Ultimate Website Builder Comparison 2024 | Find the BEST One for You + Why I Hated Squarespace

don't fall into the peer pressure to use squarespace there are so many free options that you can use this episode is brought to you by squarespace squarespace this video was supported in part by squarespace we've all seen this heard this today let's answer the question what is the best website builder for you hey my name is sophie and i'm a designer who have been designing websites for eight years and i've used all of these website builders out there for each website i'll run you through the pros and cons who might be best to use that specific website builder my personal experience using it and you'll want to stick through the entire video because there might just be one perfect solution for you no matter if you're a student business owner or someone who does not even want to fuss over designing a website i'm here to help you find the best solution for you even if you live under a rock you might have seen squarespace because their ads are everywhere they have so many beautifully designed templates so that creating a website really is like a three two one experience you can have a website done and ready to go in an hour they also make it extremely easy for you to get a domain and mailbox off them so you basically don't need to use a third-party option you can even set up a blog and shop you can modify simple things like fonts and the text and add images and videos the best thing about using squarespace is that if you choose a specific template they already have the mobile version optimized for you so you don't even need to worry about that however squarespace gives you very limited flexibility because each comes with a template if you don't know custom code then squarespace might give you very limited options if you're very particular about your specific website design you might not like it perfect for someone who does not have the time or who just has way too much on their plate and just want something really simple and straightforward if you're someone who is not very knowledgeable about website design then squarespace is the perfect solution they also have other built-in tools like analytics that makes it really easy for a small business owner to understand more about their website or their products or their shop i use squarespace for a year and a half both for myself and as well as for a client and to be honest with you i hated it as a designer i want my website to stand out as part of marketing strategy or branding strategy right but with squarespace i am at a point where i can tell which website is made from squarespace templates because they are so common and everyone is just using those few squarespace templates i can just tell it really makes your website look just like everyone else's websites and i don't really like that about squarespace i also just did not like how inflexible their templates was there are so many times that i just wanted to change a few things but i wasn't able to do that it is a drag and drop website builder so it really reminds me of notion actually and there's sort of like a grid like structure you're forced to put your elements at a specific point you cannot adjust to put your elements wherever you want i just remember feeling so frustrated constantly at squarespace but looking back i think it was just not the right service for me wix was the first website builder i ever used i remember those carly cost ads with wix back in the days and being a taylor swift fan myself i loved kaler i even bought cats because of taylor swift anyways what is a really easy to use website builder it is just like canva actually drag and drop if you really like canva wix is the perfect solution for you i personally like wix more than squarespace because there's a lot of customization and a lot of flexibility with where you want to place your elements not like squarespace grid where you're conformed to the specific grid you can place your elements anywhere and you can also use templates if you prefer to do that or you can start from scratch with absolutely nothing on the website flexibility to add custom code as well as even more complex tools like sandbox and cms so everything that squarespace has wix basically has an exact same thing but with more customization a downside is that wix's vibe is not as sleek minimal and modern as squarespace you can definitely combat that by designing a really clean minimum website wix is also not as simple to use as squarespace so if squarespace is apple then wix is like android perfect for the business owner or the creator or anyone who has a little bit more time on their hands to make their website look the way they want it to be if you don't like the set templates that you have for squarespace then wix is perfect for you however i would say a downside is that you have to also manually look at the mobile version and optimize that and make sure that it looks good before you publish it because you can place your elements everywhere the mobile version sometimes might look a little weird important thing to know is that typically 80 or more people now view websites from their phones if you have customers or people looking at websites from places like india or other developing countries typically those people don't really have a computer and they tend to use their phones so it's really important to make sure that your mobile version also looks good i used wix for four years three years by myself and one year with work liked it way more than squarespace just because of the flexibility however like i mentioned the user experience is not as great and wix always took longer to load than squarespace i don't know if it's because of the custom elements but that's just something that i found every single celebrity merch store uses shopify ariana grande taylor swift kylie jenner shopify has made selling extremely easy it's almost like a combination of squarespace and wix you have squarespaces beautiful templates that you can choose from and modify and customize yourself and it also has wix's flexibility and a