Bluehost vs Squarespace Review | Which Is The Better Choice
By Sam Nguyen
Key Takeaways
- Bluehost is a cost-effective option with solid performance and flexibility, making it suitable for those with specific site requirements and technical expertise.
- Squarespace is an excellent choice for beginners and those looking for an all-in-one solution for building and hosting their website.
In this article, we indicated both Bluehost and Squarespace have their strengths and cater to different needs. Bluehost is a reliable hosting provider with affordability and flexibility, while Squarespace offers a user-friendly website builder with stunning designs.
Bluehost vs. Squarespace: Quick Comparison
As mentioned earlier, Bluehost is a hosting provider that supplies the foundation for website building. At the same time, Squarespace is a website builder offering a comprehensive website launch solution. However, determining the right platform depends on your needs and preferences.
Let’s look at this quick side-by-side comparison of the two.
| Bluehost | Squarespace | |
| Value for MoneyWinner: Bluehost | Bluehost offers excellent affordability and provides great value for money. We highly recommend using a platform like WordPress to build your website, and even with that addition, the costs remain minimal. | Squarespace may have a higher price point than Bluehost, but it offers many features that make it worth the investment. Its plans are packed with robust features, and building a website with Squarespace can save you both time and money in the long run due to its user-friendly interface and efficient workflow. |
| Ease of UseWinner: Squarespace | Bluehost keeps things simple and easily comprehended as a hosting provider. While it may not be the most straightforward method to build a website, it offers the convenience of a one-click WordPress installation. | Based on our testing, Squarespace scores 4 out of 5 regarding ease of use. It offers impressive features like drag-and-drop tools. However, using it may not be as straightforward as other builders like Wix. |
| Website DesignWinner: Draw! | You will have ample creative freedom if you build your website with WordPress through Bluehost. | Squarespace is renowned for its stunning designs and templates, although its customization tools may not be as robust as WordPress’s. |
| FeaturesWinner: Draw! | Bluehost integrates with third-party platforms such as WooCommerce and WordPress, allowing customers to access excellent e-commerce and marketing tools. | Squarespace provides a comprehensive suite of tools available in one place to help you establish an online presence and start selling. It offers a wide range of built-in tools and a library of extensions to maximize your website’s capabilities. |
| Performance & SecurityWinner: Bluehost | Bluehost offers a diverse selection of hosting types, and it stands out as our preferred option for dedicated server hosting. These plans are specifically designed to handle substantial traffic and site demands. However, it’s worth noting that Bluehost did not perform exceptionally well in our site speed and uptime testing. | Squarespace offers Squarespace Select, a service designed to assist larger websites with performance issues. Squarespace Select can help manage the servers and optimize performance for such sites. |
| Help and SupportWinner: Squarespace | Bluehost is known for providing top-notch help and support, surpassing many other hosting providers. They offer round-the-clock phone and live chat services to assist customers with inquiries or issues. | Squarespace’s support is solid and has the best knowledge center of any website builder, but it doesn’t offer a 24/7 channel to contact them. |
Bluehost vs. Squarespace: Pricing & Fees
Bluehost offers monthly plans starting from $2.95, providing server space and essential resources such as bandwidth and storage. This enables you to accommodate a significant number of visitors. The annual plan also includes a domain name.
On the other hand, Squarespace offers plans starting from $16 per month, allowing you to build and publish a website using their templates, which are hosted on their servers. Squarespace also provides a free domain name when you opt for the annual plan.
Here’s a quick look at how the introductory prices line up:
| Bluehost | Squarespace | |
| Cheapest plan | Basic: $2.95 per month | Personal: $16 per month |
| Cheapest plan features | Free domain for one year10GB storageUnmetered bandwidthBasic website builder | Free domain for one year (with the annual plan)Unlimited storage and bandwidthAward-winning templates to design your siteSEO features to boost visibility |
| Full price range | $2.95 – $139.99/month | $16 – $49/month |
Both Bluehost and Squarespace offer excellent value for money in their ways.
Bluehost
Bluehost is the most affordable option for getting a website live, providing solid features at an affordable introductory price. Research shows Bluehost consistently offers competitive pricing, including the best overall prices for dedicated hosting plans. Setting up and editing a WordPress site typically requires more time and effort.
Squarespace provides all the necessary features to start selling products immediately, with the requirement of being on the Business plan ($23 per month) or a higher tier.
While the Business plan incurs a 3% transaction fee, the two dedicated ecommerce plans, Basic Commerce ($27 per month) and Advanced Commerce ($49 per month), do not have transaction fees.
