Squarespace seems to be on almost every other advert right now, so here at Strafe we’ve conducted a Squarespace review focussing not only on its website building capabilities but also its hosting and domain element.
The squarespace website builder is one of many all-in-one-solutions, so this review is going to look at the top 5 all-in-one providers as well as explore exactly what web and cloud hosting is and if it has any limitations.
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Web hosting is the key ingredient to making your website visible to others online. Your site and all its pages are stored on a physical server and maintained by the hosting provider. If you’ve used the Squarespace website builder then this can also be done by them as it is an all-in-one solution.
Cloud hosting, in much the same way as web hosting, stores your website and all its pages on a server so that they are visible online to others. However, the difference is that unlike Squarespace hosting and other web hosting providers, the servers are not physical, they are made up of a network of virtual servers, which can come with added benefits, although often at a greater cost.
Squarespace is often heralded as one of the best website builders and this is not only because of its actual website builder, but also because it is an all in one solution. You can build, host and register your domain name with Squarespace, but they aren’t the only ones offering this service. To see if Squarespace is worth it, we will review them alongside 4 others currently on the market.
Squarespace is one of the top rated platforms. The Squarespace website builder is intuitive, enabling users to effortlessly create professional websites, whether that's for showcasing a portfolio, managing bookings as a personal trainer, or creating an ecommerce store. It has over 150 templates which have been categorised making it easy to choose the right one for you.
Squarespace hosting is very reliable, ensuring fast loading times and optimal performance, and rather transparent. You can log onto their website and view all their data for the previous 90 days to view downtime for operations such as site loading and editing amongst many others.
Squarespace also offers domain registration services or alternatively the option to transfer your existing domain if you would rather keep it.
Although GoDaddy is mainly known for being one of the best domain registrars, it also offers members a very easy to use website builder and plenty of customisable templates. Members can take advantage of free professional imagery and built in tools for AI powered advice.
Web hosting starts from as little as £2.99/month and has a guaranteed uptime of 99.99%. And included in all hosting plans; free SSL certificate, daily backups, 24/7 network security, 1-click domain set up, global data centres and an easy to use control panel.
GoDaddy's domain registrar allows you to register, transfer and even find out the value of your current domain amongst many other options. They didn't get to be the no.1 domain registrar by doing things by half!
Wix is one of the most popular website builders available. Whether it's the simple and very intuitive drag and drop editor or the fact that there are over 800 professionally designed templates to choose from. Wix caters to virtually any type of individual or business, using ecommerce, SEO and scheduling tools, without any coding skills.
Wix provides free web hosting to all members using its platform and has a reliable uptime of 99.99%. Creating your site with Wix means that once you publish your site they automatically host it, no download needed. Wix also offers a custom domain free of charge on all their plans for 1 year.
Shopify is a huge global brand with some of the biggest brands and newest entrepreneurs using them as their go to provider. They are the specialists when it comes to commerce, with over 800 plugins to customise and grow the functionality of your site. The editor itself is easy to use and there are both free and paid themes that users can choose from.
Shopify offers free cloud hosting on all payment plans excluding the starter plan. This means unlimited bandwidth, automatic software updates and reliable loading where you are based globally.
Shopify allows for integration of your own domain or the option to buy a domain with them which will need to be renewed annually.
Known as one of the best hosting providers on the market, Hostinger is also a solid option for website building. The website builder uses a beginner friendly interface, with a drag and drop editor. It also has the option for sites to be created via AI just by answering a few questions.
Hostinger offers a free domain for one year to anyone who signs up for a hosting plan with a minimum of 12 months. Their hosting services are renowned for being reliable with fast loading times and 99.99% uptime. There are 4 different price plans for hosting and with global servers, no matter where you are you can guarantee a reliable service.
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When creating this Squarespace review, and any of the other website and hosting reviews we have conducted, there are 5 key areas that we use to evaluate the quality of a site. We know that if just a couple of these areas are off the mark then it will have a serious impact on the overall experience.
The whole USP for a website builder is its ease compared to building a site from scratch. And that should be inherent across the site and its different products. For example, transferring your existing domain should be a simple process that can be achieved in a timely manner, hosting your site should be automatic without the need for any downloads.
Our Squarespace hosting review found them to be reliable and transparent with their downtime. And having this reliability from your hosting provider is a must if you have a professional site. This means, even when there are spikes of traffic, the hosting provider should still be able to handle this without interruption for the end user.
It's vital to choose a provider that has solid security measures especially if you are requesting your customer's personal data. Any breaches of data will not only impact your customer but also the reputation of your business.
