6 Squarespace Alternatives: Should You Make Space For Other Platforms?

Wix is our undisputed king of features. From unlimited storage and bandwidth to unlimited creative freedom thanks to its drag-and-drop editor, Wix remains the best stop for users to go to if they want a ton of features.

If it all seems like too much, Wix can do most of the heavy lifting for you with its ADI (Artificial Design Intelligence) feature. Simply fill out a small questionnaire and Wix will create a website based on your answers!

Wix continues to place importance on its in-house marketing, ecommerce, and internal functionality instead of having users download third-party apps or plugins. An example of this since last year’s round of testing is its increased SEO capabilities with Wix now having Semrush integration. Users can now keyword search and keep an SEO checklist from Wix, making it easier than ever to keep track of your site’s metrics. And for those wanting to grow their site internationally, Wix now supports 180 languages instead of 100, meaning there’s now very little separating your site from the rest of the world.

Squarespace used to have no competition for design amongst website builders – till now. In our most recent testing and research, Wix has shot up by 4.5% from last year’s design score of 4.4 to 4.6 out of 5, almost reaching Squarespace’s 4.7 out of 5.

With a larger focus on delivering quality templates, Wix’s templates are now more easily-navigated with a life-long appeal. It has over 800 templates across 80 subcategories, with standouts including:

• Business
• Online Store
• Photography
• Blogging
• Portfolio and CV
• Restaurants
• Architecture
• Hotels and B&Bs

Squarespace’s domination of design used to be undisputed, but now Wix is closing the gap, making it an excellent alternative if design is still your number one concern.

Wix offers four website plans and three have dedicated ecommerce plans, plus one enterprise plan for very large companies. Here’s how they break down:

• Light: $16 per month, billed annually
• Core: $27 per month, billed annually (Basic ecommerce)
• Business: $32 per month, billed annually (Standard ecommerce)
• Business Elite: $159 per month, billed annually (Advanced ecommerce)

Finally, the Enterprise plan can only be accessed by calling, in which developers will give you a personal quote depending on the size of your company.

Admittedly, Wix is on the expensive side of website builders, getting a 3 out of 5 overall for value of money. Quality-wise, you get what you pay for, so if you don’t mind splashing a bit of extra cash, Wix can make it worthwhile.

Wix has long been seen as easier to use than Squarespace. Times change, however –Squarespace made considerable strides since last year and now both providers sit at an overall score of 4.4 out of 5 for ease of use in our research.

Our testers, who got hands-on experience with all the builders featured in this list, commented that Wix was:

“More straightforward than Squarespace”

This is more than likely due to Wix’s complete creative freedom within the editor, since its drag-and-drop function lets you place any element wherever you want. Be careful though, because sometimes this freedom can be a bit overwhelming for beginners and can result in a cluttered site.

Wix has really increased its help and support since last year, rising 10.5% in our score rankings from 4.3 to 4.8 out of 5, now drawing with Squarespace.

The main factors behind the increase are its knowledge center and the amount of help on offer vs its price plan. In our research, we noticed an increased amount of articles were readily available for support queries, with clear, directional communication, leading to a jump in the knowledge center score from a 4 to a perfect 5 out of 5, which in turn increased its help and support vs pricing metric.

Wix’s customer satisfaction score increased by 1.1% since last year, beating Squarespace’s 4.5 out of 5 with a 4.7 out of 5.

This increase is due to a massive jump in Wix’s TrustPilot score from 1.6 to 4.1, showing that Wix has done a lot in the past year to regain users’ trust.

Shopify’s features are mainly centered around ecommerce, and in that regard, they are some of the best. From multichannel selling to abandoned cart recovery, Shopify makes selling online a breeze. Its inventory system is particularly impressive, allowing for unlimited products, and a recent merger with logistics startup Deliverr makes getting products to customers’ doors easy as pie! Shopify’s sales features score 4.7 out of 5 in our research, whereas Squarespace only has 3.7 out of 5.

