Webflow vs Squarespace: Which is the best choice for your website in 2023?

Do you find it difficult to choose the best CMS in 2023? And you can't decide between Webflow and Squarespace? Then you've come to the right place!

In this comprehensive guide, we'll compare the two platforms in terms of ease of use, design, price, SEO tools and much more.

This guide is designed to help you make the best choice for your project, so let's get to the heart of the matter!

What is Webflow?

Webflow is known as a powerful design tool, allowing you to create fully customized websites.

It provides a visual canvas that allows users to design and build responsive websites without writing a single line of code.

Webflow's advanced features make it a popular choice for those looking for an all-in-one solution with greater flexibility and control.

Webflow has won over major companies such as:

• Dell
• Philips
• Pétale
• Freshly
• SmugMug
• Orangetheory Fitness

What is Squarespace?

Squarespace is a website creation tool known for its professional templates and easy-to-use interface.

It's aimed at individuals and small businesses looking to create visually stunning websites without any development knowledge.

Squarespace is an all-in-one platform, providing everything you need to design, build and maintain a basic website.

Ease of use and design

Getting started with Webflow: more effort, more freedom.

Although Webflow has a slower learning curve, it offers virtually unlimited customization possibilities.

Webflow offers a wide range of advanced design tools, including CSS grid, Flexbox and animations. Although it takes more effort to master, the creative freedom it offers is unrivalled in the web design industry.

What's more, Webflow offers a visual editing experience that lets you see your changes in real time.

With Webflow, you can host your site directly on the platform or with another provider.

Getting started with Squarespace: great simplicity, but less freedom.

Squarespace is often considered easier to use for beginners thanks to its drag-and-drop editor.

However, this editor comes with a more limited selection of design tools and therefore less advanced design options.

While this may seem simpler for beginners, you'll quickly be limited in your creativity.

Design and templates

Selection of Webflow templates

Webflow offers a vast selection of over 2,000 fully customizable templates certified by Webflow.

These templates are suitable for different sectors and purposes, such as portfolios, blogs, e-commerce and more.

Thanks to Webflow's powerful design tools, you can customize templates to suit your unique brand and vision, or even start from scratch to create a completely personalized website.

Squarespace templates

Squarespace offers a collection of over 100 visually appealing, professionally designed templates.

These templates are organized by category (online stores, blogs and portfolios, etc.), making it easy to find the template that suits your needs.

Although these templates are easier to set up, Squarespace combines a much smaller selection of templates with more limited customization options.

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Pricing

Webflow prices and pricing plans

Webflow offers a variety of pricing plans to suit different needs.

It offers separate plans for site plans and account plans. Site plans start at $12/month, while account plans (for designers and agencies) start at $16/month.

Webflow also offers a free plan with limited functionality, allowing users to explore the platform before committing to a paid plan.

Although Webflow's pricing plans may seem complex, they are detailed and tailored to your needs.

We recently published a detailed guide to Webflow's prices and pricing plans!

Squarespace's 4 price plans

Squarespace offers 4 price plans, starting at $12/month for the Personal plan and going up to $40/month for the Advanced Commerce plan.

All plans include a free custom domain, but only for the first year, SSL security, unlimited bandwidth and storage.

Unlike Webflow, Squarespace does not offer a free plan, but instead offers a 14-day free trial to enable users to test the platform.

Marketing and SEO tools

Webflow marketing and SEO tools

Webflow provides a comprehensive suite of SEO tools to help you optimize your website.

These tools include customizable meta titles and descriptions, automatic XML sitemaps, 301 redirects, programmatic SEO, and easy integration with external performance monitoring tools.

Webflow also offers you unique advantages such as total control over your site's responsiveness and excellent loading speed, which are key factors in Google search engine optimization.

It also gives you the option of creating autogenerated meta titles and descriptions for blog posts.

Squarespace SEO features

Squarespace offers a similar range of SEO tools to help improve your website's SEO.

These include automatic sitemap generation, customizable meta titles and descriptions, and clean HTML markup.

Squarespace also provides built-in analytics to track your website's performance.

On the other hand, Squarespace sites are rated very poorly by Google's Page Speed Tool, which can have a negative impact on user experience and potentially harm your SEO.