When first creating a site it's easy to get carried away with the aesthetics, especially when so many offer visually stunning templates. But looking past this and understanding how much the site can scale should you want it to can save your future self much frustration.
Here at Strafe, we believe that for a product with such a broad appeal as a website builder & hosting provider, there should be different pricing options available. It's impossible that one price fits all. Our Squarespace website review revealed it offers a total of 4 different pricing plans with a discount for those that pay annually rather than monthly. But not only should there be options, but pricing should be transparent and comparisons between the pricing plans should be simple to view and understand.
When conducting the Squarespace website builder review, it seemed only natural to look at the other solutions it provided, after all it classes itself as an all-in-one platform. And many of these all-in-one platforms boast that you don’t need to go anywhere else for your marketing, SEO or e-commerce tools.
But there can be a gulf between the quality of tools offered by the providers. And that gulf could see your website make the top of the page or never even make the first page. So as a minimum, we would look for basic SEO tools. But the purpose of your website will dictate the different tools you require. Do you just want a portfolio to display your photography for potential future clients or do you require a complete e-commerce store available to calculate the tax and shipping for hundreds of different countries whilst handling hundreds of different products and producing comprehensive reports and data.
One of the key areas to understanding if Squarespace is good, or any other provider, is to look at the reviews and look at the customer support that will be offered in the plan you choose. A good business needs to have the customer at the centre of its processes and decisions. And a big part of that is being able to reach out and receive a response and resolution to your issues.
In this next section, we will look at who hosting is most suitable for, dive a bit deeper into the differences between cloud and web hosting, lay out our step by step plan to signing up to a hosting provider and address some of the most frequently asked questions.
A hosting provider is for any individual or business, regardless of size/ niche/ type of site, that wants to be visible online. It is suited to anyone who would rather pay a professional provider either for hosting only or have it as part of a package such as with Squarespace hosting. It is suited to those who do not wish to host the site themselves as the thought of setting up the server and maintaining it seems too costly both in terms of time and money.
As mentioned earlier, the outcome of web hosting and cloud hosting is the same; a website that is visible online. But this is one of those, it's not about the destination but about the journey underlying infrastructure and resource allocation scenarios.
Web hosting is done on physical servers which can mean limited scalability and more chance of downtime and slower performance during peak traffic periods. Cloud hosting on the other hand uses a network of virtual servers that can spread content across multiple servers ensuring optimal performance even with traffic at its peak.
That's not to say everyone needs to change their plan to cloud hosting or be at the mercy of the physical server. Good web hosting providers are plentiful, incredibly reliable and can handle huge amounts of traffic, and unsurprisingly are usually the more cost effective of the two options.
Yes. you can purchase your domain from a domain registrar and then choose a completely different hosting provider and connect them using the domain's DNS settings. Or you can look at the all in one solutions discussed in this Squarespace review if you would rather keep everything in one place for simplicity.
Hosting providers can offer various assistive tools to help users manage and optimise their site. Some of the most popular are listed below:
Free hosting providers are ok. And ok is not what you need if you are trying to run a professional website. ‘Ok’ is ok for a hobby site or personal venture. But if you want a professional site with a competitive edge then a paid hosting provider will eventually be needed. However, this comes with a caveat for sites similar to Squarespace hosting, where hosting is included in their paid for pricing plans.
Although cloud and web based hosting with a professional provider is something that we would always recommend, it doesn’t mean it's without issues. Servers can be hacked, there can be connectivity issues resulting in major or partial outages and disruption. However, the risks will be the same, arguably greater, if you decide to host on your own server. And the alternative is to never launch your site. So although it comes with risks, using a professional hosting provider will minimise these risks enough to make it worth it.
Yes, Squarespace is a good website builder. Our latest guide explores the Squarespace builder alongside some alternatives which might help you decide which is the best site builder for your needs.
Squarespace is a legit site with added security features for all users regardless of their plan. To find out all the details on keeping your site secure then take a look at our latest guide.
Squarespace has a number of different pricing options available, to find out the details and if there is a free version then head on over to our latest guide.
Our latest Squarespace ecommerce review looks at the functions of the Squarespace platform alongside some alternatives that might be even better for an ecommerce store.
An all in one solution makes the process of building a website, registering a domain name and hosting the site so simple. And our mini Squarespace review has revealed that we are not limited when it comes to options. Yes, Squarespace seems like a great choice, it's transparent/ reliable/ intuitive, but, if it's not quite what you’re looking for then there are other providers.
Remember to always use a professional hosting provider, although a free one may seem like a good option when budgets are tight, in the long run you will be relieved that your website is secure, with fast loading times and online more than it is offline.
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