Weebly vs Squarespace Compared – Which Is Better Option?

Which is a better option when comparing Weebly vs Squarespace? Let’s briefly review their features and ease of use to help you decide which option is a better fit for your next online project.

Weebly and Squarespace are both industry-leading website builders, but they will each be suited to a different group of people. Weebly is known for its foolproof editing interface and advanced eCommerce, while Squarespace offers top-of-the-range templates and exceptional design features.

 

Weebly vs Squarespace

In this comparison, I looked closely at Weebly vs Squarespace in terms of ease of use, design flexibility, performance, business features, and more to help you decide which is the better choice for you and your needs.

Weebly and Squarespace are quite similar website builders that offer powerful eCommerce features and a suite of marketing tools.

Weebly offers more choice than Squarespace with its free forever and cheap custom domain plans for users on a budget. On the other hand, even if they are more expensive, Squarespace’s plans come with advanced features, which means you certainly get what you pay for.

 

Weebly vs Wix comparison.

 

Weebly also comes out ahead on ease of use besides being more affordable than Squarespace. Its website builder isn’t the most powerful on the market, but it’s intuitive and beginner-friendly.

Squarespace’s editor is slightly more powerful, but it’s a little confusing and can be hard to get started with. However, that’s only a small price for all the customizations and features offered.

Squarespace also offers a greater selection of templates and more attractive designs than Weebly, making it an excellent choice for those who want a site that stands out aesthetically.

 

Squarespace website builder overview.

 

Both Weebly and Squarespace offer great marketing tools, analytics, and SEO. Although Weebly is better known for its eCommerce features, its competitor doesn’t perform too poorly either.

Squarespace quite recently expanded its pool of features by starting to offer third-party integrations – mainly to cover up for the lack of eCommerce tools that it was previously lacking.

Websites built with Squarespace excel on the performance front, while Weebly sites aren’t as well optimized and seem to be hosted on inferior servers.

Both Weebly and Squarespace are great options for those who want a functional, trouble-free website builder that offers a range of powerful business tools and features. Weebly is easier to use, but Squarespace takes its crown on the other fronts.

NOTE: I have also compared Weebly vs GoDaddy, Weebly vs Wix, Squarespace vs WordPress, Squarespace vs Shopify, Squarespace vs Wix, Squarespace vs GoDaddy and Squarespace vs BigCommerce.

 

Ease Of Use

Comparing Weebly and Squarespace in terms of how easy they are to use is quite an interesting topic. Weebly has a reputation for its foolproof editor, but Squarespace is known to be quite confusing for beginners.

I looked at how easy it was to sign up for a new account and start building your website with Weebly and Squarespace. Following this, I explored each builder more deeply, focusing on how beginner-friendly different elements were.

 

Getting Started

It’s important to think carefully about how easy different website builders make to start a new website. Both Weebly and Squarespace let you sign up with Facebook and Google, and neither ask for personal details beyond your name and email address.

Starting a new website with Weebly is as straightforward as clicking the “add site” button and following the prompts. First, I was asked whether I wanted to build a simple website or a website with an integrated online store.

 

Weebly dashboard.
Weebly account dashboard.

 

I selected the online store option to explore Weebly’s eCommerce features in more depth.

Once I told Weebly I wanted to build an online store, I was guided through a quick, five-step questionnaire asking me for a store name, details about my eCommerce experience, and what sort of products I was planning on selling.

I answered these questions and was taken to the Weebly dashboard, where I could choose a theme and start editing my website. Overall, getting started with Weebly was a quick process that took only a couple of minutes.

Squarespace also lets users start a new website with no more than a few mouse clicks. But, it does work a bit differently from Weebly.

The first thing I had to do was choose a design template for my new website. Squarespace doesn’t offer a huge range of templates, but the ones it provides are professionally built and very appealing.

I chose an eCommerce template to facilitate a fair comparison between Squarespace and Weebly. I did spend a bit of time choosing an attractive design, but once I had, I was taken straight to Squarespace’s website editor.

Both Weebly and Squarespace are straightforward for starting a website. Neither of them took me more than a couple of minutes from the time I signed up for a new account until the time I was editing my site.

 

Website Editor

Weebly has a reputation across the web for being beginner-friendly and intuitive. On the other hand, Squarespace can be much more confusing and harder to use. I noted these sentiments but also worked through both builders and explored how their editors functioned.

