WooCommerce vs Squarespace

Over the last few years, companies are shifting from traditional marketing to digital media marketing as it is more effective in gaining new customers. Companies are establishing their digital presence on different platforms including social media, blogging sites etc. Each and every company has created their own websites to provide information to potential customers, or to sell products through e-commerce stores, making websites or web applications is a complex and time-consuming task which requires coding skills. Hence to solve this problem, many organizations have provided website building and content management platforms which make it easy to create web applications. Two such platforms are Squarespace and WooCommerce which provides different services to build websites, web applications and e-commerce stores.

WooCommerce is defined as an online platform for e-commerce activities, it is designed on WordPress and provides highly customized features. It is an open-source platform and the company credited for the development of this platform is  Automattic. It was first launched in 2011 and its stable version was released in 2022. The authors of this platform are  Mike Jolley and James Koster.

Advantages of WooCommerce

• It is completely free which makes it the first choice for the customers who do not have enough budget.
• It provides a large number of pre-built store designs which can be easily customized.
• It has better response time on the front end as well as on the back end.
• It allows the user to have complete control of the flow of data and its features.

Disadvantages of WooCommerce

• It does not work with platforms other than hosted by WordPress.
• It requires payment for advanced features like using your own payment gateway.

Squarespace can be understood as a website building company founded by Anthony Casalena in 2004. It is an American company which provides its software as a service. It has a large number of pre-designed templates which can be used for making interactive websites. It also provides hosting services along with domain names and other features. It is used due to its drag and drop capabilities.

Advantages of Squarespace

• It comes with drag and drop features which makes it very easy to use.
• The loading time of this platform is very low so it is a quick platform.
• It provides immediate customer support.
• It has good back-end managing features which provide good control of functionalities.

Disadvantages of Squarespace

• It does not have any free plan like some other platforms such as Wix or Drupal.
• It is not an open-source platform.
• It does not have advanced marketing and SEO tools.

Below is a table of differentiation between Squarespace and WooCommerce:

	WooCommerce	Squarespace
1.	It can be understood as an e-commerce plugin which provides e-commerce store building functionalities.	It is a website building company which provides software as a service.
2.	It was founded by Mike Jolley and James Koster.	It was founded by Anthony Casalena in New York.
3.	It is an open-source platform.	It is not an open-source platform.
4.	It does not provide any support to its customers.	It has dedicated support and backup options for its customers.
5.	It provides free services to its customers.	Its subscription plan starts at just $16 per month.
6.	It is only for e-commerce stores.	It is used to build websites, blogs, web applications, e-commerce stores etc.
7.	It provides advanced customizing features with complete data control.	It provides good customizing features.
8.	It lacks SEO functionality.	SEO tools are simple and easy to use.
9.	It does not provides hosting.	It provides hosting.
10.	It does not have any free trail period.	It has a free-trial period.
11.	It does not have a good customer support system.	It provides 24/7 customer support.
12.	It does not provide any e-mail marketing tools.	It has tools for e-mail marketing.
13.	Popular payment processors for WooCommerce: MailChimp PayPal Stripe Google Ads	Popular payment processors for Squarespace: Stripe PayPal Apple Pay
14.	It is high in demand for business than Squarespace.	It is less popular in the market when compared with WooCommerce.