Finding the Right Website Builder: Bluehost vs. Squarespace Compared

Comparing Bluehost vs Squarespace is like comparing apples to oranges because they are completely different types of platforms helping you build your website, blog, or online store.

Bluehost and Squarespace’s end goal is to help you create and launch your website or shop, online. But they do it differently.

Squarespace is a website builder company that comes with hosting included. Bluehost is a web hosting company that comes with website building tools included.

In the following Bluehost vs Squarespace comparison post, we shine a light on two popular platforms that help users create websites, blogs, and online stores.

Bluehost vs Squarespace: TL;DR

Bluehost is a better hosting service than Squarespace by far. They offer cheaper plans, good performance, more support options, and a lot of site building flexibility compared to Squarespace.

Squarespace offers lots of great features that are all built-in, and is great for anyone wanting a good looking website up and running quickly that doesn’t mind paying the higher price.

In the upcoming sections, we look at important factors such as features, performance, pricing, support, as well as the pros and cons – to help you make an educated decision when comparing Bluehost vs Squarespace.

Bluehost vs Squarespace: Main Hosting Features

Bluehost

What used to be a run of the mill host back in 2003 has grown into one of the largest web hosting companies powering over 2 million websites.

Bluehost is a popular option for many beginners looking to launch a personal blog, a small business website, or an online store.

They offer you shared hosting, WordPress hosting, VPS hosting, and dedicated server hosting.

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For our Bluehost vs Squarespace comparison, however, I only focus on the shared hosting plans, which offer you a wide range of features such as:

Each Bluehost shared hosting plan (starting at just $2.95/mo) comes with 30-day money-back guarantee, $200 Google + Bing Ad credits, Google My Business, resource protection, scalability and 24/7/365 support.

Squarespace

Squarespace, on the other hand, is a website builder much like Wix.

To the absolute greenhorn among us, a website builder is simply a tool that helps you to create a website visually without coding knowledge.

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Squarespace is a SaaS-based website builder that helps to whip up beautiful websites in record time.

All you need is an internet connection and an account to start building websites on Squarespace. It’s an excellent solution for beginners who don’t have the time or money to invest in bespoke website solutions.

They start you off with a free trial with the hope that you’ll latch onto one of their paid plans. To help you, they provide several templates that you can customize to fit your needs.

That being said, Squarespace runs on a custom CMS, meaning you cannot install apps like WordPress, Magento, Joomla, and so on. You’re also limited to their designs, which limits your creative freedom.

How does Squarespace stack up against Bluehost in the features department? They offer four price plans, which come with the following features.

Each plan comes with image CDN, Getty Images integration, social media functionality, 24/7 support, and 14-day free trial.

Winner is: Bluehost is the winner hands down. While Squarespace allows you to create a website quickly, Bluehost offers more features. If you’re looking to create a great online store, for instance, Bluehost offers you more features than Squarespace.

At Bluehost, you can install WordPress, Magento, OpenCart, or WooCommerce and start selling right away. At Squarespace, you will need the Advanced Commerce plan and some patience trying to learn the ropes.

But that’s understandable since Bluehost is primarily a web host, and Squarespace is mostly a website builder. The latter offers you the tools to create any website imaginable and extend it with APIs, plugins, add-ons, and so on. Squarespace offers you inbuilt stores with basic features, but not as many as Bluehost.

Bluehost vs Squarespace: Support, Speed & Performance

When you’re stuck in the woods, you need all the help you can get. We all love surrounding ourselves with people who can help when the s**t hits the fan. Bluehost vs Squarespace, who offers better customer support?

Bluehost offers you award-winning 24/7/365 customer service through a number of channels:

• Phone
• Live chat with real people – I waited 3 minutes to chat an agent
• Knowledgebase

Squarespace provides stellar support via:

• Knowledge base, community forum and webinars
• Live chat available Monday to Thursday between 4AM to 6PM EDT (so much for the 24/7 promise)
• Email & Twitter

In terms of performance, Squarespace did poorly. Bluehost offered better uptime, faster page load speeds, and server response times.

That’s mainly because the Squarespace CMS incorporates more (unnecessary) scripts than, say, a WordPress website hosted at Bluehost.

A simple website containing the same info at Bluehost loaded 2.5x faster than a similar website at Squarespace. If you can spare some free time, you can try some experiments at GTMetrix and Pingdom Tools.

Winner is: Bluehost is the clear winner in terms of support, speed, and performance. They not only offer more support options, but their support rep was also friendly and answered all my questions.

When I tried Squarespace live chat support, a bot kept sending me canned messages from the other end. Suffice to say; I didn’t get answers to most of my questions because the bot was still “learning.”

If you are looking for excellent performance, you’re better off at Bluehost. Scaling your resources at Bluehost is straightforward and cost-effective.

We can’t say the same about Squarespace. You need to know your future needs in advance to remain cost-effective when scaling up.

Matters speed, Bluehost is faster than Squarespace thanks to a lean approach to website building. You are also free to optimize your website for faster speeds using caching plugins.

Bluehost vs Squarespace: Plans & Prices

We’ve already covered the features that Bluehost and Squarespace offer, but how much do they cost? Which is the cheaper option? The better question is: Which hosting company offers the best value for money?

Bluehost offers you four price plans:

• Basic plan that costs $2.95/month
• Plus plan costing $5.45 per month
• Choice Plus plan going for $5.45 a month
• Pro plan at $13.95 monthly

Note that you only get these discounted prices if you sign up for 36 months, i.e., a 3-year term.

Similarly, Squarespace has four prices plans, but they can’t compare with Bluehost:

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• Personal plan that costs $12/month if your pay annually ($16 if you pay monthly)
• Business plan that retails at $18 bucks per month when you pay yearly ($26 if you pay monthly)
• Basic Commerce plan at $26 per month (billed annually), $30 when billed monthly
• Advanced Commerce costing $40 per month when you pay annually. $46 per month when you pay monthly

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Winner is: Bluehost is the cheaper web host and has the best value for money. Even with their Advanced Commerce plan, Squarespace cannot offer you the features that Bluehost offers.

You have more flexibility at Bluehost, and more leeway to create your website just as you envisioned it in your mind. Squarespace limits you in terms of features and creative freedom.

And of course, there is the $200 worth of marketing credits you get at Bluehost. Squarespace offers you just $100.

Bluehost vs Squarespace: Pros & Cons

Bluehost Pros

• 24/7/365 support
• Affordable hosting plans
• High performance with effortless scaling
• Unlimited bandwidth, storage, emails, and domain hosting
• Free domain name
• WordPress, Joomla, Magenta and other CMSes

Bluehost Cons

• No Windows-based hosting
• Cheap hosting but you must sign up for long terms
• Support can be slow at times
• No free site migrations

Squarespace Pros

• Pre-made site templates
• Expert and friendly support as long as you catch them during working hours
• iOS mobile app to edit your site on your smartphone
• Blogging features

Squarespace Cons

• Poor usability of the website editor
• Not suitable for multi-language websites
• Not suitable for larger websites with deep menu hierachy
• Poor page speeds

Summary

Without a doubt, Bluehost is the ultimate winner today. They offer lower prices, more features, better performance, and exceptional support. Squarespace would probably fare better in a Squarespace vs Wix comparison.

When you pit Bluehost vs Squarespace, you’re practically comparing two different animals. But as far as hosting goes, Bluehost is the better option for you. So, why not try it now?

Find out how Bluehost compares against Wix.