Squarespace
Meanwhile, Squarespace provides uncapped bandwidth and storage with all plans, making it ideal for media-rich websites. Moreover, it offers a faster and simpler website setup process by leveraging its collection of templates.
Squarespace offers value through time-saving and all-in-one convenience, as it streamlines the website creation and management process.
Bluehost integrates with WooCommerce, a powerful and popular free WordPress ecommerce plugin well-suited for more extensive inventories and growing online stores. However, it’s essential to consider additional costs associated with WooCommerce.
Furthermore, upgrading to one of Bluehost’s VPS (Virtual Private Server) plans is recommended if you intend to accept payments. Bluehost’s VPS hosting offers enhanced security, increased control, and scalability.
The VPS plans start at $24.99 monthly for a 12-month contract and is considered the best among the hosting providers tested.
The verdict
Bluehost offers a better value for money than Squarespace. If your primary goal is to establish an online presence, Bluehost is the more cost-effective choice. Squarespace’s pricing includes the added convenience of an all-in-one platform, whereas Bluehost provides a more streamlined and minimalist option, focusing on the essential features without additional frills.
Bluehost vs. Squarespace: Ease Of Use
Bluehost
Comparing Bluehost and Squarespace regarding ease of use can be challenging because they offer different solutions. Bluehost is highly regarded for its user-friendly interface.
Navigating the dashboard is straightforward, and the platform provides robust help and support options. One notable advantage is installing WordPress with just one click from the Bluehost dashboard, simplifying the process.
Squarespace
While not the most straightforward website builder, Squarespace ranks well in ease of use. Users may take slightly longer to become familiar with Squarespace than other builders like Wix.
However, Squarespace is the clear winner if you prioritize the easiest way to build a website. While it may not be the easiest website builder available, it inherently streamlines the website creation and design process. Working with one of Squarespace’s templates exemplifies the simplicity it offers.
The verdict
Squarespace is the winner regarding ease of use since it is known for its user-friendly interface and ease of use. While Bluehost is also considered easy to use and provides strong support, Squarespace offers a more straightforward route for building a website from scratch, even for users with limited technical knowledge or experience.
Bluehost vs. Squarespace: Design Features
Bluehost
When designing a website with Bluehost, let’s assume you’re opting for the WordPress option rather than using Bluehost’s builder.
Assume you’re opting for the WordPress option
WordPress offers over 10,000 themes in its theme directory, with even more options available through third-party websites like ThemeForest. This abundance of choices ensures you have a wide range of options to find a theme that closely matches your website’s desired look and feel, mainly if you’re operating in a niche industry.
Squarespace
Squarespace offers a curated selection of visually appealing templates and is considered among the best of any website builder. It simplifies the process of adding different elements to your site.
However, compared to the extensive customization options available with other website builders like WordPress, Squarespace may not offer the same level of flexibility.
The verdict
Bluehost is the winner of the design competition. Squarespace and Bluehost (combined with WordPress) excel in design but offer different strengths.
Bluehost, when paired with WordPress, offers unparalleled design flexibility. With WordPress, users can access many themes, including over 10,000 options in the WordPress theme directory and additional choices from third-party websites. This extensive selection enables users to find themes that closely align with their desired look and feel.
Bluehost vs. Squarespace: Website Features
When we look at the core resources that Bluehost and Squarespace offer, there isn’t much to tell them apart:
| Bluehost | Squarespace | |
| Domain name | Free for the first year, then$19.99 for a standard .com domain | Free for the first year, then $20 – $70 |
| Storage | 10GB – 100GB (Shared Hosting) | Unlimited |
| Bandwidth | Unlimited | Unlimited |
Bluehost
Bluehost offers a wide range of features, including those mentioned earlier, through the WordPress plugin directory. The directory contains over 60,000 plugins developed by third-party developers rather than Bluehost or WordPress.
While this vast selection provides ample options, it’s important to note that these plugins may not undergo the same level of quality control as the features offered by Squarespace.
Additionally, some plugins may require payment. With such many plugins available, navigating through the various options for each feature can be overwhelming. Finding the right plugins for your specific needs may take some time.
While the WordPress plugin directory offers extensive flexibility and the possibility of finding tools for specialized needs, it’s essential to carefully evaluate and choose plugins based on user ratings, reviews, and developer reputation.
