Squarespace is another leading web site builder currently on the market, but what is it? Like Wix, Squarespace is an all-in-one website building platform that lets individuals and businesses create, design, and host professional looking websites without needing to write code.
How does this compare to a WordPress web site? The fundamental distinction is that Squarespace is an all-in-one, hosted SaaS platform, while WordPress is software that you install on a web hosting account that you control.
Squarespace describes itself as an all-in-one CMS and website builder in which hosting and security are included with the subscription. With WordPress, by contrast, the website is composed of files and a database residing on a server, and those components can be backed up and moved to another hosting provider. WordPress’s own documentation describes a complete backup as consisting of both the website files and the database.
That difference has major implications for ownership and portability.
Where Does a Squarespace Website Live?
A Squarespace website lives within Squarespace’s proprietary hosting and software environment. You don’t receive a conventional hosting account containing things like PHP files, databases, theme and plugin files, and the like, that you can independently download and install somewhere else.
Instead, Squarespace combines the website-building software, hosting, database functionality, security, templates, content-management system and other infrastructure into its own platform.
In simplified terms:
Squarespace – Your content + Squarespace’s software + Squarespace’s infrastructure = website
WordPress – Your content + WordPress files + theme + plugins + database + hosting = website
That distinction is extremely important.
Who Owns the Squarespace Website?
Squarespace does not simply become the owner of a business’s content because they use Squarespace. The company’s own content – such as its written material, photographs, logos and other original assets – are generally theirs.
However, Squarespace owns its platform, technology, services, templates and proprietary components. Squarespace’s developer terms, for example, explicitly state that Squarespace owns its services, brand assets, developer tools and documentation.
There is also another consideration: some content available through Squarespace is licensed rather than owned by the customer. This can include certain fonts and music that Squarespace licenses from third parties for use on its platform. Those licenses can have restrictions on taking the material elsewhere.
So the cleanest way to describe ownership is:
Squarespace
Customer owns/controls:
- Content
- Images
- Text
- Logos
- Other customer-created digital assets
Squarespace owns/controls:
- Squarespace software
- Squarespace infrastructure
- Squarespace platform
- Squarespace-specific functionality
- Squarespace templates and platform components
- Squarespace’s proprietary code and technology
Therefore, just as we previously wrote with the comparison to Wix vs. WordPress, the customer owns their content, but does not own the Squarespace platform that turns that content into a functioning website.
Can a Squarespace Website Be Moved to WordPress?
Yes – but only partially through the built-in export. This is where Squarespace is somewhat better than Wix.
Squarespace provides an Export function that creates an XML file specifically designed to allow certain content to be imported into WordPress.
The export can include:
- Layout pages
- One blog
- Blog posts
- Comments
- Text blocks
- Image blocks
- Certain gallery content
- Some other basic content
However, Squarespace explicitly states that not everything exports because many Squarespace features depend upon its own JavaScript and CSS.
Among the things that don’t export are:
- Style settings
- Custom CSS
- Certain page types
- Page-specific headers and footers
- Sidebars
- Dropdowns
- Audio blocks
- Product blocks
- Video blocks
- Drafts
- Various other Squarespace-specific elements
So the XML export is a content migration tool – not a complete website migration tool.
Can the Squarespace Design Be Transferred to WordPress?
No – not automatically. This is probably the most important distinction.
Suppose you have a Squarespace website with:
- A particular homepage design
- Custom colors
- Specific fonts
- A particular header
- Navigation
- Hero image
- Three-column sections
- Testimonials
- Photo galleries
- Custom footer
- Specific page layouts
The Squarespace XML export doesn’t turn all of that into an equivalent WordPress theme. In fact, Squarespace specifically says that style settings and custom CSS aren’t exported. The content can be migrated, but the visual presentation generally needs to be recreated in WordPress.
The resulting WordPress website could look extremely similar to the Squarespace website, but it would need to be built using WordPress technology rather than Squarespace technology.
Squarespace does have one significant advantage over Wix which is worth emphasizing. With Wix, there isn’t a complete website export that allows you to take the Wix site and migrate it elsewhere. However, with Squarespace, there is a built-in XML export specifically intended to facilitate moving content to WordPress.
Squarespace is therefore less restrictive than Wix when it comes to extracting content, but it still isn’t equivalent to owning a complete, portable website installation.
What About Web Site Backups?
This is another major difference between Squarespace and a WordPress site.
WordPress
With a self-hosted WordPress website, one can make a complete backup containing essentially everything necessary to reconstruct the website:
1. MySQL Database
The database contains the website’s pages, posts, settings, menus, configuration and other database information.
2. Website Files
- WordPress files
- Theme
- Plugins
- Uploaded media
- Custom code
- Other website files
That backup can be downloaded to your own computer, external hard drive, cloud storage or another storage device. If you decide to change hosting companies, you can move the website and its database to the new web host. In other words, the website is completely portable!
Squarespace
Squarespace provides ways to export certain content, but it does not provide a downloadable, complete backup of the entire Squarespace website that you can independently restore on another server. The XML export is primarily a content export. And Squarespace specifically identifies numerous things that aren’t included in that export, including style settings and custom CSS.
There’s another significant limitation: Squarespace says that images and uploaded videos cannot be exported from the site in bulk; individual images can be downloaded from the Asset Library.
Therefore, one cannot create the Squarespace equivalent of “website-files.zip” and “database.sql” and then hand those files to another hosting company and say, “Restore my entire website.” That isn’t how Squarespace is designed to work.
What Happens If You Stop Paying?
With Squarespace, your website is dependent upon your Squarespace subscription and the Squarespace platform. If you discontinue the service, you cannot simply take the complete functioning website and install it somewhere else.
You can, however, export certain content before leaving and use that content to build a new website elsewhere. Squarespace itself recommends exporting content before canceling if you intend to migrate.
With WordPress, if you stop paying Hosting Company A, you can take your WordPress files and database and move them to Hosting Company B. The website itself isn’t inherently dependent upon Hosting Company A.
The Practical Difference
| Squarespace | Self-Hosted WordPress | |
|---|---|---|
| Hosting | Squarespace | Customer chooses host |
| Website environment | Controlled by Squarespace | Controlled by customer/host |
| Customer owns content | Yes | Yes |
| Customer controls database | No | Yes |
| Customer can download complete database | No | Yes |
| Customer controls website files | No | Yes |
| Customer owns/controls theme | No | Yes |
| Complete external backup | No | Yes |
| Move entire site to another host | No | Yes |
| Reproduce content elsewhere | Yes | Yes |
| Reproduce design elsewhere | Yes (by rebuilding) | Yes |
| Dependent on platform | Yes | No |
| Platform lock-in | High | Moderate |
The Bottom Line
With Squarespace, you own your website’s content, but Wix owns and controls the platform, technology and environment that turns that content into a functioning website. With a WordPress web site, you own and control the complete digital website package – including database, theme, plugins, files and content – and it can backed up and moved it to another hosting provider.
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