lot of extra widgets that you can download give your store that extra boost yes i know that wix and squarespace or other website builders have the shop option but they just do not have the whole comprehensive tools and other widgets that you can use there are literally businesses that are built on top of shopify widgets and that gives you an idea of how many other customization options you can use for example there's literally a countdown tool that you can add to your cart with customer checkout it's sort of like a traditional marketing strategy that a lot of people have used in the past to make their customers more likely to impulse buy it's a bad strategy but a lot of people use it and it works but you would not find the same option from wix or squarespace unless you add in custom code they also have a built-in analytics tool that is perfect for any business owners the downside is that shopify does not give you a hundred percent customization unless you know custom code but from my personal experience of using it i didn't find that it was bothering me at all perfect for anyone whose main primary goal is to sell for example if you're selling homemade candles t-shirts shopify literally makes this whole setup experience like step by step and you can probably get a website out in like one to two hours they also make things like taxes or shipping a lot easier to navigate i use shopify for about a year i used it to set up a couple online stores and i really think shopify is worth using just not because of the analytics and widgets also because of their customer service every single time i had a question i would reach out to that customer service team i don't know if they're bots or not but they always answered my questions it felt really nice that someone would answer you in like five minutes on the website builder you can actually create just static website pages you can also create blogs if you sell a lot shopify also has plans that will help make you earn more money by lowering the transaction fees alright webflow in my opinion is the best website builder out there for any designers startups or small businesses that has more than three employees with webflow your imagination is the limit literally you can use any font any crazy animations out there apple like animation landing pages it's insane what you can do and if you can code as well you can add so many custom integrations custom code you can even add web3 um you know ethereum or like crazy token capabilities push your website from amateur level to professional level with great flexibility also comes great responsibility for webflow there is a learning curve and it took me a couple months to really learn it this is through making several websites i remember my first ever website on webflow was a complete mess if squarespace is the equivalent to canva then workflow is equivalent to photoshop you can do anything but it takes you a while to learn how to do it workflow does not contain any analytics tool you will have to add in google analytics yourself you will also have to worry about tablet views or mobile views which may take a lot more time to figure out workflow is perfect for anyone who has already been using squarespace or wix for a little while and you realize that oh maybe i want to just spice things up a little bit and go to the next level and you're ready for that commitment you have maybe a couple weeks to spare or like you have a couple thousand dollars to spare to hire someone and use webflow to create the perfect website for you and if you do decide that you want to use webflow first go through webflow university to check out their videos and to see if this is really something that you want to commit yourself to then second i would really recommend you to use a prototype or software to create your designs for example i would use figma to create a prototype of what my designs might look like or you can use adobe illustrator or even canva during this time you'll find yourself continuously going back to webflow university as well as looking for youtube tutorials because once you do it you realize that it's actually a little bit more complicated than you think it was and don't forget the mobile version which a lot of people do you don't want to lose visitors because your mobile version is not optimized so i've been using webflow for two years now and given that i've been designing websites for almost a decade webflow was the perfect scenario for me i was you know at the level where i was just sick of squarespace or wix and i needed something a little bit more next level during college i also took some time to learn css and html so i have the background knowledge but i wouldn't know how to necessarily code up a line i love the ability to add fun animations and looking at what other designers can do with their websites if you're a student you can even get webflow for free to try it out yourself this is a website builder that is not as commonly known as the others but it is a very cool one so you want to stick around cargo collective has a lot of fun and refreshing templates for you to try out each of these templates are so uniquely designed for example you can use horizontal scrolling or you can have one section of the website where it scrolls and then one section doesn't and it's just so refreshing to see when the entire internet is just oversaturated with squarespace templates whenever i see a website that is more interestingly designed it makes me want to stop and take a look at the website spicy it's not as flexible as wix might be it might be a little hard for users who are not as tech savvy to navigate a specific website for example your grandma might find it hard to navigate cargo collective is perfect for designers indie artists indie brands gen z anyone who wants to break out of this traditional mold and go for something more fun unique and modern i was sort of choosing between either trying cargo collective or webflow and in the end i decided to go for workflow because i just wanted to try something that is more flexible but i personally know a lot of design friends