Why I Switched from Wix to Squarespace

When I first began my freelance design business I had a simple portfolio website that was created on Squarespace’s 7.0 platform. As my business started to grow, I realized I needed to create a more professional, informative website that served as more than just a portfolio; this was when I decided to make the move to Wix. I decided to make the move to Wix because it seemed to offer more customization options, as well as a less rigid “grid” form of designing when creating a website. I believed Wix would allow me more creative freedom to design what I had envisioned for my website. After spending a few weeks designing my Wix website, I started to get frustrated. The pros that drew me to Wix were heavily outweighed by the cons that I was presented with. While I enjoyed the unique features that Wix had to offer, like animating graphic assets on page load and being able to customize specific blocks rather than using site-wide styles, Wix lacked something that made designing and managing my website difficult; a user-friendly interface. When I decided to redesign my website, I started doing more research into the ever-so-popular Squarespace vs Wix debate. I found that the things keeping me with Wix weren’t worth the frustrations that came with their user-interface; and the design vision I had in my mind was actually achievable now with Squarespace’s 7.1 platform (and custom CSS/Javascript). Switching from Squarespace to Wix and then back to Squarespace was not a walk in the park, but I found that designing on Squarespace is not only more user-friendly, it’s less-stressful because of the countless resources and support offered from other Squarespace designers online. 

My Top 5 Squarespace Resources I Used When Designing My Website

While Wix does offer attractive customization features, I found that the appeal of these features quickly vanished as I struggled to maneuver through their interface. The features that drew me in were lost as I tried to figure out how to manage my website, and find the tools that I needed in order to create the design I had in mind. For beginners looking to start a website with no prior experience, Squarespace is easy to design with as well as easy to manage after your website is published; and there are a variety of resources offered by designers who offer high-quality Squarespace templates for those who don’t have design experience but want a professional website. For experienced website designers, Wix has the appeal of more in-depth customization but, in my opinion, lacks the user-friendly interface to make these features worth it; especially when it comes to managing your site after publishing it.

I’ve been chasing the idea of creating my “perfect” website for years, and I finally feel like with Squarespace I was able to bring that vision to life!