Much of Shopify’s capabilities come from its app market, however. With over 6,000 apps to choose from, you’ve got plenty of options.

Shopify can technically still be used to build normal, non-ecommerce websites, but we don’t recommend it. You’ll be paying for a ton of sales features you never use, plus an editor that isn’t as good with features that aren’t designed for normal websites. We say if you’re using Shopify, stick to online stores.

It should come as no surprise that a platform built for online stores might not have as strong a design sense as Squarespace. In our research, Shopify scores 4 out of 5 for design functionality, coming in fourth overall in our rankings.

The issues come in Shopify having only 86 themes, with only ten of them being free. You can expect to be paying anywhere between $150 to $350 for just a theme! You can still edit them to reflect your brand, but they don’t have the same creative freedom as other builders.

There are three main Shopify pricing plans:

• Basic Shopify: $29 per month
• Shopify: $79 per month
• Advanced Shopify: $299 per month

There is also the aforementioned Starter Plan, a lightweight plan optimized for mobile selling on social media. At the other end of the scale, you have Shopify Plus+, an enterprise plan for high-volume businesses which can run you up to $2000 per month. The plan you need will depend on what type of store you want to run, so it’s always best to compare pricing with Shopify.

Shopify ties with Wix in our research with a value-for-money score of 3 out of 5, compared to Squarespace’s 4.6 out of 5. While you get a lot of really amazing sales features, Shopify does also include extra fees such as a 2.9% + $0.30 transaction fee on all purchases, as well as having to pay for any extra apps or themes. Still, if you’re set on opening an online store, Shopify is absolutely the best alternative to Squarespace.

Shopify has an ease of use score of 4 out of 5. It isn’t as intuitive to build a normal website with as Wix or Squarespace, and its editor can seem clunky or confusing at times.

For those making online stores, it does a very good job of predicting merchant needs exactly when needed, especially in regard to product inventories, so you can never miss a potential sale again. Neat!

Shopify’s help and support offerings are decent, scoring 3.5 out of 5 in our research. The help and support it offers to all customers are:

• 24/7 phone support
• Social media support
• 24/7 live chat support
• Community forum
• Email support
• Help center
• Video tutorials
• Advanced specialist support

Shopify is our people-pleasing provider of choice for our users, coming first in our customer satisfaction research with a 4.8 out of 5. In comparison, Squarespace comes fourth with a customer score of 4.5 out of 5 – so if you value what other users think, Shopify is a must-try. Being #1 in the ecommerce sector and helping many achieve their online dreams certainly puts Shopify in a good light, as do its great sales features.

With promising acquisitions and new methods (like the Starter Plan) being used to tackle new markets and avenues, Shopify seems to be gunning to become a one-stop-shop for all ecommerce needs, from selling to marketing and shipping.

GoDaddy does have its flaws, though. It currently has no app market, meaning you can’t add additional functionality from outside sources, and in our research, GoDaddy actually fell by -6.7% in our rankings from a 3.3 to a 3.1 out of 5 since last year.

As we mentioned, GoDaddy prioritizes its speed and ease of use over features. In fact, its site speed actually rose by 7% in our most recent testing, now giving it a “good” rating – the only builder to achieve it.

That’s not to say GoDaddy has no features. You still have access to all the basics like blogging, SEO, and even ADI functionality. In fact, GoDaddy’s SEO remains one of its standout features, and our research saw a 33.3% rise in its SEO from a 3 last year to a 4 out of 5 this year.

Other features added to SEO are custom headers and URLs, meaning you can make your site more easily found online. Other recent improvements since the last time we tested the platform include a logo maker and the ability to add customer testimonials to your site.

The best thing we can say about GoDaddy’s design functionality is that it’s fast. You can have a website published in under 10 minutes with GoDaddy through a combination of its ADI and amazingly simple-to-use editor. If you are the type of person who can tend to agonize over every minute design decision, GoDaddy cuts that stress in half by basically building the site for you.

