Wix vs Squarespace vs WordPress 2024: Which Is Best for You?

Our independent research projects and impartial reviews are funded in part by affiliate commissions, at no extra cost to our readers. Learn more

4.8

out of 5

4.7

out of 5

Looking at our research into Wix, Squarespace, and WordPress, Wix is the best overall platform out of the three. It comes out on top in most categories and is a good match for beginners and experienced users alike.

However, both Squarespace and WordPress put up a good fight and won some crowns of their own. Plus, just because Wix is our favorite builder, doesn’t mean it’s right for you!

Wix is best for beginners, Squarespace has the best designs, and WordPress gives you the most creative control.

Below, we’ll take you through the ups and downs of each platform. We’ll cover the key areas of building a successful website, including ease of use, design flexibility, and pricing – and find out how each builder fared.

By the time we’re through – you’ll find the right website builder for your needs!

Our users’ favorite builder; best for powerful inbuilt features

4.8

out of 5
Top Choice
Ease Of Use

4.4 out of 5 stars

Value For Money

3 out of 5 stars

Design Flexibility

4.6 out of 5 stars

Features

4.8 out of 5 stars

Help and Support

4.8 out of 5 stars

Customer Score

4.7 out of 5 stars

Best for creating visually stunning, flexibly designed websites

4.7

out of 5
Ease Of Use

4.4 out of 5 stars

Value For Money

4.6 out of 5 stars

Design Flexibility

4.7 out of 5 stars

Features

4.6 out of 5 stars

Help and Support

4.8 out of 5 stars

Customer Score

4.5 out of 5 stars

Best for those willing to code, or spend time building a website from scratch

3.4

out of 5
Ease Of Use

3.2 out of 5 stars

Value For Money

4.8 out of 5 stars

Design Flexibility

2 out of 5 stars

Features

2.2 out of 5 stars

Help and Support

1.3 out of 5 stars

Customer Score

3.9 out of 5 stars

Wix is better for you if...

…You don’t have tons of experience or time, so you want to get online easily and quickly. Wix also has plenty of tools and features to help you grow your website further down the line. It’s the most trusted by both us and our users!

Squarespace is better for you if...

…Creating a visually stunning website is important to you. Squarespace’s easy-to-use inbuilt tools and beautiful designs will suit you perfectly. Plus, its plans are the best value for money we’ve tested.

WordPress is better for you if...

…You want full creative control of your website, and you have plenty of time to invest in learning the platform’s ins and outs. Although not essential, coding knowledge is useful when building a WordPress site.

Wix vs Squarespace vs WordPress: Quick Comparison

Category Wix Squarespace WordPress Winner
Ease of use Intuitive and very easy to use thanks to its drag-and-drop feature Has recently really improved its ease of use, rising by 11.1% in our rankings and putting it on equal footings with Wix Not for tech beginners; web hosting knowledge required, coding can be helpful It’s a Tie Between Wix and Squarespace
Design Flexibility Offers over 800 mobile responsive themes, but you cannot switch after going live The king of design; lets you customize with code, if needed Lots of creative freedom, but themes are not as impressive as Squarespace; much more difficult to customize overall Squarespace
Pricing Offers a free plan and four premium plans, starting from $16/month — the same as its closest competitors No free plan, but offers four, value-for-money, premium options and a 14-day free trial WordPress is free to use, but final prices vary due to costs of web hosting, SSL, themes etc. It is possible to build a very affordable site, though! WordPress
Features and Tools Has the best feature score we've tested, with optional apps if you need them Offers beautiful blogging features, but ecommerce tools are better suited to smaller businesses, or those selling digital products Doesn’t provide much built-in, but you have access to over 59,000 plugins Wix
App Markets Really easy-to-navigate market, with over 300 high quality apps to choose from 31 apps to choose from in the Squarespace Extensions store 59,000 plugins to choose from, covering all the industries you’ll need but aren’t guaranteed to all be the highest quality Wix
SEO Provides helpful SEO Wiz and all the basics needed for improving Google rankings, plus recent Semrush integration just pushes it above the rest Great range of SEO tools for all marketing needs Effective SEO tools and plugins, provided you know how to code Wix
Help and Support Comprehensive support across phone, live chat, and social media and knowledge center, even with no email support Excellent support via email, live chat, and social media. There's no phone support, but it has an outstanding knowledge center! Doesn’t provide dedicated customer support — you'll need to rely on community forums It’s a Tie Between Wix and Squarespace

Further Information

What’s the Difference Between Wix, Squarespace, and WordPress?

Knowing the difference between each platform will help you decide which one will best suit your needs. So how do they differ, exactly?

Well, for starters, Wix and Squarespace are website builders, whereas WordPress is a Content Management System (CMS). Website builders are generally better for beginners, as they come with a more structured editor that uses drag-and-drop or something similar.

