So, you’re ready to embark on your journey to becoming a top blogger, huh?
Before anything else, the very first thing that you should do is set up your very own blog. Now, it’s easy to get bogged down with options since there are a gazillion of them on the internet. In this article, we’ll tackle two of the most well-known blogging platforms and weigh their pros and cons to come up with the better choice.
Squarespace vs WordPress: which blogging platform is the best? Let’s begin.
A quick look at Squarespace
Squarespace is unique from other blogging platforms since it’s presented as a SaaS or “software as a service” website builder. It was founded in 2004 by a college student in his dorm room as a blog-hosting service. He worked on it solo until 2006, when it finally reached $1 million in revenue.
Pros of Squarespace
Convenient
Squarespace handles all the technical aspects of owning a blog, which means that you don’t need to care about those things anymore. This frees up a lot of your time that you can use on improving your blog instead.
Although WordPress is also relatively easy to use, you still have to handle all the technicalities yourself unless you choose the premium plan. And even then, it’s up to you to update your blog and configure your own site, which not all beginner bloggers can handle from the get-go.
Easy to use
Squarespace is called a ‘website builder’ for a reason. Unlike WordPress, there’s no need for even the most basic knowledge of web development to create a stunning blog on Squarespace, since the process is as easy as dragging and dropping items on a webpage.
Basically, you just locate the part that you want to change, edit it with the drag-and-drop builder, and hit save to finalize the changes. This makes it extremely easy to change the layout of your pages, switch around text boxes and images, and customize the look of your blog to your heart’s content. It’s certainly much easier than WordPress where you have to go through a lot of hassles before you can arrive at the look you want.
Flexible
There are two different versions of Squarespace. The standard version is made for those who are only interested in blogging while the developer version, as its name implies, is used by developers who want access to the source code.
All -in – 1 -package
If you have an account with Squarespace, you don’t have to go out of the site to search for themes, templates, hosting, domain provider, or whatever it is that you need to establish a reputable blog. Just name it and Squarespace (most likely) has it.
It’s definitely the perfect solution for people who like all-in packages since Squarespace makes sure that you won’t find anything lacking on their own website. The best thing about this is that unlike in WordPress where you have to deal with individual developers, in Squarespace, you only have one company to deal with in case something goes wrong. Plus, as mentioned above, their templates don’t require any custom knowledge either, as everything is just drag and drop.
Cons of Squarespace
No free version
Unlike other platforms such as WordPress, there’s no free version of Squarespace. Users are required to pay a monthly fee in order to use the site and the amount of payment depends on the plan selected.
Currently, there are four basic plans on Squarespace. The cheapest one is called Personal, at $16 a month. Next, there’s Business, at $26 a month. If you want an e-commerce option, you can also choose Commerce Basic or Commerce Advanced which will cost you $30 or $46 a month, respectively.
Although Squarespace’s plans work well for plenty of people, it’s actually not as flexible as WordPress’s plans. The Personal plan, for example, only allows a limited number of pages and doesn’t allow users to add custom CSS and scripts. Many blogging platforms allow at least that much freedom for their paying customers, regardless of how much they’re paying.
The good thing is that if you select at least a year’s worth of plan, Squarespace provides you a free domain to go with your blog.
A quick look at WordPress
WordPress is one of the, if not the, most popular blogging platforms at the moment. Over 30% of all websites on the world wide web utilizes WordPress. It’s fast, it’s simple, it’s intuitive. It comes with many options both for hobbyist bloggers and for serious bloggers who are looking forward to stepping up in their chosen career path.
WordPress is practically the default choice for many who are starting a blog, and in this section of the article, you’ll figure out why you should (or shouldn’t) consider it over Squarespace.
