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ZDNET’s key takeaways
- Wix takes the win for small business websites, blogs, or services.
- Squarespace is best suited for portfolios or creative sites.
- Depending on the size of your online store, both website builders are a good option for e-commerce.
I spent an entire afternoon building the exact same website on Wix and Squarespace. Same business, same goals, same afternoon. And within the first 10 minutes on each platform, I already knew which one I’d pick.
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I tried building a website for a roofing service company called “Roofing Stars,” based in Cape Town, South Africa. The kind of company that installs solar panel roofs and does sensor-based leak detection (fancy stuff, I know). I picked this because it’s a real-world use case.
I went through the full setup on both platforms. Signed up fresh, used their AI builders, answered their onboarding questions, watched them generate prototypes, and then spent time in both editors, tweaking, adding sections, and trying to make the site look like something a customer would trust. By the end of it, I had two fully functional websites and a very clear opinion on which platform does what better (and why).
Is Wix or Squarespace better?
Wix starts with an AI chat (you do get an option to build it from scratch too). You describe your business, and it asks smart follow-up questions. It asked me how my roofing company is different from competitors. I mentioned solar panel integration and sensor-based leak detection, and it actually used those details later in the site copy and imagery. That felt impressive.
The problem here was that after the chat, Wix dropped me on a setup checklist instead of showing me the site. It had various options like Connect a domain, Set up forms, and Add a blog. The actual “Design your site” option was buried as step 8. For someone excited to see what the AI built, that’s a momentum killer.
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On the other hand, Squarespace asked me two things. What’s your site about? What do you want to do with it? That’s it. And in no time, I was looking at a live preview of my site. I typed my business name and watched it appear on the preview in real time. Then I picked a brand personality (Bold), chose sections for my homepage, selected a color palette, and paired fonts. Every choice updated the preview instantly.
The whole thing took about 3 to 5 minutes. But unlike Wix, I wasn’t waiting for a finished product. I was making decisions and watching the site take shape. By the end, I understood exactly why my site looked the way it did. Because I chose every piece of it.
However, Squarespace’s content was thinner. It never asked about my USPs, so it couldn’t write detailed copy the way Wix did.
An example of Wix’s onboarding experience.
Screenshot by Pawan Singh/ZDNET
Wix’s editor is an unstructured drag-and-drop playground. You can move any element anywhere on the page. The Add button opens up a massive library: text blocks, images (including AI-generated ones based on your business), graphics, buttons, forms, and videos. You can upload media from your computer, Facebook, Instagram, Dropbox, Google Drive, or just paste a URL.
When you want to add a new section to the page, Wix gives you three options: Pick from pre-built design templates, start with a blank section, or describe what you want, and Aria will generate it with AI. Not to forget, that third option doesn’t exist on Squarespace. So, if you know what you want but can’t design it yourself, this is a big deal.
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Meanwhile, Squarespace’s editor is structured. Elements snap into rows and columns. You can’t drag a heading to some random floating position, and that’s actually a good thing. Your site looks clean and balanced, even if you have zero design instinct.
The “Add Section” experience is template-first. You get a library of pre-built sections categorized by purpose: Introduce, Sell, Showcase. Click one, and it drops into your page, inheriting your brand personality, color palette, and fonts automatically. No extra adjustments needed. The templates are fewer than Wix’s, but noticeably more polished and modern.
What Squarespace doesn’t have is an AI section generator. Your options are either templates or just a blank box. That’s it.
An example of Squarespace’s editing experience.
Screenshot by Pawan Singh/ZDNET
Wix treats SEO like a project with a checklist. And a thorough one. Every page gets its own SEO panel where you can set a focus keyword, title tag, meta description, heading structure, alt text, and indexing preferences. There’s a live Google preview so you can see exactly how your page will look in search results. And there’s an “Optimize With AI” button at the top that lets Aria suggest improvements.
Beyond on-page stuff, Wix has an entire Marketing Home dashboard. SEO setup, Google Business Profile, Google Tag tracking, social media posting with AI-generated captions, email marketing, Facebook and Instagram ads, coupons, and a Link in Bio tool. All under one roof. It also integrates with Semrush for keyword research and has newer AI Visibility tools that track how your site shows up in ChatGPT and Google’s AI Overview.
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Squarespace keeps it simpler. The SEO panel covers the essentials: site name, service location, SEO topics, and per-page metadata editing.
The highlight here is the Beacon AI metadata tool. Squarespace auto-generates meta titles and descriptions for every page you create and shows you a search result preview. You can edit them or hit “Regenerate” for a fresh suggestion. If you don’t know what a meta description is, this means your site still ships with working metadata instead of blank fields. That’s huge for beginners.
There’s also an SEO Score dashboard. Mine showed 60% complete right after setup, with clear flags for missing metadata and alt text. And Squarespace explicitly calls this section “Search Engine / AI Optimization,” coaching users on AI search visibility alongside traditional SEO.
An example of Wix’s checklist.
Screenshot by Pawan Singh/ZDNET
Wix doesn’t let you sell until you upgrade to the Core plan at $29/mo. But once you’re there, the e-commerce ecosystem gets serious. You can list up to 50,000 products. There’s native dropshipping through Modalyst and AliExpress. Print on demand through Printful and Printify. And multichannel selling across Amazon, eBay, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Google Shopping, and YouTube, all managed from one dashboard.