GoDaddy’s template designs aren’t bad. In fact, some are actually quite stylish and sleek. But GoDaddy cannot keep the same consistency of template designs and themes across its 100+ templates like Wix or Squarespace can. In our most recent testing, GoDaddy’s templates score fell -25% from a 4 to a 3 out of 5, and its overall design score also fell by -5.8% from 4.3 to a 4.1 out of 5.

GoDaddy has four website builder plans

• Basic: $9.99 per month, billed annually
• Premium: $13.99 per month, billed annually
• Commerce: $14.99 per month, billed annually
• Commerce Plus: $29.99 per month, billed annually

GoDaddy also has a free plan, meaning you can use the builder for free, though you will have to upgrade to get access to some features.

With a 4.1 out of 5 for ease of use overall in our website rankings, GoDaddy is just behind Squarespace when it comes to an easy experience building a website. Although its design quality can’t square up to Squarespace, its clear and simple editor gives you everything you need for the type of website you want to have. As one of our testers said:

“It was easy to use. I could find everything I needed to find. If I needed to make a simple website for a business this is the one I would choose.”

While GoDaddy may be super easy and lightning quick, don’t expect much in the way of leveling up your site beyond anything other than a simple website. The ability to scale and the overall functionality just isn’t on the level as say Squarespace or Shopify is.

GoDaddy offers good help and support with an overall score in our research of 4.3 out of 5. It offers phone, live chat, community center, and knowledge base support. Though this is the same score as last time, GoDaddy has made a few changes.

You can now contact GoDaddy for help and support via email, and the GoDaddy knowledge center now has articles for video, GIF, and image tutorials.

Customer awareness of GoDaddy has never been an issue – from its high-profile Super Bowl ads to the exploits of its eccentric CEO, GoDaddy remains one of the most well-known names in the industry. This past year proved a great success for GoDaddy in the minds of customers with a perfect 5 out of 5 for positive online comments  – the only builder in this list to receive one! This has resulted in a  rise in overall customer satisfaction by 5.9% from 4.3 to 4.6 out of 5.

With a 2.8 out of 5 for overall features in our research, Hostinger is not on the same level as Squarespace with its 4.6 out of 5. That being said, Hostinger continually improves its features year after year, rising 16.6% just since last year from 2.3 out of 5.

We especially like its Google Analytics functionality, a really great feature included for such a smaller builder comparatively. In our research, its SEO actually rose a whole 100% in our rankings from a 2 to a 4 out of 5. That being said, its marketing and ecommerce functionalities could use some more love.

Due to its other life as a hosting provider, you can expect all the main hosting features to be included, such as a free SSL certificate and a free domain name.

As we said, Hostinger’s design has really improved since we last tested, jumping from 3.1 to 3.6 out of 5 overall for design. What used to be clunky and outdated is now cool, sleek, and easy to use. Its aesthetic capabilities have improved dramatically as well, rising a whole 200% from just a 1 out of 5 to a 3 out of 5.

Hostinger’s templates have really improved too, with over 130 templates covering a wide range of occupations and businesses. Its Smart Layout function was previously locked to its Adelina template but is now available on all its templates. Its grid-based layout lets you see all the live elements at once, making sure your design remains consistent even as you add new features.

Hostinger keeps things simple and streamlined. It may not be able to reach the heights of Squarespace, but sometimes less is more.

Hostinger saw a small decrease in its overall value for money score since last year, falling -4.8% from a 4.2 to a 4 out of 5. That said, it’s still a much more affordable, but lower-value option, for Squarespace. As long as you don’t need those scalable features, it’s fantastic for those on a tight budget.

A single-plan website, you can get a combined web-hosting and website builder plan for $2.99 per month (billed annually).  For that price, you get 100 websites, unlimited traffic, 24/7 help and support, and a free email and domain ($7.99 value).

