Squarespace

Vorteile

I have been designing websites professionally for over 15 years and it's very rare that I don't design on Squarespace for clients. It's easy to use, the templates are beautiful, and there are so many features and endless flexibility.

Nachteile

I wish custom code injection was available on the basic/personal levels. As of right now, you need to upgrade to the business account to inject any code in the header or footer.

Vorteile

It is easy to use, especially for someone who doesn't understand HTML like me. There are plenty of templates that fit each of my needs for my site as whole. I especially love the ways to set up picture galleries, which are most of what I have on there as I use it as an art portfolio.

Nachteile

Hooking up multiple domains to a single website can be a bit of a hassle, but eventually I was able to get mine running smoothly, and that is a very specific issue to have regardless.

Vorteile

SquareSpace has beautiful templates. They are truly gorgeous. SquareSpace also has an easy-to-use sidebar of options that puts everything that you can do on the left side. The interface is as clean as the templates. Hosting of your site is done through Squarespace. That's it when it comes to pros. There are a ton of Cons to using SquareSpace.

Nachteile

As a WordPress user (who has also designed with Wix), SquareSpace falls short almost everywhere. You can't import your brand font—essential. You have to use code or a back-door solution with AdobeFonts. If you want 5 items in a row, no can do. You get 4 or 6. You can't drag the amount of padding around items and sections. You must use spacer blocks (time consuming and such a bad way to do things). There's no media storage! If you upload your photo it isn't stored anywhere for easy selection later. You must upload the same image multiple times whenever you need it—frustrating. Changes can't be made on individual copy styles. Squarespace sets up its CMS as a global system so if you want to change the way your font looks in just one place, you need to insert code (markdown block). You should be able to select it and change the size or colour. But no. It's CRAZY! So time-consuming. Missing basic word-processing functionality. Squarespace has no plugin options. You can't duplicate a page of your site and you can't duplicate your site! Everything is done from scratch! In WordPress, you download a .JSON file and upload it somewhere else and you're flying. Not with SquareSpace. You can't make your overlays look different per section. Everything applies globally. You can't add borders to images. The biggest CON? There's no undo! No revision history. If you delete something accidentally, it's gone forever. Support is terrible. Every answer is "you can't do that" or "try to find code.

Vorteile

Squarespace makes it easy to build a nice website without too much coding know-how. It's very flexible, even for taking orders for customized products.

Nachteile

Squarespace lacks the basic function of making certain products tax-free. For instance, we don't have sales tax on clothing in MN, but we do on hard goods. If you sell both of these products on your website, your out of luck because the tax setting are tied to location only, not products. This makes selling both retail and wholesale through the same site virtually impossible without some serious workarounds. Myself and many other people have made squarespace aware of this basic issue for more than 3 years, but insofar they haven't come up with any solutions.

Vorteile

- It's easy to use and quite easy to customize. There are a lot of possibilities.
- Templates are fresh and inspiring.
- Interface is smooth and easy to navigate.
- Uploading and organizing photos is a dream. It's very easy.
- Templates work flawlessly on desktop and mobile
- Price is fair (not cheap, but a good value for everything it includes)
- The first year was half price with my student email address

Nachteile

- There's no way to create a client proofing gallery! This feature would be invaluable to photographers who want to give their clients a way to select which photos they're interested in.
- Having a custom email address costs extra (I believe it's $5/month)
- The selection of templates is a little limited and sites can have a noticeable Squarespace look. But there is room for customization.