Squarespace
Squarespace offers a wide range of built-in marketing features to enhance your website. These include the ability to create pop-ups and banner notices, utilize SEO tools to improve site visibility, create email marketing campaigns, design content for Instagram stories, access easy-to-understand analytics, and add a blog to your site with just a few clicks.
Additionally, Squarespace provides a library of third-party extensions that can be integrated for additional functionality, such as accounting and shipping support. However, it can become more challenging if Squarespace doesn’t have the specific functionality you require through its built-in features or available integrations.
While you can add custom code blocks within Squarespace to achieve specific functionalities, it may require more technical expertise. It’s important to note that the Squarespace support team may not assist if you encounter difficulties with custom code implementation.
The verdict
Squarespace is the winner in this comparison due to the many advanced website features it can provide. Squarespace has great built-in features providing insight analysis towards merchants’ websites. Meanwhile, Bluehost can potentially add almost any feature, but starting from scratch requires more effort. It’s a tie between the two in terms of features.
Bluehost vs. Squarespace: Security
Bluehost
When comparing Bluehost and Squarespace, they are closely matched in several areas. However, the differences become more evident when handling intense traffic pressure.
Bluehost provides dedicated server hosting plans that simultaneously accommodate high volumes of traffic. These plans range in price up to $139.99 per month for a 12-month contract. In our research, Bluehost’s dedicated plans outperformed those of other hosting providers, making them the top choice.
However, Bluehost faced challenges in our site speed and uptime testing, which is disappointing considering its strong performance in other aspects.
Squarespace
On the other hand, Squarespace offers an enterprise solution called Squarespace Enterprise for the most significant websites. Squarespace claims that its busy website performs well on its servers. However, Squarespace does not offer the same range of hosting types and plans as Bluehost.
The verdict
Bluehost is better than Squarespace regarding speed and security. While Squarespace is still reliable and secure, Bluehost is designed to handle more intense traffic and offers better performance overall.
Bluehost vs. Squarespace: Support & Tutorial
Here’s a quick overview of how the format of help and support looks for each platform:
| Bluehost | Squarespace | |
| Phone | 24/7 | ✘ |
| ✓ | ✓ | |
| Live chat | 24/7 | Monday – Friday, 4:00 am – 8:00 pm EST |
| Knowledge base | ✓ | ✓ |
Bluehost
Bluehost offers excellent help and support, surpassing many other hosting providers. Their support team is responsive, friendly, and helpful, and they assist various channels. However, there are certain limitations to the support provided by Bluehost.
Bluehost can assist with issues related to site downtime or technical hosting questions, ensuring that your website runs smoothly. However, Bluehost’s support may not be as extensive regarding tasks such as customizing themes or managing plugins. These aspects fall outside the scope of their support services.
Since WordPress does not have a dedicated support team, users relying on Bluehost for WordPress-related support may turn to forums and communities with other WordPress users. Fortunately, the WordPress community is vast and supportive, willing to share knowledge and help one another.
Squarespace
On the other hand, Squarespace has the best help and support of all website builders.
Its support team is there to help you out through all stages of the website building (and management) process. They aren’t available 24/7 or over the phone, but they can assist with a broader range of queries.
Squarespace’s support team can help users with various aspects of their websites, offering guidance and solutions. However, it’s important to note that they may not provide support for troubleshooting custom code blocks added to the site.
Nevertheless, adding custom code is not always necessary, so this limitation may not affect all users.
The verdict
Squarespace offers better support than Bluehost. While Bluehost provides excellent support, there are limitations to the assistance they can offer during website building. On the other hand, Squarespace can provide comprehensive support for various aspects, including technical difficulties and web design queries.
Bluehost vs. Squarespace: Which Choice Is For You?
Who should use Bluehost?
- Anyone with particular site requirements in mind (who is prepared to pay a designer/spend time learning how to build this themselves)
- Anyone looking for the cheapest way to build a website
- Anyone starting an online publication or blog and who anticipates having hundreds of pages/posts
- Anyone planning to sell a large inventory of products
Who should use Squarespace?
- Anyone looking for a quick way to pull together a professional-looking site and who doesn’t mind paying a little more money for this convenience
- Anyone who’s not confident with technology and ideally wants dedicated support on hand
- Anyone who is looking to sell just a few products
Bluehost vs. Squarespace: FAQs
Bluehost vs. Squarespace: Summary
Bluehost offers excellent value for money and firm performance, while Squarespace provides a user-friendly experience, beautiful designs, and comprehensive features.
Bluehost excels in its help and support options, while Squarespace stands out with its user-friendly interface and convenient all-in-one platform for website building.