Applications and extensions

Webflow applications

Webflow offers a more advanced range of applications, enabling you to connect your website with popular services such as Mailchimp, Google Analytics, and Zapier.

Although these applications have to be configured manually (which can take slightly longer), most of the functionality you'll need for your website is native to the Webflow ecosystem.

Squarespace: Ready-to-use extensions

Squarespace offers a rigorous but more restricted selection of extensions.

These include Google Analytics, Mailchimp and social networking platforms. Squarespace's integrations are easier to use than Webflow's, as they require less manual configuration.

But then again, Webflow excels as an all-in-one solution with almost infinite customizability, whereas Squarespace relies mainly on non-customizable built-in functionality.

Performance and security

Webflow performance and security

Webflow's hosting infrastructure is built on Amazon Web Services and Fastly, guaranteeing fast loading times and reliable performance.

Webflow also provides SSL certificates for all websites, guaranteeing data security.

It also automatically creates backups (even for free plans) so you can always restore previous versions of your site.

Squarespace hosting and security

Squarespace also offers fast, reliable hosting, with a global Content Delivery Network (CDN) to guarantee optimum performance.

Like Webflow, Squarespace provides SSL certificates for all websites, guaranteeing data security.

But one of Squarespace's biggest drawbacks is that it doesn't provide automatic backups. Keep in mind to back up your progress manually!

Customer support

Webflow Support and University

Webflow offers a very large knowledge base, called Webflow University, with numerous tutorials and guides to help you master the platform.

Webflow also offers e-mail support and live chat for all users, as well as priority support for customers who have subscribed to higher-level plans.

Squarespace Help Center

Squarespace offers a robust Help Center with a wide range of articles, guides and video tutorials to help you get the most out of the platform.

They also offer 24/7 customer support via email and live chat.

Webflow vs Squarespace: pros and cons

Advantages of Webflow

• Virtually infinite customization: Webflow offers more advanced design tools, giving you precise control over the design and layout of your site.
• High-quality, Webflow-certified templates.
• Custom code integration: Webflow lets you add custom code for further customization and enhanced functionality.
• Webflow CMS: A powerful, highly flexible and easy-to-manage content management system for dynamic content.
• Responsive design: Webflow automatically generates responsive designs, boosting your SEO performance.
• Resources: Webflow provides comprehensive guides and tutorials through its University.
• Pricing plans are detailed and adaptable to your needs. This prevents you from paying for features you don't use.

Disadvantages of Webflow

• Slower learning curve: Webflow's advanced tools can be difficult for beginners to understand, and require more time to learn.

Squarespace advantages

• Ease of use: Squarespace is renowned for its ease of use, making it an excellent choice for beginners.
• High-quality templates: Squarespace offers a range of professionally designed templates to suit different sectors and styles.
• All-in-one platform: Squarespace provides everything you need to create and manage a website, including hosting, domain registration and e-commerce.
• Customer support: Squarespace offers 24/7 customer support.

Squarespace disadvantages

• Limited customization: Squarespace's customization options are more limited than Webflow's, especially when it comes to integrating custom code.
• Less flexible CMS: Squarespace's content management system is not as flexible as Webflow's, which can be a disadvantage for users with more complex or creative content requirements.
• Smaller library of templates.
• Fewer integrations: Squarespace offers fewer third-party application integrations than Webflow.
• Squarespace's design is poorly rated by Google's Page Speed Tool.
• No automatic saving: Squarespace doesn't save your progress automatically, so remember to save manually or risk seeing all your work in progress disappear!

Conclusion: Webflow or Squarespace?

The choice between Webflow and Squarespace depends on your specific needs, budget and web development expertise.

If you prefer a more user-friendly platform with a wide selection of beautiful, ready-to-use templates, Squarespace may be the ideal option. But for that, you'll have to accept that your creative freedom is limited.

But if you want the best of both worlds, then Webflow remains the best choice.

Its powerful all-in-one solution combined with unlimited customization options will enable you to create both more complex websites with unique, creative features and more basic, high-quality, optimized sites.

If you still have any doubts and would like some help, don't hesitate to contact us via the chat on the bottom right.