I was quite impressed with Weebly’s editing interface. It has a functional layout, with a toolbar on the left and a navigation menu at the top.

 

Weebly website builder.
Weebly website builder.

 

I liked how quickly I could personalize my Weebly site’s existing content. Elements are separated into blocks, which can be moved around the page, added, and removed as needed. Each block can be customized by clicking on it and changing things via a small editing menu.

 

Weebly drag and drop feature.
Weebly drag and drop feature.

 

New blocks can be added via the toolbar on the left-hand side of Weebly’s editor. You can add anything to your site by clicking on the relevant block and dragging it into position. On top of this, you can add code blocks that will let you include custom elements or features.

Weebly doesn’t give you much design flexibility. You can’t drag and drop blocks into pixel-perfect positions, and resizing is sometimes difficult.

This lack of flexibility is one of the things that make Weebly so beginner-friendly. Ultimately, forcing you to stick to a pre-coded layout makes it harder to get things wrong, even if you have very limited design experience.

One more feature which deserves mention is Weebly’s App Center. It lets you integrate advanced marketing, SEO, social, and eCommerce tools with your website. I love the range of apps on offer, and I’d definitely recommend at least having a look at them.

 

Weebly app center.
Weebly app center.

 

Once I’d finished playing with the Weebly editor, I quickly explored the rest of its dashboard. Weebly’s management dashboard is intuitive and beginner-friendly as the editing interface. It lets you look after your store, provides in-depth visitor analytics, and offers some great marketing tools.

Unlike Weebly, Squarespace’s editing interface didn’t appeal to me immediately. It has a much more basic layout, and I didn’t know where to go to get started. In the end, I began by exploring the different tabs and working out how to customize my site’s content.

 

Squarespace creating website.
Squarespace editor.

 

I eventually found a button that let me enter editing mode, but things didn’t get any less confusing. Squarespace appears to break its websites into sections, and I could only edit one section at a time. To move on to the next section, I had to exit the editor, find the section I wanted to modify, and re-enter the editor.

However, changing the content and structure of each section wasn’t too hard. Squarespace elements are added as individual blocks, and each block can be modified through the small popup menu that appears when you click on it.

 

Squarespace content elements.
Squarespace content elements.

 

New element blocks can be added to the section you’re editing via another popup menu. I will say that I was impressed with the range of different element blocks that could be added, which includes things like image galleries, contact forms, and music players.

Squarespace also lets you manage your website’s sections. You can add and remove sections as needed, and reordering existing sections is as easy as dragging and dropping them where you want them.

Once I’d finished with the editor, I also had a quick look around the rest of Squarespace’s management dashboard. Like Weebly, it gives you access to a great range of marketing and analytics tools, along with an intuitive eCommerce interface and impressive help resources.

Squarespace prides itself on offering native solutions for pretty much everything. While Weebly lets you integrate apps to add advanced features to your website, Squarespace has most things built in.

A great example of this is Squarespace’s promotional banners and popups. They can be added at the click of a button and come with various functions, including gaining more email subscribers and offering special deals.

I didn’t find Squarespace too confusing to use. It took me a few minutes to get the hang of, but I enjoyed how its editor works once I figured it out.

 

EASE OF USE WINNER: Weebly definitely still comes out ahead on the ease of use front. Squarespace isn’t too bad, but it will take some getting used to – especially if you’re a website building novice.

 

Templates

Neither Weebly nor Squarespace offer a huge range of website templates, but Squarespace is more known for its beautiful designs. However, neither are industry leaders on the design flexibility front, but they perform pretty well.

For starters, Weebly’s template library is very limited. It only contains around 40 different designs, and some of these are quite generic as well. For example, six templates are tailored toward event websites, while another eight are designed for blogs.

 

Weebly builder templates.
Weebly template library.

 

Weebly’s limited selection of templates is actually a blessing in disguise. Because it only offers a handful, Weebly’s developers can keep them up to date and at the forefront of modern design trends.

Unfortunately, Weebly’s website editor doesn’t offer complete customization potential further compounds the problem. It doesn’t allow pixel-perfect design flexibility, which means Weebly sites can sometimes look a little generic.

 

Weebly theme customization options.
Weebly theme customization.

 

Squarespace provides more than 90 design templates. They are categorized on a much deeper level than Weebly’s, and many of them are built for specific purposes.

