Why did we switch from Squarespace to Wordpress

Why did we switch from Squarespace to Wordpress

Date
Dec 19, 2015
Tags
FE Development
If you haven’t heard of Squarespace, I would like to say it is a great online webbuilder. I definitely recommend that to all business owners who would like to quickly start their business. And that’s why we were using their services when we first started. However after a period of time, we think that we would like to have more customisation and control over our own site. WordPress trumps Squarespace in the following areas.
WORDPRESS
WORDPRESS

1. FLEXIBILITY

Squarespace has lots of building components out of the box, and they are great. However, they lack customisation. WordPress on the other hand requires you to install different plugins for different components, for example you need revolution slider plugin for the slider, contact form 7 for the email form etc. That’s troublesome, but you get the flexibility.

2. SPEED

You can use WP Smush to reduce image size, W3 Total Cache to further compress your CSS and JavaScript. If you take a look at my site Jack Visuals in YSlow, it is getting an “A”, versus a “C” in the past when we were with Squarespace. I am not saying squarespace is slow, it is acceptable. But if you have the knowledge about web optimisation, you would be able to apply them in wordpress platform, but not Squarespace.
JACK VISUALS GT METRIX SCORE
JACK VISUALS GT METRIX SCORE

3. CONTROL

When our site grows bigger and bigger, one thing that worry us most is data safety. In WordPress, we can backup the whole database at anytime and are able to set that up again as WordPress is opensource. For Squarespace, the data are stored in Squarespace under their schemas. If the company goes bankrupt one day, your site will be gone.
Let us know what you think about the two platforms. Do you like one over the other? And why?