A slight decrease in score from last year from a 4 down to a 3.9 out of 5, our testers still had a lot of positive to say about Hostinger, praising the intuitive grid-based design that was easy for beginners. One tester said,

“It’s definitely improved since the last time I tested it. It was a lot easier to navigate.”

All the negatives were about its lack of advanced features and creative control as found on other builders like Squarespace.

With a 3.3 out of 5, Hostinger’s help and support score remains the same as last year. Hostinger makes a point of having no phone support, which for those not as computer literate can be an issue. Users can contact Hostinger 24/7 through live chat, email, and a knowledge center.

Our testers did notice that finding articles through the knowledge center was more challenging than in previous years, resulting in a -33.33% fall in our rankings from a 3 to a 2 out of 5 for knowledge centers.

While Hostinger saw a 100% rise in our research for both brand recognition and market analysis since last year, both going from 1 to 2 out of 5, Hostinger still struggled in some areas of customer satisfaction, especially likely to recommend, where it dropped 40% from a 5 out of 5 to just a 3.

This is more than likely due to the whole rebrand from Zyro confusing a number of customers. Overall, Hostinger scores 2.8 out of 5 for customer satisfaction.

Overall, WordPress.com only scores 2.8 out of 5 for features in our research. That’s still a massive improvement from last year, where it scored only 2.1 out of 5 (a rise of 33.9%!), but it still can’t hold a candle to the in-built features of Squarespace, which scores 4.6 out of 5. Whereas Squarespace serves as a one-stop shop for all things website building, WordPress wants its users to use plugins and craft it from the ground up, with a plugin market with over 58,000 plugins (that its users can use if they’re on the $25/month Business plan).

The reason for so few in-built features is because of WordPress’s primary focus on blogging. The tools you get included are:

• Social bookmarking
• RSS feed
• Archives
• Comments
• Search feature

While WordPress can certainly be used for things other than blogging, it’s a lot harder to twist into shape if you are just relying on in-built features. That said, we did notice a massive increase in WordPress.com’s marketing capabilities, a whole 300% increase from a 1 out of 5 to a 4 out of 5!

WordPress has risen 8.3% from 1.8 to 2 out of 5 in design functionality overall, putting it just below the bottom of our ranking. To put it simply, WordPress.com is quite difficult to design. A basic level of coding isn’t needed but is definitely preferable, and if you want to make something else other than a content-heavy site like a blog, you may be facing an uphill battle.

WordPress has over 300 themes but sadly you will have to pay for the majority of them, since they price anywhere from $30 to $80.

Falling 14.6% in our rankings from last year from 4.8 to 4.1 out of 5 still puts WordPress fourth overall for value for money in our rankings, mostly by offering a free plan on top of its four premium plans, so you can try out its features without having to commit.

The free plan includes visitor stats, contact forms, spam protection, and 1GB of storage. If you think you’ll need more you can upgrade to the premium plans:

• Personal: $5 per month, billed annually
• Premium: $8 per month, billed annually
• Business: $25 per month, billed annually
• Commerce: $45 per month, billed annually

WordPress also has an Enterprise plan which starts at $25,000 and is used by Disney, Facebook, and CNN!

We won’t sugarcoat it: WordPress.com is not easy to use. In fact, in our user testing, it got the worst score out of all the builders in this list with a 2.7 out of 5, down -14.6% from last year. If you are an experienced builder with some coding knowledge, WordPress may have its uses. But for our testers, it proved to be very difficult, with one saying:

“You are initially presented with so much to do that I became flustered. I couldn’t work out how to do the simple things because there was so much in the way.”

You may think with such bad ease of use that WordPress should compensate with excellent help and support, right? Sadly, that is not the case. In keeping with the open-source beginnings of WordPress.org, WordPress.com provides little in the way of help and support, or guides.

That being said, it did rise 7.1% from last year, from 2.8 to 3 out of 5.  There is a knowledge center and community forums for frustrated builders, but with extremely limited topics and suggestions.