STEP BY STEP: HOW TO START A BLOG USING WORDPRESS
Pros of WordPress
Credible
As mentioned above, more than 1 out of every 4 websites you visit uses WordPress. It was first founded 16 years ago in 2003, which means that for 16 years now, WordPress has been fulfilling the dreams and aspirations of bloggers everywhere. If that doesn’t sound credible to you, who knows what does.
Regardless of whether you’re an amateur blogger who’s thinking of blogging full-time or a businessman who wants to create a website for his business, WordPress can help you reach your goal.
Secure
All WordPress sites can be installed with an SSL certificate that replaces the standard http with the more secure https. By doing so, you’re ensuring your visitors that the connection between your site and their browser is 100% encrypted and secure. It also prevents hackers from hijacking the connection of your visitor just to bypass the login form and hack into your website.
Full Control
Unlike in Squarespace where getting a paid subscription means that you’re automatically hosting your blog on their servers, WordPress actually gives you full control over where you want to purchase your domain and hosting.
Bloggers who use free hosting can only use WordPress.com, which adds the .wordpress.com at the end of the site name, while those who use paid hosting, regardless of whether the hosting was availed through WordPress or not, can access WordPress.org, the ‘premium’ version of the platform.
This means that if you wanted to, you could actually purchase a domain name from Namecheap and a hosting plan from Bluehost and still be able to use WordPress’s entire platform to build your blog. Win-win!
Freebies
WordPress offers a whole slew of freebies to those who have paid hosting plans. We’re talking about thousands of themes, tens of thousands of plugins, and hundreds of thousands of high-resolution royalty-free photos that you can instantly add to your posts if need be.
Currently, there are a total of about 3,000 free themes in WordPress’s theme repository, while Squarespace has about 59.
Unlimited customization
You can customize everything you want on your website, be it the font, the color of the background, the header, the spaces, the margins – whatever it is, it’s probably customizable. And if it isn’t, don’t worry, there’s probably a plugin out there that could customize it anyway.
And while Squarespace is really easy to use with its drag-and-drop website builder, this also means that you can’t customize everything to the nitty-gritty details, unlike WordPress with its CSS and HTML editing. It’s a two-edged sword for Squarespace, definitely.
Cons of WordPress
Free version is extremely limited
Although WordPress has a free version–WordPress.com instead of WordPress.org–it’s extremely limited in terms of several aspects.
For one, you can’t have your own domain name if you’re using the free version which means you’re stuck with
.wordpress.com until you upgrade to a paid plan. Two, you can’t customize your entire blog to your heart’s desire. The level of customization also depends on the specific theme that you’re going to choose. Some themes don’t even allow you to change the default colors unless you’re going to pay for a premium theme, and you can’t get premium themes without upgrading to a paid hosting plan. Three, you can’t use plugins when you’re on a free plan, which means that you’re missing out on a lot of the features that most serious bloggers have.
This means that to make use of the version of WordPress that we all know and love, you first have to purchase paid hosting for your blog first, whether it’s from WordPress or some other external hosting company.
Paid hosting is more expensive than average
WordPress offers different hosting plans, but they’re a bit more expensive than the average offerings. The cheapest plan is $3 a month, while the most expensive one is $40 a month. However, the $3/month plan only comes with a .blog domain, which isn’t even the standard. If you want to make use of .com or .net or .org, you have to get the $5/month plan. At this point, it’s already more expensive than other trusted hosting companies, such as Bluehost, whose cheapest plan is only $2.95 and already comes with a free domain name and all the perks you could possibly think of in WordPress’s $5/month plan.
Conclusion – Squarespace vs WordPress?
There’s no set answer to the question of which is better in the battle of Squarespace vs WordPress as each one has its own pros and cons.
If you ask us, however, we personally like WordPress’s feature-filled platform better than Squarespace’s easy-to-use interface. After all, WordPress is also considered a pioneer in the blogging industry, as many bloggers started out with this reliable blogging service. But if you’re not confident of your blog-customizing skills, you might want to give Squarespace and its drag-and-drop website builder a shot.