I found Squarespace’s designs much more advanced and visually appealing than Weebly’s. I expected this because Squarespace is known for being an industry leader on the design front.

 

Squarespace templates.
Squarespace available templates example.

 

Unfortunately, Squarespace offers somewhat limited design flexibility as well, but it isn’t as bad as Weebly. It gives you access to your site’s code files, which means you can fine-tune your design if you want to do more than the editor lets you.

 

TEMPLATES WINNER: Squarespace comes ahead of Weebly on the template and design front. It offers more templates, more attractive designs, and slightly better customizability.

 

Business Features

Weebly and Squarespace offer a range of powerful tools for business. Weebly focuses on eCommerce and provides excellent marketing features with its higher-end plans. Squarespace also offers online store solutions and a range of native SEO and other marketing tools.

 

eCommerce

Weebly eCommerce features are extensive. Since Weebly markets itself as an industry-leading eCommerce provider, I spent some time comparing it to Squarespace’s in-house eCommerce tools. I looked at each online store’s features and capabilities to see who really comes out on top.

Weebly claims to offer industry-leading eCommerce features. It certainly doesn’t compare to providers like Shopify or BigCommerce, but it’s getting there. After all, primarily, Weebly is a website builder and not an eCommerce platform.

One of my favorite things about Weebly is that it’s quite scalable, allowing you to grow your store over time.

At the same time, I also like the great range of selling tools that Weebly offers. You can create coupons and discount codes, integrate customer reviews, and add product badges, among other things.

 

Weebly eCommerce features.
Weebly eCommerce features.

 

Weebly also offers a range of powerful payment options through its partnership with industry-leading eCommerce software provider Square.

Weebly makes ongoing store management very straightforward. For one, it comes with a powerful automatic shipping tool to help you calculate the correct rates. At the same time, it also gives you access to a great inventory and order management dashboard.

Weebly is a great website builder for those who want to add eCommerce to their website.

Squarespace is almost as good, if not better. Although it doesn’t market its eCommerce capabilities as much as Weebly, Squarespace offers powerful online selling tools, and comparing the two, they’re a bit more user-friendly.

 

Squarespace analytics.
Squarespace analytics dashboard example.

 

If you had any experience with this website builder, you might have formed a different opinion. However, Squarespace grows daily to fill in the gaps of the features it lacked before.

I’m a big fan of the sales features that Squarespace offers. Attractively presenting your products is essential to eCommerce, and Squarespace excels here.

At the same time, Squarespace places no restrictions on the number of items you can sell. This makes it a good option for small to medium-sized stores with high sales figures or many products.

It also comes with a robust inventory and order management system accessed through your website’s dashboard.

Squarespace lets you sell more than just physical products. You can also sell subscriptions, digital content, event tickets, and more. If you want, you can even collect donations.

Although I expected Weebly’s eCommerce offerings to surpass Squarespace’s, they didn’t. Weebly probably takes the points because it’s more scalable, but Squarespace certainly isn’t a worse choice for those wanting to integrate an online store with their website.

 

Marketing

Which offers more features when it comes to marketing? Squarespace or Weebly? Both come with integrated SEO tools, allowing you to connect your social media and Google accounts.

From Weebly marketing features, I would single out fast social media integrations and advanced SEO features. Its top-end eCommerce plan also includes a subscription to Weebly Promote, its in-house email marketing platform. It also collects and presents a range of statistics to help you direct your marketing efforts.

 

Sending email in Weebly.
Weebly email marketing.

 

Squarespace essentially offers the same marketing tools and features as Weebly. It also allows you to integrate your social media accounts, comes with powerful SEO tools to help your site get found, and includes effective email marketing.

The main difference with Squarespace is that most of its features are built into its dashboard, while many of Weebly’s marketing tools need to be added via apps and plugins.

Squarespace and Weebly stack up pretty evenly on the marketing front, and it’s hard to choose a winner.

 

BUSINESS WINNER: Squarespace manages to offer better business features than Weebly. Both providers are relatively even regarding their marketing features, but Squarespace manages to overthrow Weebly in the eCommerce field with its freshly added extensions.

 

Pricing

Pricing is a significant consideration for people trying to choose between Squarespace or Weebly. Squarespace offers four plans that range from $14/month to $49/month. On the other hand, Weebly pricing appears cheaper, going from free forever to $38/month.