Website builders also come with a stable monthly cost. It’s a bit like a subscription — you choose the plan that suits you, and you pay the same price for it every month (or annually).

WordPress is a lot less structured. You’re in control of everything, which is great when it comes to design, but it also means you need to source and manage your own web hosting and security. You’ll also be fully responsible for maintenance, too.

It’s much harder to pin an exact price down for WordPress because it doesn’t cost a nickel to use the platform. What does cost money, though, is all the extras: hosting, themes, apps — the list goes on. We’re not saying you can’t build a WordPress site cheaply, it’s just trickier to stick to one universal cost!

Heads Up!

WordPress actually has two platforms — WordPress.com and WordPress.org. WordPress.com is a website builder, like Wix and Squarespace, so is a better choice for beginners who are looking for a more structured creation process. WordPress.org, on the other hand, is a Content Management System (CMS). As mentioned above, this means you have to find and pay for your own hosting. With WordPress.com, hosting comes included in the monthly price you pay. For the purposes of this comparison, we’re going to be focusing on WordPress. org.

Can’t decide on a platform?

Read our:

Ease of Use

Which Is More Beginner Friendly?
The Winner

It’s a Tie! Wix and Squarespace are equally as easy to use

Wix would have usually taken the crown in this category if not for Squarespace’s great improvements in ease of use as of our last round of user testing. It rose 11.1% in our rankings from a 4 out of 5 last year to a new and improved 4.4 out of 5, putting it and Wix as equals.

WordPress is the most complicated of the three, and although coding knowledge isn’t essential to build a WordPress website, it certainly comes in handy.

Ease of Use Wix Squarespace WordPress
Score 4.4/5 4.4/5 3.2/5
Coding knowledge needed? ❌ (but it is helpful)
Editor Pure drag and drop — you can put anything anywhere you want New Fluid Engine feature frees it from sections and allows for true drag and drop A block-based editor — although you can add a plugin to for drag-and-drop functionality
Ease of use verdict Winner!
Wix is very beginner-friendly and scored the highest in our ease of use testing
Winner!
Takes longer to figure out, but has made massive improvements in recent years
Loser
A sharper learning curve than both Wix and Squarespace, with a more complex setup

Building a website should be for everyone. What good are the latest and greatest web design features if you aren’t able to use them?

Wix

Wix was initially our top ease-of-use builder before competition from Squarespace. The drag-and-drop design lets you personalize your site with ease, and the interface is clearly laid out. In a nutshell, this makes it ideal for complete tech beginners.

As some of our testers said:

“Wix is pretty simple to use and easy to wrap your head around! Plus I really love the customization available, the templates & pre-designed elements.”

However, that didn’t mean it was all smooth sailing. Wix can sometimes give you too much freedom, and often just using the editor can lead to a design that looks messy and cluttered. As one tester put it,

“Wix’s templates are nice on the whole, but they can easily become messy or cluttered by the time you’ve finished customizing.”

If you want something even easier, then Wix ADI (Artificial Design Intelligence) lets you build a site in a matter of minutes. Simply answer a few questions, and you have a website that’s ready to go live.

Screenshot of the wix editor showing off the drag ad drop with a menu to the left with various options and a list of elements
Wix is the best all-around website builder because it's really easy to use, letting anyone create a website they can be proud of

Squarespace

Many people used to think that, compared to Wix, Squarespace is much trickier to use – but that’s not completely true! In fact, in our most recent ease-of-use testing, Squarespace wasn’t that far behind, achieving a score of 4.4 out of 5.

Our testers were really impressed with Squarespace this time, saying:

“Never thought I’d say this but I found it easier to use than Wix!”

That last one is big news because this hasn’t happened in all five years of our testing!

This is because, in recent years, it’s made some big improvements to its editor, resulting in an impressive 11% increase in its ease-of-use score. It’s now much more accessible, even for those that don’t have a lot of time to learn the ins and outs of a platform!

There are still a few nitpicks with the platform. You can’t group select and move blocks and images together, and unlike Wix, there’s no autosave feature. However, it’s harder to create a messy site with Squarespace than with Wix. As one user said,

“I felt like I was great at making websites but really it was just Squarespace doing it for me!”

This, combined with its sleek designs, makes Squarespace a very popular choice. It might take slightly longer to master than Wix, but there’s no coding involved, and when all is said and done, you’ll have a beautiful end product.

Trust us – you’ll have a hard time convincing people your site wasn’t designed by professionals!

squarespace homepage with window around a model's wrist in red jumper with fashionable watch
Squarespace is the leader for design, giving you lots of creative flexibility

WordPress

This is where things start to get tricky. WordPress is a self-hosted software, meaning you’re required to find your own website host. Although code isn’t 100% necessary for customization, it is helpful, so we always recommend WordPress to those who have a bit of tech know-how under their belts.

