 301 redirects.
But of the two, Wix provides more SEO hand-holding than Squarespace, in the form of a ‘SEO Wiz’ tool that guides beginners through the optimization process. It also provides a dedicated ‘SEO Dashboard’ that lets you access all your SEO settings in one place.
However, Wix does have an SEO drawback, in that its templates are only partially responsive. Technically speaking, this can hinder your site’s performance slightly in search rankings, if you operate in a very competitive niche.
By contrast, Squarespace and WordPress.com provide you with access to fully responsive templates, and adhere more to Google’s guidelines on mobile-friendly design.
Ultimately WordPress.com gives you SEO tools that outshine the Squarespace and Wix equivalents.
This is mainly because on its more expensive plans you get access to Yoast SEO — an industry standard SEO tool that provides detailed content analysis, on-page optimization suggestions, advanced sitemap creation features and more.
Apps and integrations
In much of this post, I’ve discussed the built-in features of these platforms. But what about extending the functionality of your site through apps and integrations?
Well, when it comes to apps and integrations, WordPress is the clear winner in this contest. There is an enormous range of over 50,000 plugins available for it, and these allow you to add virtually any functionality you can think of to your site.
Wix provides a decent range of options through its App Market, with around 1,000 apps covering various needs like forms, product reviews and live chat.
Squarespace trails WordPress and Wix by some distance here, providing just 45 extensions and a few out-of-the-box integrations.
So overall, WordPress wins easily when it comes to adding functionality through plugins or apps.
Finally, let’s take a look at customer support.
Customer support
Wix provides the most comprehensive range of options for getting direct help from its customer support team — you can contact the company via live chat, email, phone and Twitter. Phone support is available 24/7 in English, and several other languages are catered for too.
Squarespace comes second here, with live chat and email support available on all plans. Unfortunately no phone support is provided, though.
As for WordPress, its ‘Personal’ plan users don’t get any in-person support at all. They have to rely on the WordPress.com help center and user forums to find answers to any queries they may have.
If you upgrade to a ‘Premium’, ‘Business’ or ‘Commerce’ plan, WordPress supplies live chat and email support. However, you only get these on a 24/7 basis if you are on a ‘Business’ or ‘Commerce’ plan.
So ultimately, it’s a win for Wix here — it provides the most comprehensive and flexible customer service options.
Wix vs Squarespace vs WordPress: conclusion
Ok, so let’s sum things up.
For a good all rounder, I’d recommend Wix. It offers a wider selection of templates and third-party apps than Squarespace, and is a more beginner-friendly option than WordPress. It’s also the only platform of the three that provides a free email marketing tool and a phone support service.
If you’re totally new to web design, Squarespace can be a great option. It’s the easiest of the three tools to use, and its templates look fantastic. And while its overall ecommerce features are a bit on the basic side, they are simple to use and particularly good for selling digital content with.
If scalability is important to you, then WordPress usually makes the most sense. It’s technically the most powerful platform of the three, particularly where content publishing is concerned, and its gigantic plugins library lets you add just about any piece of extra functionality you can think of. It’s technically the best option for ecommerce and SEO too.
I hope this comparison of these platforms has helped you decide between them, but we also have a deeper dive into all three available on the Style Factory website — you can access this here.
If you’d like to try any of these platforms out, it’s important to note that you can sign up for them in special ways that save you money or give you access to extended trials. You'll find links to the free trials and special offers from all three platforms below:
We'd also like to invite you to download our free ecommerce kit — this contains a host of essential ecommerce resources, special offers and tools.
And finally, if you have any questions on Wix, Squarespace or WordPress, just leave a comment — we read them all and will do our best to help.
More resources on Wix, Squarespace and WordPress
We've got lots of articles, reviews and comparisons on Wix, Shopify and Squarespace — here are some links to some of the key ones:
This article was written by Chris Singleton. Additional research by Matt Walsh.