WordPress vs Wix vs Squarespace (2025 Winner)

I've been building websites for over ten years, and I'm tired of reading the same boring advice about these three platforms. This year, I rebuilt client sites on WordPress, Wix, and Squarespace, and I have some strong opinions about what works and what doesn't.

Most comparison articles treat these platforms like they're fighting for the same users. They're not. Each one serves completely different needs, and picking the wrong one will frustrate the heck out of you for months.

Here's what I found

Now let me show you why.

What These Platforms Cost (And What Nobody Tells You)

Everyone talks about starting prices, but nobody mentions what businesses will spend in practice after six months. Learning about Wix pricing helps you budget correctly.

What Most People End Up Spending

Platform	Advertised Price	What You'll Pay	Additional Costs
Wix	$17/month	$25-35/month	Apps, storage upgrades
Squarespace	$16/month	$23-40/month	Commerce features, email
WordPress	$4/month	$20-80/month	Hosting, themes, plugins, security

WordPress looks cheapest until you factor in hosting costs. Good WordPress hosting starts around $2.99/month but renewal prices jump to $9.99-$11.99/month after the first contract. I spend $50-100 setting up a WordPress site with decent hosting, a good theme, and important plugins. Then there's $20-50 monthly for quality hosting.

Wix starts reasonable but apps add up fast:

• Need appointment booking? $10/month

• Advanced analytics? Another $15

• Email marketing? $20 more

Squarespace keeps things simpler with fewer add-ons, but their commerce plans get expensive if selling anything.

How Easy Are They to Use? My Test

Last month, I timed myself building identical restaurant websites on all three platforms. Here's what happened:

Time to Complete Comparison

1. Wix (2.5 hours total): The drag-and-drop editor felt familiar right away. I had a working site with menu, contact form, and booking system in under three hours. The AI assistant helped choose colors and layout, though I ignored most of its suggestions.

2. Squarespace (4 hours): Took longer because I kept tweaking the design. their templates are too beautiful to leave alone. The learning curve isn't steep, but you need patience to learn how their system thinks about page layouts.

3. WordPress (8+ hours): Installing was easy with modern hosting, but choosing between thousands of plugins paralyzed me for an hour. Once I picked a theme and plugins, customization took forever. I'm still tweaking it.

Design and Customization: Where They Differ

This is where people get confused because they focus on template counts instead of what you can do with them.

Wix: Creative Freedom with Guardrails

Wix gives you 2,000+ templates, but more importantly, you can modify anything:

• Want to move that button three pixels left? Simple.

• Need to change fonts on just one page? No problem.

The downside? Creating ugly websites is effortless. I've seen businesses spend weeks tweaking designs that looked better before they started. This is why customizing Wix templates strategically works well.

Squarespace: Opinionated Excellence

Their 180 templates sound limiting until you use them. Each template is crafted for specific industries with thoughtful typography, spacing, and color schemes. These constraints guide good design choices.

I rarely customize Squarespace sites heavily because they look good immediately. For creative businesses, this saves enormous time.

WordPress: Unlimited Everything

WordPress is the open source publishing platform of choice for millions of websites worldwide. from creators and small businesses to enterprises. WordPress doesn't limit you at all:

• Want to build a social network? There's a plugin.

• Need a learning management system? Multiple options exist.

• Custom post types? Straightforward.

This flexibility comes with responsibility: managing security updates, plugin conflicts, and performance improvement. It offers power but requires work.

SEO: The Performance Gap

SEO advice usually focuses on features, but I care about results. These are my observations across dozens of client sites:

WordPress Wins by a Mile

WordPress sites consistently rank better in my experience. The combination of:

• Yoast SEO or Rank Math

• Custom schema markup

• Fine-tuned technical improvement

...creates advantages other platforms can't match.

I can improve page speed, control crawl budget, implement advanced redirects, and customize everything for search engines. For competitive industries, this makes a big difference.

Wix Has Improved Big Time

Two years ago, Wix SEO was terrible. Today, it's genuinely good for most businesses:

• The SEO Wiz walks beginners through improvement steps

• Semrush integration provides keyword research inside the platform

• Sites now load faster with cleaner code

I'm getting solid search results for local businesses that don't compete with major brands.

Squarespace: Basic but Functional

Squarespace handles SEO basics well:

• Clean URLs

• Mobile improvement

• SSL certificates

• Structured data for some content types

But businesses can't install SEO plugins, customize schema markup, or implement advanced improvement strategies. For many creative businesses, this doesn't hurt. For content-heavy sites competing for traffic, it's limiting.

Performance and Speed: What Counts

Page speed affects everything: search rankings, user experience, and conversion rates. If loading speed is bad, you're risking 6% revenue losses and 11% fewer pageviews per 1s wait time.

Here's what I've measured:

• WordPress: Ranges from lightning-fast to painfully slow depending on hosting, theme, and plugins. A well-improved WordPress site loads in 1-2 seconds. A poorly managed one can take 6+ seconds.

• Wix: Consistently loads in 2-3 seconds across their CDN. Performance improved greatly in 2024, and most business sites perform adequately.

• Squarespace: Reliable 2-4 second load times with their managed hosting. Businesses can't improve much, but don't need to worry about performance issues.

Testing site performance with tools like Google PageSpeed Insights gives clear data on webpage speed for free, analyzing performance on desktop and mobile.

Support: When Things Go Wrong

Squarespace Support is Excellent

They offer immediate conversations and helpful answers from their award-winning Customer Support team. Live chat responds with knowledgeable help. Email support is thorough and patient with beginners.

Wix Support Varies by Plan

Customers on higher plans get phone support and priority assistance. Free and basic plan users rely mostly on documentation and community forums.

WordPress Support Doesn't Exist Officially

When using WordPress, businesses rely on hosting companies, plugin developers, and community forums. This works well if the business is technical, but beginners struggle. The platform is supported by a diverse collective of people collaborating from around the world, but official support channels don't exist like they do with commercial platforms.

How to Choose Based on What Business Needs

Forget feature comparisons. Here's how to choose based on your specific circumstances:

Choose Wix When:

• You need a good website launched this month

• Time is more valuable than perfect customization

• You want predictable costs without surprises

• Running a service business, restaurant, or local company

• Technical website management sounds miserable

Choose Squarespace When:

• Visual appearance directly impacts business success

• You're a photographer, designer, artist, or creative

• You sell products with strong visual appeal

• You want great aesthetics without hiring a designer

• Website maintenance time should be minimal

Choose WordPress When:

• Building a content-heavy site or blog

• Custom functionality requirements are specific or complex

• SEO performance directly impacts revenue

• You have technical skills or budget for help

• Long-term scalability and flexibility are more important than immediate simplicity

My 2025 Winner

After building hundreds of websites, Wix gets my recommendation for 70% of small businesses. It balances usability, features, and cost better than alternatives while staying out of the way.

The platform has improved greatly. Features that required WordPress plugins two years ago are now built into Wix. Their AI tools speed up initial setup, and the App Market covers most business needs without technical complexity.

The Bottom Line

The best platform is the one that gets maintained and improved regularly. Choose based on business goals, not platform features. A well-maintained Wix site beats an abandoned WordPress installation every time.

Your website should grow the business, not consume time.

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