Compared to Wix and Squarespace, WordPress comes with a much sharper learning curve. You’ll need to invest a fair bit of time learning your way around the platform. It scored 3.2 out of 5 in our ease of use testing, putting it near the bottom of the pack.

We recommend powering your WordPress website with Bluehost. It’s our top-rated WordPress hosting provider and it’s been endorsed by WordPress itself. What’s even better, prices for new customers start at just $2.95 per month. By hosting your WordPress website on Bluehost, you get access to lots of features which make the whole setup process much easier:

  • One-click WordPress installation
  • WordPress-centric user dashboard
  • Free domain name and SSL security certificate
  • Automatic WordPress updates
  • 24/7 support from in-house WordPress experts

However, the payoff for its high difficulty level is near-unparalleled design customization. You’ll have total freedom in design and personalization, but it won’t come easily!

Making things even more complicated, there is no dedicated support team for WordPress users, so if you come into trouble, you’re on your own.

wordpress homepage comparing the desktop templates to their mobile look with banner at the bottom
WordPress provides limitless customization opportunities, provided you know how to code

Design Flexibility

Which Offers the Most Creative Control?
squarespace logo
The Winner

Squarespace has the best design flexibility

With its striking templates and great customization, it’s no surprise that Squarespace is the king of design. Wix comes close with its hundreds of industry-specific templates but falls down as it can’t match the consistent design quality of Squarespace, with some templates seeming a bit outdated now. WordPress beats Squarespace for customizability, but its templates aren’t as attractive, and it doesn’t offer a mobile editor or stock images.
Visit Squarespace
Design Wix Squarespace WordPress
Score 4.6/5 4.7/5 2/5
Number of templates 800+ 113 Too many to count!
Can you switch later? ✔️
Mobile Responsive? ✔️ ✔️ ✔️
Design verdict Loser
Plenty of templates and good customization, but you can't switch later
Winner!
The best designs on the market!
Loser
Great customizability and loads of templates, but they aren't as impressive as Squarespace

Design is all about keeping your visitors happy. A gorgeous website will stick in a user’s mind, and encourage them to return.

Wix

When it comes to design, Wix’s strength lies in the 800+ themes it has to choose from, covering 16 categories (e.g. Business, Portfolio & CV) and even more industries.

All themes are fully mobile responsive, meaning they look just as good on a phone as they do on a laptop screen. Plus, if you’re feeling confident, you can select a blank template and let your creative juices flow.

selection of wix templates featuring the range of categories they cover
You can filter all of Wix’s templates by industry to make browsing easier

Further customization is also super simple, thanks to Wix’s beginner-friendly drag-and-drop editor. Overall, Wix performs well in this category, scoring 4.6 out of 5 in our research ratings, which puts it in second place out of the 14 builders we tested. This is actually an increase of 4.5% from last year’s 4.4 out of 5, likely due to small improvements Wix has made to its templates and the fact it’s one of the few builders to use ADI (Artificial Design Intelligence) when building. Simply answer a few questions and Wix ADI builds a site for you. Neat!

However, there is one area that lets Wix down: you can’t switch your template once you’ve published your site. If further down the road, you decide you want a fresh look, you’ll have to create a new website entirely and manually input all of your old content. Not ideal if you don’t have a lot of time on your hands!

Squarespace

Does Squarespace, the king of design, deliver in this department? Of course it does! It earned the gold medal in our research for this category, with a top score of 4.7 out of 5 — the highest out of all the builders we tested. And it’s no surprise why — the platform offers a curated selection of professional-looking templates, which you can easily search for by category.

Squarespace templates showing a smart dark design template and a band website with all members facing away from camera
Squarespace’s templates are the best-looking out there – perfect for aesthetes everywhere!

Squarespace has better designs than Wix but limits you more in terms of what you can change. You work in blocks, so you can’t just drag things anywhere and everywhere, as you can with Wix. This preserves the look and feel of the professionally-designed template, which is no bad thing. But if you really cannot do without the design freedom of pure drag and drop, Squarespace’s newly introduced Fluid Engine allows for a more Wix-like builder experience.

You can also use the mobile editor to make changes whilst you’re on the go, and while it won’t let you switch templates, you can customize any template with any element instead of locking them away.

WordPress

Designing a WordPress website is slightly different. There are hundreds of thousands of themes to choose from, and you can customize them to your heart’s content. If you’re confident with tech, you can add plugins or use code to make each theme do or show whatever you like.

In other words, there’s no real limit to what you can do with your WordPress website. However, in our research, we only awarded WordPress 2 out of 5 for its design flexibility. This is because the themes aren’t as impressive as those on Squarespace, and given how many different options there are, choosing one can be pretty overwhelming.

