Certain companies in the market offer the service of registering domains and constructing websites through the Internet. Most businesses even offer pre-built templates for quickly putting out a website. Some companies provide free access, while others charge a fee to create a new website. These businesses also give excellent customer service. Squarespace, Wix, and Webflow are three different website-building firms. Such firms also assist in making portfolios.
Squarespace vs Wix vs Webflow
The main difference between Squarespace, Wix, and Webflow is that Squarespace is an American website building firm in New York. On the other hand, Wix is an Israeli firm, and Webflow, like Squarespace, is an American company based in San Francisco. Squarespace is the oldest website creation company among them, as it was created in 2004.
Anthony Casalena, a single individual, created, built, and founded Squarespace in 2004. Because he established Squarespace for his personal use while studying at the University of Maryland, he was the only one in this firm for two years in a row, till 2006. Gradually, Squarespace spread its wing and got famous.
In 2006, three expertise (Avishai Abrahami, Nadav Abrahami, and Giora Kaplan) established the Wix firm. With the assistance of Wix, a developer can create HTML 5 websites and mobile applications. It provides the facility of drag and drop of codes by minimizing the coding at the developer’s end.
Webflow was created in 2013 and is a software and application development company based in the United States. Three experts (Vlad Magdalin, Sergie Magdalin, and Bryant Chou) founded it. It operates on the principle of total customization, which eliminates the requirement for a set of codes. So, it provides excellent assistance for people who are not from a technical background.
Comparison Table Between Squarespace and Wix and Webflow
| Parameters of Comparison | Squarespace | Wix | Webflow |
| Created In | Squarespace was created in 2004. | Wix was created in 2006. | Webflow was created in 2013. |
| User-Friendly | Squarespace is user-friendly in some ways, yet it limits the user in others. | Wix is a very user-friendly platform. | Webflow is also user-friendly when compared with Squarespace and Wix. |
| Plans | Squarespace consists of only premium plans. | Wix provides both free and paid plans. | Webflow too provides free and paid plans. |
| Customers | Squarespace is highly used by small businesses to sell limited services. | Wix is also not a good choice for large businesses. | Webflow has clients that run large businesses. |
| Export Data | Squarespace provides the service of exporting data from a site in easy steps. | Wix does not allow users to export their content. | Webflow’s premium plans only allowed the exportation of data. |
What is Squarespace?
Squarespace is a company that allows people to build websites even if they are not familiar with coding. It consists of limited templates that users can choose and edit according to the theme and services of their website by making it attractive.
Squarespace has different plans for personal and professional use. Moreover, it provides the option of a free trial to check how our website will look and pay for the chosen plan if satisfied the design.
It is an excellent choice for developing personal websites and for small businesses for selling limited services as one can only sell up to 200 products. So, it is not a good option for building e-commerce sites.
Since this platform provides good SEO tools, searching for tags, links, sitemaps, codes, etcetera become easy. Moreover, it provides the service of viewing real-time analytics such as customer visits and their activity (including their keywords too).
It is even a good option for bloggers to blog online without paying hefty amounts. However, a search optimization engine is not present while creating such sites because one cannot edit the auto-generated title for better SEO. The other drawback is that it does not give the option of a preview button to preview the design before publishing.
What is Wix?
Wix is also a website-building service that enables non-technical users to create websites quickly and easily by utilizing several templates. When we first start building the website, we may select a theme by simply clicking on its name.
Once we have chosen the appropriate theme, two options come on the screen. One is to answer some asked questions. Depending on the answers, Wix’s artificial intelligence will create a website for us. The other option is to build the website on your own by choosing templates.
Template editing is a breeze with Wix. Moreover, it also allows the users to upload the website for free for taking suggestions from people on how it looks. Once we are satisfied with its looks and behavior on each device, we can purchase the package accordingly.
It has better SEO tools than Squarespace because it allows us to choose our titles without autogenerating them. Moreover, Wix helps the user to build the application at great speed.
Wix does not support large businesses because one cannot export the content from the Wix platform. If users try to transfer the data, it will be pricy and manually without ease. Even it does not assist customers by the live chatting option.
What is Webflow?
Webflow is a website-building platform with zero availability of code. One can design responsive websites from scratch by drop and drag options without writing any type of code. Webflow writes the entire coding for the user.
The coding of the Webflow can be exported to other sites or could be used in the Webflow to develop a website like a pro. It relies on a content management system (CMS) that manages the creation and modification of the design.
So, it is a good choice for making e-commerce sites and blogging sites. It is a groundbreaking technology for the industry and a boon for website builders. Moreover, Webflows’s website is coded in the Webflow platform that consists of complex interaction and attractive layout.
The time to first byte (TTFB), the time between the customer’s request and the receipt of the first byte of the website is faster in Webflow than Squarespace and Wix. There are a few limitations of Webflow.
The first constraint is that it does not permit the construction of online apps that require user login access (e.g., Facebook, YouTube). The second issue is that it lacks a design helper. The final constraint is that the customer does not have access to phone or live chat help.
Main Differences Between Squarespace and Wix and Webflow
Created By
- Squarespace was created by Anthony Casalena in 2004 initially for personal use for building websites.
- Israeli web developers Avishai Abrahami, Nadav Abrahami, and Giora Kaplan created Wix firm in 2006.
- Vlad Magdalin, Sergie Magdalin, and Bryant Chou created the Webflow platform in America in 2013.
Types of Customers
- Squarespace is suitable for personal websites and small business websites for blogging.
- The Wix platform may also be used to create simple websites for blogging, e-commerce, and other uses.
- Webflow is used to make websites (e-commerce and blogging) for large businesses.
Type of Customer Care Support
- The Squarespace firm provides live chat support, forum filling, and email support.
- Wix firm allows customers to contact by email, calls and filling the form as it does not provide a live chat service.
- Webflow platform provides customer care support through only emails.
Ease of Use
- The Squarespace firm is the least user-friendly comparatively.
- Wix firm provides a preview and good editing options so, it is easy to use.
- Webflow firm is based on CMS platform so, very user-friendly platform.
Headquarters
- The headquarters of Squarespace is in New York, USA.
- The headquarters of Wix is in Tel Aviv-Yafo in Israel.
- The HQ of Webflow is in San Francisco in America.
Conclusion
Many companies are there in markets that let us build different websites for personal and professional purposes. Squarespace, Wix, and Webflow are also website-building platforms that are recommended according to their specialty. Squarespace is beneficial if people want to make websites for personal use or young businesses. It allows users to develop basic websites like blogs.
However, Squarespace is not recommended for e-commerce websites because it only allows the business of 200 products. Wix is a very efficient website-building platform with better SEO tools than Squarespace. The best feature is to create a website using AI (artificial intelligence). It only lacks a few criteria (not allowing the exportation of websites).
Webflow is an excellent choice to build professional websites without knowing how to code. The only problem is users cannot make apps like FB and Instagram yet on this platform.
References
- https://search.informit.org/doi/abs/10.3316/agis.20210907053029
- https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/3475716.3475782