Weebly offers a functional Free plan that lets users test its website builder out, but it comes with extremely limited website resources and a branded sub-domain.

If you’d like to connect your own domain and unlock more advanced features, Weebly’s Connect plan costs just $5/month. Although it really only lets you connect a custom domain, it’s much more affordable than Squarespace’s cheapest subscription.

Before I mentioned that Weebly appears cheaper. Why? Well, that’s where confusion with Weebly’s pricing kicks in. It offers one pricing structure before creating an account, and then if you decide to upgrade from within your dashboard, you’re welcomed by a completely different pricing spectrum.

So you should not follow your first impression regarding Weebly’s pricing landing page as the information is completely different when trying to upgrade your site from within. However, that doesn’t change the fact that Weebly is a more affordable option than Squarespace.

At first glance, Squarespace appears to be significantly more expensive than Weebly. Its cheapest plan comes at $14/month, compared to Weebly’s free subscription.

However, I found that Squarespace’s plans offer impressive features that justify its relatively high prices – it just doesn’t have any low-end plans.

For example, Squarespace’s Personal plan gives you unlimited bandwidth and storage, a free custom domain, an SSL security certificate, and more.

It also comes with 24/7 customer support and basic analytics tools. Although more expensive than Weebly’s Free and Connect/Personal plans, it obviously offers many more features.

Squarespace’s Business plan ($23/month) lets you edit your site’s code, add an online store, and access advanced analytics tools. Upgrading to the Basic Commerce plan ($27/month) will give you access to more eCommerce tools, while the Advanced Commerce plan ($49/month) unlocks all online store features.

It’s important to note that although Squarespace doesn’t offer a free forever plan, it does give new users a two-week free trial. You don’t have to enter any credit card or payment details until your free trial has finished. I’d recommend taking advantage of this to try Squarespace’s builder out.

 

WINNER: Squarespace and Weebly actually aren’t all that different on the pricing front. Weebly offers a cheaper starting point with fewer features available. Meanwhile, Squarespace provides excellent price-to-value subscriptions.

 

Squarespace vs Weebly Verdict

Comparing Weebly with Squarespace shows that although they are two very similar website builders, each stands out for different reasons. Weebly is more beginner-friendly and offers cheaper entry-level subscriptions, while Squarespace provides more attractive design templates and better performance.

Weebly does come out ahead of Squarespace in terms of how easy its website builder is to use, but it falls well behind with its small template library. Its free forever subscription is a great way for beginners to get familiar with its builder and its paid plans aren’t too expensive.

On the other hand, Squarespace offers superior performance compared to Weebly. Its website builder is more confusing, but it’s also more powerful once you get the hang of it.

Squarespace also slightly overpowers Weebly in terms of business features. With the constantly growing eCommerce features list, Squarespace took its crown back from Weebly and remained the number one website builder with an in-house eCommerce solution.

I’d recommend Weebly for those who want to take advantage of a beginner-friendly website builder with an intuitive editing interface and strong eCommerce features. Squarespace is a better choice for those who wish to access beautiful design templates and great performance.

 

Alternatives

There are few Weebly and Squarespace alternatives if those options are not precisely what you’re looking for.

 

Shopify

Shopify is arguably the world’s best eCommerce platform, and it’s a good choice for those who want to focus on their online store. It provides an extensive range of advanced selling features, analytics tools, and a usable website builder.

You can also check Shopify vs. BigCommerceShopify vs. WordPressShopify vs. Wix, Shopify vs. Volusion, and Shopify vs. WooCommerce comparison.

 

GoDaddy Website Builder

If your main goal is to get online quickly with the minimum fuss, then GoDaddy’s Website Builder is a good choice. It is quite simple, but it lets you build and publish basic sites within a few hours.

For more info, see GoDaddy vs. WordPress comparison.

 

Wix

Wix offers industry-leading design flexibility and customization through its powerful drag-and-drop editor. It’s a great GoDaddy and Weebly alternative for those who want to spend time personalizing their site and fine-tuning things.

Be sure to check Wix vs. JimdoWix vs. Webs, and Wix vs. Shopify comparison.

 

WordPress.com

WordPress.com is an excellent alternative for those who want to build an attractive blog website. It gives you access to huge template and plugin libraries and has been an industry leader for blogging for years.


DISCLOSURE: Posts may contain affiliate links. If you buy something through one of those links, I might get a small commission, without any extra cost to you. Read more about it here.

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