WordPress Themes
WordPress has thousands of themes to choose from

Another thing to be aware of is that WordPress doesn’t come with a mobile editor, so you won’t be able to make changes to your website on the go. You also won’t have access to any stock images, so make sure you’ve got plenty of your own photos and graphics when you get started.

Unlike Wix, you can swap your template if you change your mind, but you’ll need to do a hefty amount of reformatting to make all of your old content fit into the new design.

Squarespace has hundreds of professionally-designed templates.

Pricing

Which Offers the Best Bang For Your Buck?
WordPress logo
The Winner

WordPress offers the best value for money

If you choose a low-cost host like Bluehost and keep your paid plugins to a minimum, WordPress offers excellent value for money. However, your monthly prices can fluctuate, so if you want something more stable, we recommend Squarespace. Unfortunately, Wix’s higher-tier paid plans are slightly too expensive to be competitive.
Visit WordPress
Pricing Wix Squarespace WordPress
Score 3/5 4.6/5 4.8/5
Free plan or free trial? Free plan 14-day free trial Free plan
Number of plans 4 4 N/A
Starting price $16 $16 N/A
Personal plans Light: $16
Core: $27
Personal: $16 N/A
Business plans Business: $32
Business Elite: $159
Business: $23 N/A
Ecommerce plans Core (Basic ecommerce): $27
Business (Standard ecommerce): $32
Business Elite (Advanced ecommerce): $159
Business: $23
Basic Commerce: $27
Advanced Commerce: $49
N/A
Enterprise package ✔️ ✔️
Do you need to pay for hosting? ✔️ (from $2.95 with Bluehost)
Help and support verdict Loser
Wix is the most expensive out of the three
Loser
Squarespace offers better value for money than Wix across its plans
Winner!
WordPress can be a truly low-cost option if you choose a cheap hosting plan and keep plugin costs to a minimum

To paraphrase the famous saying, money makes the world wide web go round. For would-be website owners, the question of cost can play a key role in choosing one builder over another.

Wix

Wix is known for its free plan. But if you want more from your website – like ecommerce features, more bandwidth, or your own domain – you’ll need to upgrade to one of its four premium plans:

  • Light: $16 per month
  • Core: $27 per month – Basic ecommerce
  • Business: $32 per month – Standard ecommerce
  • Business Elite: $159 per month – Advanced ecommerce

Despite offering a free plan, Wix came last in our research for value for money out of the three platforms, scoring just 3 out of 5. This is a drop from last year’s score as well, where Wix scored 3.4 out of 5. While all website builders have increased in price in the last year due to outside influences like competition and inflation, they tend to increase their offerings as well so that their value for money stays the same. Wix, sadly, has not increased the value of its plans in any significant way, leading to a higher price and a drop in our feature vs price category of 25%.

The higher price point makes this a less convenient option if you’re on a budget. However, Wix does have a lot to offer. Ultimately, you get what you pay for, and Wix’s tools and features still have the best score in our research.

Wix has a generous free plan, but its paid plans start from $16 per month.

Squarespace Pricing

Squarespace doesn’t have a free plan, but you can trial the platform at no cost for 14 days. If you enjoy using Squarespace, you’ll need to upgrade after that period.

It offers four core premium plans:

  • Personal ($16 p/m)
  • Business ($23 p/m
  • Basic ($27 p/m)
  • Advanced ($49 p/m)

Each plan helps you design typically beautiful Squarespace websites, but for selling online, you’ll need to be on Basic or Advanced.

Overall, we awarded Squarespace a score of 4.6 out of 5 for value for money, putting it above Wix, and making it one of our best value-for-money builders. It’s especially impressive considering its value score saw a meteoric rise of 15% since our last round of testing! While Wix’s features versus its price didn’t hold up, Sqauresapce’s absolutely did, with Squarespace’s $16 entry plan offering unlimited storage and bandwidth, a free custom domain, and multiple website contributors. As the only builder we tested that saw an increase in its value score, you can be sure it’s a great value option that gives you a great bang for your buck.

Squarespace pricing showing four columns and a table comparing prices and features
You can easily improve your site’s capabilities by upgrading your Squarespace plan

Squarespace is the best value for money, and you can save 10% with code “WBE”.

WordPress

Unsurprisingly, WordPress scores highest in our value for money category, because it doesn’t cost a single cent to use! However, that doesn’t mean you can create a website for free – you’ll need to pay for hosting, and the prices for this depend on the web host you choose.

We recommend Bluehost. Its prices start from just $2.95 p/month for its WordPress hosting package and includes a free domain name and SSL certificate. That means you could get your website up and running for less than $3 – no wonder WordPress scored a near-perfect 4.8 out of 5 in this category!