WordPress.com’s community score is down as well from 4 last year to 3.9 out of 5 this year. Since so many use WordPress online, it has more of an awareness and almost reverence, especially from those who have been using website building since the 90s.

However, major losses in the opinion of its UX (as can be attained by our testers), dropping by -50% from 2 to 1 out of 5 have left WordPress.com leaving its customers less than satisfied.

As a hosting provider, IONOS is known for its cheap prices and performance. For its web builder, not much has changed. Its mobile editor has the fastest site speed of any we’ve tested! Other than being speedy, IONOS doesn’t offer much in the way of advanced features, being a very barebones builder and only scoring 2.2 out of 5 for features – the worst of all the builders on this list.

It has no ADI, app market, or ecommerce capabilities, definitely making the scope for those who would be interested in this builder limited. However, it has added blogging since the last time we tested. Although not the best blogging (we rated it 3 out of 5), it shows that IONOS is committed to improving in the areas it’s lacking. Other improvements include its SEO and marketing.

IONOS’ greatest feature strength is its internationalization features. If you want your website to appeal to audiences all over the world and need it to be in multiple languages, then you’re in luck. Available on all plans, IONOS’ multilingual abilities stretch to over 60 languages. In our research, we awarded it a 5 out of 5, beating out Squarespace who we only awarded a 2 out of 5.

A rise of 4% from last year’s 2.5 to 2.6 out of 5 still doesn’t proclaim IONOS as a king of design functionality. However, IONOS did make noticeable improvements to its template design, which in previous years were derided by our testers, saying:

“Such a limited range of templates and they look really dated.”

The template design rose by 33.3% from a 3 to a 4 out of 5 in our research. However, the editor is still clunky to use and the choices of stock images aren’t great either. If you love Squarespace’s designs and want a similar aesthetic from your new builder, we don’t recommend choosing IONOS

IONOS’ three plans can sometimes be hard to believe. “$1 for a web-builder? Can it be true?” some of you may say. It is true, but do be aware these discounted prices end after 12 months, and you will start paying the renewal prices afterward. Let’s see the discounted prices and their renewal prices together:

• Starter: $1 per month for 12 months, then $5 per month
• Plus: $5 per month for 12 months, then $10 per month
• Pro: $10 per month for 23 months, then $15 per month

As you can see, IONOS still remains on the cheaper side. In fact, it used to beat Squarespace for value for money last year in our rankings, with 4.2 out of 5 to Squarespace’s 4. However, since last year Squarespace has improved its value score to 4.6, while IONOS has dropped to 3.1. All the builders have put up their prices, but not necessarily their included features to match. IONOS is a builder that, even though cheap, doesn’t provide enough value for money that a slightly more expensive builder could provide.

On top of that, IONOS has no free plan or free trial. If you want to take it for a test drive, you’re going to have to pay upfront.

IONOS’ ease of use has remained the same as last year, with a score of 2.8 out of 5 overall. Many of our testers commented on its lack of customization, but some did note that there were some positives, like:

“IONOS’ editor was pretty easy-to-use and intuitive – it had some really nice elements and flexibility when designing”

However, all felt that there was something lacking in the editing of IONOS. Unlike Squarespace, many of our testers felt there was no creative feeling in the design and ease of use, that everything felt very clinical and matter-of-fact. If you have a real eye for design, IONOS might not be the alternative for you.

As we mentioned before, IONOS has made great improvements to its help and support since our last round of testing, rising 35.7% in our overall help and support to reach a score of 4.8 out of 5 – the same as Squarespace. IONOS also scores a perfect 5 out of 5 in both the restore option and knowledge center.

The knowledge center especially was a large improvement, adding more articles covering a range of options plus refining their clarity for all readers.

A slight fall from 4 out of 5 to 3.9 since last year’s testing for IONOS’ scores in customer satisfaction.  Ultimately there weren’t many big changes in this category, except for a rise in inline comments of 25% from a 4 to a 5 out of 5.