who have used cargo collective and really liked it i also really enjoyed looking at the portfolios and it's really refreshing to see something that isn't the traditional format readymag is also not as widely known as the other website builders but in my opinion readymag is better than wix wix sometimes feels a little more too overwhelming it feels a little too maximum listic whereas ready mag is really simple minimalistic and easy to navigate but it still has the flexibility and customer customizability as wix ready mac is a canva like type builder so it's sort of like wix where you can drag and drop your elements and put them anywhere on the page and you can add any animations as you like they also have some really modern templates that you can use which is something that wix doesn't really provide because of the flexibility with the animations you can create some really cool website without knowing how to code their user experience is also so easy to use i could create a website in a couple of hours to me ready mark is sort of the best of both worlds from wix and squarespace they have wix's flexibility and squarespace's sleekness a drawback is that readymag just does not give you the full customization that webflow gives you however i think it's perfect as a first time website builder or if you're new to this and you have some spare time honestly i would not recommend squarespace or wix i would just recommend you to try out ready mag this is perfect for any students or any new designers as well i personally used readymag for a client and i was really surprised at how great and how beautiful my website ended up looking finally i just want to give you some alternative options in case you did not like any of these website builders first one is notion and this one is the best because you can basically create a website with your notion for free if you already use notion if you already know how to use notion perfect solution for you you can use a third-party tool to turn your notion into a website or you can simply just click share your notion to web page and then just share that link with other people you can use a shortened link website like bit.ly to shorten your long notion link the other option is adobe portfolio and not a lot of people know about this because i don't think adobe really markets this but if you already have a subscription if you're a student and you're paying the low rate this is the perfect solution for you with adobe portfolio you can use one of their set templates to create a really beautiful professional looking somewhat squarespace-like website you can display your portfolio if you're an artist or if you're a creative designer basically do the exact same thing that squarespace would let you there is definitely less flexibility and less customization than squarespace but as a free option honestly adobe portfolio is amazing you don't have to pay a couple hundred dollars a year on top of what you can do at with squarespace i'm also fully aware that i know i sound like i hate squarespace but the truth is i think squarespace has done so well with their marketing strategy that most people just go to them and as someone who's been doing this for almost a decade i see so many options that are better than squarespace and which is why i want to tell you the options honestly if you're just trying to create a really simple you know one-page website that really does not have anything extra added to it don't fall into the peer pressure to use squarespace there are so many free options that you can use next is figma so if you're a student again you get free access to figma or if you already use figma you can basically use a third-party tool to turn your figma design into a web page that is probably going to be much simpler for you but this is not an option that i would go for you have to pay for this third party tool and you know if i'm gonna do that i might as well just use my notion finally if you have a little bit of experience with html or css you can download a html template online you can use vs code to change some of the code from that free template and then you can upload it to heroku for free hosting of your website so you don't even need to pay for any of these services you can just get it for free but it takes a little bit more work and learning curve in order to put your website out i would say that i also found hiroku websites might be a little slower because you get it for free and it also is a little bit of a hassle if you need to change stuff or add things to your website constantly so this option is perfect if you are a computer science student or if you're someone who likes the adventure to you know try and figure out how you can put things together for free you don't even need to use any of these existing website builders i would just use notion if i am trying to create something really really simple like a portfolio resume type website if i already have an existing adobe plan and i want to show off my photography i will probably just use adobe portfolio and if you're a designer and you want to go for something a little more professional looking i would use webflow i hope this video helped you and if you have any questions please let me know down below and i'll do my best to answer you and if there's anything else you want to know about website design please leave a comment down below if you found this video helpful please give it a like and subscribe if you haven't and i'll see you next week bye

Channel: Sophie

Views: 165,504

Keywords: website builder comparison, how to design a website, best website templates, how to use webflow, squarespace vs wix, best website design 2022, website design software, website builder software, cargo collective, adobe portfolio, how to make a website for free, how to build a website for free, readymag, how to make a website from notion, how to make a website from figma, what is the best website builder 2022, what is the best website template, web design for small business

Id: bW2nBnJDXGs

Length: 19min 9sec (1149 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 06 2022