However, that’s unlikely to be the end of your spending with WordPress. Although there are free themes available, they’re often limited, so you’ll want to invest in a premium theme, which could cost up to $250. Plus, depending on which ones you choose, plugins aren’t cheap either!

12-month pricing for Bluehost's WordPress shared hosting plans
Bluehost is the best WordPress hosting provider, and also has the cheapest plan at just $2.95 per month.

As you can see, WordPress pricing can vary. Wix and Squarespace have clearly laid out price plans which may cost more overall, but are more easy to manage.

Further Information

Learn more about the Wix Price Plans.

Or read more about Squarespace’s Prices.

Find out How Much It Costs to Host a Website.

Tools and Features

Which Has the Best Functionality?
wix logo
The Winner

Wix has the best tools and features

Wix came top of the class in our research for this category, offering plenty of tools and features for ecommerce, blogging, and more. Anything it doesn’t have can be supplemented by the app store. Squarespace isn’t far behind but has a smaller offering of tools and features. WordPress doesn’t provide much built-in but does give you access to over 59,000 plugins to help boost your website – provided you have the technical skills.
Visit Wix
Features Wix Squarespace WordPress
Score 4.8/5 4.6/5 2.2/5
Storage 2GB - 100GB depending on plan Unlimited Your storage depends on your hosting provider
Industry-specific features (e.g. menus, RSVP forms, etc.) ✔️ ✔️
Edit from mobile? ✔️ ✔️
Features verdict Winner!
Wix has a huge range of tools and features, plus extra apps
Loser
Squarespace's tools and features are great, but they aren't as extensive as Wix
Loser
WordPress doesn't come with anything built in — instead, you'll need to download plugins for everything

Why are tools and features important? Because the bigger the toolbox, the bigger the opportunities. Inspiring, huh? In basic terms, though, you can do more with a website builder if it has better tools than a competitor platform.

Ecommerce

With global e-retail sales reaching $6.3 trillion in 2023, it’s important your website has features that are powerful enough for you to jump on this growing trend.

Wix has three ecommerce price plans, all of which give you extra storage, the ability to sell without transaction fees, and the option of over 50 different payment gateways. Overall, our research found that Wix was the best ecommerce website builder, achieving a top score of 4.7 out of 5. It’s particularly good for smaller online stores, but it comes with the tools to support growth, too!

Wix ecommerce page on blue with a girl in headphones smiling in a compute window next to a product page of said headphones
You can build a beautiful online store easily with Wix
Good to know…

You can easily take offline payments with any of these platforms – you just need to add an integration to Square, and buy a basic Square card reader ($49). This is ideal for those planning to sell at fairs or pop-up shops, as well as online. Square instantly syncs with your online inventory, so you don’t need to worry about over-promising stock.

Squarespace also does well in the ecommerce department, too. It’s not just a pretty face! It came third in our research lineup, scoring 4.5 out of 5. It has real quality in its ecommerce features, which include product image zooming, coupon generation, abandoned cart recovery, and zero transaction fees.

However, we wouldn’t recommend it for very large stores. Squarespace is better suited to a smaller itinerary, or digital services such as subscriptions or downloads.

As you’d expect by now, WordPress does things a little differently. There’s nothing built-in, so to get ecommerce functionality, you need to add a separate plugin.

WooCommerce is a specific ecommerce plugin for WordPress. It doesn’t offer as much as Wix or Squarespace, but does come with one-click refunds, as well as the ability to embed products in different store pages.

Looking to sell online?

See our Best Ecommerce Website Builders.

Blogging

Blogging is great for keeping your website’s visitors informed, which is important for growing your online community. For example, blogging is perfect for announcing new products, information, or deals.

Blogging is great for keeping your website’s visitors informed, which is important for growing your online community. For example, blogging is perfect for announcing new products, information, or deals.

Squarespace has held the blogging crown for a few years now. It comes with everything you need to build a flourishing blog, which is why we awarded it a perfect 5 out of 5!

It offers social sharing, user likes, multiple author support, post scheduling, comments, and more. However, it is lacking blog-specific analytics. This can be remedied by integrating Google Analytics, but we’d have preferred to see some inbuilt support here.

squarespace editor for the blog function showing features such as Blank Page and Page Layouts
If your selected Squarespace template doesn't already have a blog, adding one is really simple

Historically, Wix has always played second fiddle to Squarespace, but recent improvements to the platform’s blogging features mean they now sit level, with Wix also achieving a score of 4.7 out of 5 in our research.

This is due to the increase in blogging tools available to users, such as multiple writer profiles, dedicated analytics, and comments. You can now also archive your posts, too – something that wasn’t available previously!

WordPress is best known for its blogging power. It’s hugely popular, helping millions of people get their blogs online – in fact, it powers 24% of all websites today. These numbers are impressive, and so are WordPress’ blogging capabilities.