Wix also throws in AI-powered product descriptions, an AI image editor for product photos, and AI product recommendations at checkout. Abandoned cart recovery and loyalty programs are built in. The POS works on both iOS and Android (Squarespace is iOS only). And the app marketplace adds hundreds of commerce extensions for reviews, advanced shipping, accounting, and more.
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You can sell on every Squarespace plan. Even the $16/mo Basic. That plan charges a 2% transaction fee on product sales and 7% on digital content and memberships, but it works. Upgrade to Core at $23/mo, and those fees drop to 0%.
Out of the box, you get physical and digital product support, subscriptions, inventory management with low-stock alerts, automated tax calculation (US, EU, UK), flexible shipping rules, gift cards, product waitlists, and social commerce with Instagram and Facebook. Abandoned cart recovery kicks in on higher plans. There’s also a POS option for selling in person, but it’s iOS only.
If you’re a small shop testing the waters, Squarespace gets you selling for $13/mo less, and the storefront looks great out of the box. However if you’re planning to scale (big catalog, multiple sales channels, dropshipping, loyalty programs), Wix has the deeper toolkit. Pick based on where your business is headed, not just where it is right now.
Wix has more templates. Squarespace has better ones. That’s the simplest way to put it.
Wix offers over 900 templates (and over 2,000 if you count what Harmony can generate). You’ll find something for almost any niche. But the quality varies. Some templates look sharp and modern. Others feel like they haven’t been updated in a while. It’s a mixed bag, and you’ll need to spend time browsing to find a good one.
Squarespace has around 195 templates. Way fewer. But every single one looks like it was made by a professional designer (because it was). There’s no digging through mediocre options hoping to find a gem. They’re all gems.
An example of the design aspects of Wix.
Screenshot by Pawan Singh/ZDNET
Wix gives you more ways to get help. Live chat is available 24/7, and you can request a phone callback (you don’t dial them, they call you) around the clock in English with selected hours for other languages. Business Elite plan holders get priority in the callback queue, so they receive faster response times when things go wrong.
On the other hand, Squarespace leans more on written support. Email is available 24/7, with responses typically within 24 to 48 hours. Live chat with a human is available on weekdays only (4 AM to 8 PM Eastern). There is no phone support for regular customers.
Final verdict: Which one should you pick?
The “Wix or Squarespace” question doesn’t have one answer. It depends on what you’re actually trying to build. Here’s a quick breakdown by use case.
Portfolio or creative site
Go with Squarespace. This isn’t even close. If you’re a photographer, designer, artist, or anyone who needs their work to look stunning online, Squarespace’s templates are built for exactly this. Every layout is polished, the fonts are clean, and the mobile version looks just as good as the desktop. Wix or Squarespace for portfolio? Squarespace, every time.
Small business brochure site
Slight edge to Wix. Here’s why. Wix’s AI actually understands your business. You give it your USPs, and it writes copy, picks relevant images, and builds service sections that make sense. Squarespace gives you a prettier frame, but you’ll have to fill in the content yourself. If you already know your messaging, Squarespace works great. If you’re starting from zero and want help with the words on the page, Wix saves you hours.
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Online store
Depends on the size. Small shop with a handful of products? Squarespace. You can start selling at $16/mo and the checkout looks premium. Planning to scale with a big catalog, dropshipping, or multichannel selling on Amazon and TikTok? Wix. The e-commerce ecosystem is significantly deeper.
Blog
Wix has the edge. Dedicated blog dashboard, post-level analytics, scheduled publishing, and SEO controls baked into every post. Squarespace’s blog looks beautiful and works fine for casual blogging. But if content is a growth strategy for you, Wix gives you more data to work with.
Service business that takes bookings
Wix. Wix Bookings is built into the Core plan. Scheduling, calendar sync, payments, automated reminders. During my setup, Wix even asked if I wanted booking functionality and configured it automatically. Squarespace offers scheduling through Acuity, but that’s a separate add-on starting at $16/mo on top of your plan. If your business runs on appointments, that cost difference adds up fast.
Can I migrate from Wix to Squarespace?
Yes, but there’s no one-click migration tool. You’d need to rebuild your site on Squarespace and manually move your content over. Squarespace has a step-by-step guide for migrating from Wix, and you can transfer your domain between platforms. If you don’t want to do it yourself, you can hire a Squarespace Expert to handle it. Plan for a few days of work.
Can I switch my template after I start building?
No. Neither Wix nor Squarespace lets you swap templates once you’ve started building on one. If you want a different template, you’re starting over from scratch. This is why it’s worth spending time picking the right one upfront, especially on Wix, where the template quality varies more.
Do I need coding skills to use Wix or Squarespace?
Not at all. Both platforms are built for people with zero technical background. Everything is drag-and-drop or click-to-edit. Squarespace does offer CSS and JavaScript customization on its Core plan and above if you want to go deeper, and Wix has Velo (a developer platform) for advanced users. But for building a normal business website, you won’t write a single line of code on either.