It came fourth in our blogging research, with a score of 4.1 out of 5 – just below its website builder sibling, WordPress.com. It performed well in all categories, however, the lack of a dedicated support team prevented it from claiming a place in the top three.

Despite this, though, it’s an ideal choice for content-heavy blogs, and tech-savvy bloggers who have ambitions to build a more complex site, independent of a website builder.

Are you a keen blogger?

Discover the Best Blogging Platforms.

Take it back to basics with our How to Start a Blog Guide.

Marketing

Promoting your website is vital for success online, and can be done in many ways.

Wix makes marketing a breeze. You can run email campaigns, create newsletters, or add banners with just a few clicks. You can also integrate marketing apps like Wix Shoutout, or pick from a third-party option in the app market under ‘Marketing apps‘. In our research, Wix’s marketing score was a non-mover with a perfect 5 out of 5.

However, it is worth mentioning that not all of Wix’s apps are free. Some will come with an additional cost, which can quite easily drive your monthly outgoings up.

Squarespace has almost everything built-in, although the only downside of this is that it means you’re restricted to what Squarespace offers. This includes email campaign creation with either Squarespace’s own software, Email Campaigns, or through a Mailchimp integration. That being said, Squarespace has made significant improvements to its app functionality, leading to better booking, scheduling, and CRM capabilities. Top this all off with extra support for video, logo, and marketing editing, and you have Squarespace going from a 4 out of 5 last year to a perfect 5 this year, rivaling WordPress.

WordPress is the polar opposite of Squarespace. Everything you need for promoting and sharing needs to be integrated with a plugin. There are over 59,000 plugins to choose from, with the best marketing apps including Keap (for emails) and Disqus (for managing comments).

This means that while there is a lot of choice, it requires a lot more technical effort. Plus, as with Wix, not all of them are free. This could boost your monthly costs if you decide to integrate some of the more premium plugins.

wordpress screenshot of the plugins market with star ratings and logos
WordPress gives you access to over 54,000 plugins, leaving you spoilt for choice

Social Media Integration

Reaping retweets and luring in ‘likes’ will help your website flourish.

With Wix, you can add sharing buttons and integrate social media live feeds. Best of all, it comes with a dedicated dashboard for promoting social media posts.

Squarespace has similar offerings, but lets you link accounts from over 25 different social accounts (more than Wix offers) including Instagram, Facebook, Spotify, and Pinterest.

Flexibility is a common theme with WordPress, and that doesn’t change here. For all your social media needs, you can integrate any number of plugins you like, including share buttons, auto-posting, and social comments.

Wix is our top-rated builder for website features.

App Markets

Which Extras Are On Offer?
Wix logo
The Winner

Wix has the best apps and integrations

Wix wins the app lap! While at the time of writing, there are 59,000 WordPress plugins to choose from, this is about quality over quantity – and Wix’s excellent selection of over 300 apps will put a smile on most users’ faces.
Visit Wix
Apps and Integrations Wix Squarespace WordPress
App market? ✔️ ✔️ ✔️
Number of apps 300 + 30+ 59,000+
Integrations with third parties? ✔️ ✔️ ✔️
Apps verdict Winner!
Wix has a large range of apps with the quality to boot.
Loser
Though it's had significant improvement since last time, it still just falls short of Wix
Loser
While it certainly has the most apps, it can’t guarantee the same quality as Wix

You’ll find 30+ carefully chosen apps in the Squarespace Extensions store, covering shipping and fulfillment, finance, inventory and products, and sales and marketing. It’s not a huge selection, but then you don’t need tons when Squarespace includes so many built-in features already.

Though small in size, Squarespace’s app market is expertly chosen and integrated. Part of what gave Squarespace its major increase in app market rating during our recent user testing was its increased app functionality, specifically its booking, scheduling, and CRM functionality. It moved a whole 100% in our ranks from 2 out of 5 last year, to a new and improved 4 out of 5!

By contrast, Wix lets you choose from over 300 apps covering all the categories you’d need, like ecommerce, social media, and business. The Wix App Market is really easy to navigate, too, providing user reviews, pricing breakdowns, and simple installation. These apps are expertly chosen and integrated too, and unlike Squarespace, you don’t need code to install them either

wix app center with four categories of apps each with logo
Integrating powerful apps is super easy with Wix

If Wix has an app market, then WordPress has a mega mall.  To put it bluntly, it’s utterly unrivalled in this category. You can pick from over 59,000 plugins, both paid and free, to improve your WordPress site’s performance. There’s something for every need, and every budget!

But unlike Wix and Squarespace, quality cannot be guaranteed across that many apps, making choosing an app or plugin a bit of a grab-bag when it comes to whether it works or not. Because there are so many, we recommend choosing plugins with large user bases, that are updated regularly and supply customer support.

Wix has an excellent app market, offering hundreds of integrations.

SEO

Which Will Perform Better In the Search Engine Results?
wix logo
The Winner

Wix is best for SEO

It’s competitive for the top spot for SEO, but Wix just clinches it by adding some great improvements since the last time we did our testing, such as Semrush integration and keyword search support. Squarespace still has an excellent range of SEO tools and WordPress gives you boundless freedom, but Wix just takes it this round.

Visit Wix
SEO Wix Squarespace WordPress
Built-in SEO tools ✔️ ✔️
SEO support ✔️ ✔️
Tailored SEO suggestions ✔️ ✔️
SEO-specific app ✔️ ✔️
Apps verdict Winner!
It has all the basics for improving your online ranking, plus newly integrated Semrush and keyword search
Loser
A great range of SEO tools and features that sadly just misses out from the top spot
Loser
Tons of freedom and depth, though maybe not as beginner-friendly

Wix makes SEO Super Easy Overall (see what we did there). It uses an ‘SEO Wiz’ to guide you through the process, helping to create a personalized strategy (after you pick a few keywords that best describe your website).

Wix has also recently improved its SEO capabilities by adding keyword support and Semrush integration. Semrush is a top online marketing tool used by the best of the best, so adding this great service into the Wix builder itself is a huge bonus and really what elevates Wix above Squarespace, though they both earned a perfect 5 out of 5 in our most recent round of research.

On top of that, both Wix and Squarespace provide basic features for improving your website’s SEO. These include:

  • Updating URLs – so users can find each of your web pages more easily
  • Customizing meta descriptions – what Google displays on the results page
  • Editing image alt tags – helps Google identify what an image is and how to categorize it

WordPress gives you plenty of freedom when it comes to SEO, but as usual, it demands far more technical prowess compared to the other builders. There’s no real limit to what you can customize in order to help your SEO performance, but we recommend installing the plugin ‘Yoast’ at the very least.

Wix has high-quality SEO tools, including an SEO Wiz to guide you.

Keen eye for SEO?

Read our:

Wix SEO Review

Squarespace SEO Review

Help and Support

Which Has the Better Helping Hand?
The Winner

It’s a tie between Wix and Squarespace!

Both Wix and Squarespace have come out of our recent research testing with a 4.8 out of 5 for support, though for different reasons. Wix has shot up 10.5% due to improvements to its knowledge center with clear directional communication across a range of topics. Squarespace, meanwhile, has dropped -5% due to a lack of improvements from the last time we tested. WordPress doesn’t have a dedicated support team, so you’re left relying on forum posts!
Help and Support Wix Squarespace WordPress
Score 4.8/5 4.8/5 1.3/5
24/7 support ✔️ ✔️
Live chat ✔️ ✔️
Phone support ✔️ ✔️
Email support ✔️
Help and support verdict Winner!
Wix has plenty of support options, and has made significant improvements to its knowledge center
Winner!
Excellent support options and a thorough knowledge base
Loser
No dedicated support team — only community forums

Squarespace used to offer the biggest helping hand of the three platforms. Last year, it scored a perfect 5 out of 5 in our research and testing thanks to the large number of support options it provides.

However, it has taken a dip this time around to a (still good) 4.8 out of 5 due to a lack of change. As we mentioned in the Pricing section, as website builder prices have increased since last year, we expect the product outputs to match. Squarespace had no major improvements from the last time we tested, with its help features vs pricing plan score falling by 20% from 5 out of 5 to a new score of 4.

All that being said, Squarespace is still excellent for help and support. If you experience any problems, you can reach out via:

  • 24/7 Email
  • Live chat (Monday to Friday, 4am – 8pm ET)
  • Social media

It also has an incredible Knowledge Base, with tons of articles, video tutorials, and forums to help you out if you ever get stuck.

It’s worth noting that Squarespace doesn’t provide phone support, but there are plenty of other avenues to choose from.

squarespace help center on black with a large white search bar
The Squarespace help center offers in-depth knowledge to help fix issues quickly

Wix has made a lot of improvements to its help and support, jumping from a 4.3 out of 5 last year to tying with Squarespace at 4.8 this year. Its knowledge center especially got an upgrade, increasing readability for its users to better follow its advice. In our research, Wix’s knowledge center rose 25% from a 4 to a perfect 5 out of 5.

Wix’s other help and support options are great too. This includes:

  • Phone support (Monday to Thursday, 5am – 5pm)
  • Live chat
  • Social media

Where Squarespace doesn’t provide phone support, Wix doesn’t offer any help via email.

Customer support isn’t a pressing issue for WordPress. As a free platform, there is no call center, email support, or live chat. However, it does have an impressive support community, where you can find guides, tutorials, and FAQs. Some hosting providers – including Bluehost – give you access to their in-house team of WordPress experts when you subscribe to a hosting plan. This can prove invaluable should you run into difficulty with your website.

Despite this, though, you’re mostly on your own. The lack of dedicated support meant that WordPress only achieved 1.3 out of 5 in our testing, putting it in last place out of all 14 builders.

Wix vs Squarespace vs WordPress: Our Overall Winner

And so, our journey of contrasts and comparisons is nearly over. We could go on forever, but you’ve got websites to build!

It was a hard-fought battle, and each builder has its strengths and weaknesses. Here’s a quick recap of who each platform is best for:

Wix is better for you if you’re a beginner looking for great features

…If you don’t have tons of experience or time, and want to get online easily and quickly, Wix is your best bet! Wix also has the best tools and features to help you grow your website down the line and has improved its help and support.

Squarespace is better for you if want beautiful designs and great value

…Is creating a visually stunning website important to you? If you don’t mind investing a bit more time to make sure your site is perfect, Squarespace’s inbuilt tools and beautiful designs will suit you perfectly!

WordPress is better for you if you want full creative freedom and don’t mind the extra work

…If you want full creative control of your website, and you have plenty of time to invest in learning the platform’s ins and outs. Although not essential, coding knowledge is useful when building a WordPress site.

Ultimately, this turned out to be quite a tight contest, but Wix emerged as our overall winner thanks to its extensive features and improvements to its help and support. It’s the most beginner-friendly of the three, but still has plenty of growth opportunities for the future. Plus, its free plan means that giving it a go is pretty risk-free!

Because of this, we recommend trying it out first, especially if you’re still not fully sure which one is the best for you. In our experience, and according to our research, Wix is the builder that has something for everyone!

Wix is our highest-rated website builder, and you can get started for free.

FAQs

Wix is the best all-around website builder on the market, simply because anyone can use it. It has intuitive drag-and-drop design features to help you create any website you like, while offering useful visual guides and comprehensive customer support to fix any Wix issues quickly.
Squarespace has four price plans to choose from: Personal ($16 p/m), Business ($23 p/m), Basic ($27 p/m), and Advanced ($49 p/m). The two higher plans give you ecommerce functionality, while Personal and Business let you build beautiful websites for yourself or your company.
WordPress.org is an open-source software, which means you’re required to organize web hosting yourself. You should use WordPress if you’re technically savvy — having some coding knowledge under your belt could prove useful, too. We’d also recommend it if you’re planning to build a content-heavy site. It gives you total freedom when designing your website, but only if you have the necessary skills.
While each builder has its own strengths and weaknesses, Wix is the better builder overall due to its range of excellent features. While it can be more expensive than other builders, it offers a free plan for users to try it out and see if they like it.
Which is better depends on the level of commitment and expertise you have in website building. If you’re a beginner with no experience with website building, we recommend Squarespace because it has excellent ease of use and fantastic templates that make you seem like a pro. If you have a bit more experience with web building and want the freedom of having no restrictions, then WordPress is the platform for you, as long as you don’t mind the extra work (or having to hire a designer)
Between Wix and Squarespace and WordPress, WordPress has a larger amount of professionals using it due to its higher barrier to entry. Many users who build their sites with WordPress hire a professional designer to build it, since it saves them the time of having to build it themselves.
Written by:
headshot of Sam Jagger
Being a Writer for Website Builder Expert isn’t just typing words on a laptop. Each day, I’m finding new and innovative ways to help you get online in a mode you feel comfortable with. And it’s a task I do with enthusiasm and gusto. Not only do I have experience building with all the providers we talk about - creating websites such as this Strikingly demo - but we also have our wonderful, constantly updated research fielded by our researchers, so you can be reassured that what we say is an honest reflection of our professional opinions. I’ve written articles and featured guest posts for apps like UXPin on web design in the modern age, as well as answered over 100 user comments on the site and delved into the world of choosing a domain name and adding Bitcoin payments to your site in my own pitched articles. All of this is to say that when I want to get you online - I mean it! Outside the office, I have attended the eCommerce Expo and built up a ton of industry knowledge through talks, workshops, and guided learning sessions with noted experts. The internet is made for everyone, so come online and let us help you get there.
Researched by:
natasha_willett
I love to understand human behavior and the cognitive biases that drive us to do what we do. For over nine years I have worked as a mixed method researcher – research using a mix of numerical data and personal experiences – across a range of sectors, from insurance and policy development to finally arriving at Website Builder Expert five years ago. Fascinated by consumer decision-making, I meticulously built our leading ranking methodology to explore where providers like Wix sit within a competitive industry and what value they truly bring to our audience.
As a member of the Market Research Society, I’m an advocate for high ethical, commercial, and methodological best practices. All of this combines to give you the most ethical recommendations based on real data.

6 comments

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *