Squarespace looks neat but should I reinvent the wheel?
January 26, 2011 10:36 AM   Subscribe

Should I use Squarespace or Wordpress to build a client's website?

I have always considered myself a print designer but recently have been doing a lot more web work. I have been using WordPress as a CMS for personal and client sites for five years (Movable Type before that) and am fairly good at figuring out what I want to do on the programming side.

While I would not consider myself a programmer (I was taught hand coding HTML in school in '98, and am not a fan of Dreamweaver/WYSIWYG editors) but if I start from a good template can re-write and piece together HTML, CSS, PHP and a bit of JQuery to emulate my design.

A long-time small business client (doctor) wants me to re-design his site. He is currently using a company that charges him a high monthly fee but offers very little customization to the site, which is obviously a generic template. I've pushed for this mostly because the site is ugly, a bit broken and does not look professional or match his branding.

The site will have approximately 5 static pages, an email form for appointments and a blog/news area. He does not care if I use WordPress or Squarespace as long as they can update the blog and it works. I feel confidant that I can create this site in WordPress but am worried about the upkeep of managing backups, security loopholes and keeping the software and plugins up to date. I manage my own WP sites so I will know when there are updates to be made but I'd rather not have to babysit his site. I am okay with checking in on it every few months.

I have never used Squarespace and will take the free trial to have a look. In the meantime, does anyone think one will work better than the other? Is Squarespace updated and easily managed by a client? I think he would like to see his stats without using a Google Analytics tool and separate account. The allure is to have everything in once place. He is not very tech-savy but is youngish and has managed to update Facebook, his current site's newsletter and created a Blogger account on his own.

TLDR; Would Squarespace or WordPress be a better choice if I don't want to babysit a client's site weekly? Would using Squarespace be a waste of time to "learn" if I'm already familiar with WordPress?
posted by Bunglegirl to Computers & Internet (14 answers total) 6 users marked this as a favorite
 
Wordpress, it's just as easy.
posted by Blake at 10:45 AM on January 26, 2011


Does he have a domain name of his own and hosting plan with the current site on it? If yes, check if the hosting company offers 1-click Squarespace installs through C-Panel. Many major hosting companies do *NOT* offer squarespace as an option, but everyone offers Wordpress!

I don't know much about Squarespace, but do know a fair bit of WP and have been a fan of it from a long time. So I'll list how WP can solve your problems and not get into which is better.

The WP dashboard provides all the information that is needed, including 1-click updates, site stats etc.

There are thousands of themes, both free and premium that you can use. The premium themes are well documented and are not very expensive for a single instance.

If and when you design the new site using Wordpress, you can install a few plugins for stats, comments etc as required. Blogging is quite simple with mail-in options available. If your client is on Windows, Windows Live Writer can provide a superb and simple UI for the good doctor to publish posts to the blog.

WP support, both official and through forums is immense - there is almost no problem where someone cannot offer you a solution.

Installing a virtual drive from the hosting company (bluehost and dreamhost do offer this) can allow easy backups, as if the files are on the local desktop. Alternatively, backup scripts are available straight from C-Panel these days.

Make a checklist when you are done and ask the client to complete the items every month. This is a good technique regardless of which platform you go with.
posted by theobserver at 10:56 AM on January 26, 2011


I've never used Squarespace but I use Wordpress for the (two, soon three) websites I've designed for local nonprofits specifically for the hands-off approach it lets me take. The site is updated without my help and I'm only called on to make more complicated changes or restore something if it gets accidentally deleted.

The only thing you'll have to do with Wordpress is perform an upgrade when a security fix is released. Squarespace will save you that hassle.
posted by exhilaration at 11:15 AM on January 26, 2011


How about hosted wordpress at say wordpress.com (or I assume others). They will take care of patching for you although I suppose this arrangement might not give you the plugins that you need.
posted by mmascolino at 11:30 AM on January 26, 2011


WordPress gets a not-entirely-undeserved rep for security issues but my experience has been that the problems are rarely core - it's far more likely to be plugin related.

The WordPress team and I have had words a few times via twitter over the fact that they make finding the changelog a bigger challenge than it should be, so often you see a blare about SECURITY UPDATE! which turns out to be something irrelevant to your deployment.

So, if the price differential from JoeAverageHosting and SquareSpace matters to you/your client then I'd say you're likely very safe using WordPress so long as you aren't using a .0 release. HOWEVER you really should then accept responsibility for watching out for releases and determining if they're pertinent.

It's not a major task but is it appropriate for you to take that on for this client? If you're not going to have some sort of service agreement for maintenance then I'd think twice.
posted by phearlez at 11:36 AM on January 26, 2011


Response by poster: He owns his domain name but is hosted by the company that designed his site. Whichever option I choose I will need to double-check who set up the domain name (I think he did that himself) and either set him up with hosting. However, I was under the impression that Squarespace included hosting and I was planning to go with the standard hosting plan. I don't see any mention of where his email would be hosted if I use Squarespace though.

I'm not sure I like the limitations of Wordpress.com and I worry that I wouldn't be able to customize it as I like. It is an option I hadn't considered, but if the only benefit is that he doesn't have to click the "update" button himself I'm not sure it's worth it. I'll look into it, thanks.

I've had my WP site hacked and it was a real pain to fix it. Granted, I had 7 years of blog posts to comb through and it was my fault for not having an up-to-date WP install. I didn't want to re-design my template since it would break with the newest release. I think if I install something fresh and keep up-to-date a site should be fine, you're right phearlez.

As for a service agreement—I was planning to charge on an as-needed basis. Perhaps something needs to be addressed every few months and I would charge for my time. Perhaps it's a better idea to charge a certain amount per month (or per 3 months) for overseeing the site althoguh I would rather not.
posted by Bunglegirl at 11:50 AM on January 26, 2011


Response by poster: Upon further investigation I'm pretty sure the domain is registered with GoDaddy and Squarespace doesn't host email so I would have to arrange to have his email hosted as well if I went with Squarespace.

If I hosted with WordPress.com there would be around $60/year in fees to make it no adds, add custom CSS and use a personalized domain. He can afford to pay for hosting, that's really not an issue. I was thinking it might be easier for him to have one thing to worry about. I guess I just don't want to run into limitations with Wordpress.com although I am more confidant that I wouldn't run into problems with the hosting. I use Dreamhost which is okay but I've had enough problems with them this year that I'm starting to waver.
posted by Bunglegirl at 12:01 PM on January 26, 2011


If you go with squarespace, ensure that you retain the option to export the contents in a standard way. And export them every 3 months or even more frequently. Just in case Squarespace folds up and you don't get back all the content. Just saying, as I am one of those who likes to have greater control over my content.
posted by theobserver at 12:03 PM on January 26, 2011


Then don't use WordPress.com, use WordPress.org. Despite the similar name, it's really best to think of them as two different things.

.com is like Blogger. Limited, free, and good for general stuff. But probably not this.

.org is just having all of the limitations taken off.

In short, WordPress.com is not the same as WordPress.org.
posted by theichibun at 12:17 PM on January 26, 2011 [1 favorite]


Best answer: I built a squarespace site for a client who was deadset on using it bc a friend had recommended it to her. Normally I'm a WP/TXP/Drupal guy, but I figured I'd take it bc I needed the cash.

Never again will I do such a thing

Squarespace is a hosted solution. You don't have any access to any of the files. You can't tinker with the View files, you can't fiddle with plugins. They own the files that makes your site run, and those files are proprietary. You'll be limited to editing the CSS used to render the page. If you don't like that a particular widget adds a particular chunk of content, you're going to have to figure out how to target it in your CSS and set display to none.

If I hosted with WordPress.com there would be around $60/year in fees to make it no adds, add custom CSS and use a personalized domain. He can afford to pay for hosting, that's really not an issue. I was thinking it might be easier for him to have one thing to worry about. I guess I just don't want to run into limitations with Wordpress.com although I am more confidant that I wouldn't run into problems with the hosting. I use Dreamhost which is okay but I've had enough problems with them this year that I'm starting to waver.

Wordpress.com really isn't going to be that much different than a 1-click WP install with dreamhost. You can set your WP install to autoupdate whenever there's a patch. Also, there are a ton of security plugins that will help safeguard you against a late update.
posted by thsmchnekllsfascists at 12:25 PM on January 26, 2011 [4 favorites]


If you really want to go cheap you could look at Google Sites. It'll be free - just point the domain to the site. It's all pointy and clicky so updating it won't be an issue for them. I just converted my homeowners association's site from Wordpress to Sites, because paying even $45 a year for hosting seemed silly for a web site that probably isn't getting 45 visitors a month.
posted by COD at 12:43 PM on January 26, 2011


Response by poster: There's money for hosting but I don't see the need for dedicated hosting, for instance. This is a business, not a hobby site, and although it won't have a ton of hits it is a marketing tool and resource for current patients so it needs to be reasonably reliable. I know he'd rather pay a little bit more for service and reliability than going the rock bottom cheap route.

I welcome any more personal Squarespace experience but I think you've all made me feel comfortable with using self-hosted WP. I like installing it myself rather than 1-click so there's less clutter (Dreamhost adds a million themes I don't need) and I don't rely on my host to offer a security update/new version.
posted by Bunglegirl at 12:56 PM on January 26, 2011


I self install all my Wordpress sites. The CPanel auto update thing went wonky on me once, costing me several hours of troubleshooting until I found the cause.
posted by COD at 1:12 PM on January 26, 2011


I have a shared hosting account with Bluehost and run about 5 WP sites on it. Never had any problems with them adding lots of themes, except for the occasional Postini popups. Granted, things like nameserver changes need to be done by raising a ticket with them, but I don't expect it to be more than a couple of times in the site's lifetime. But their uptime is fairly good and their CPanel has a lot of other apps (like forums, ecommerce etc).

As I said, I am a bit paranoid about going with companies that host all your content on their servers.
posted by theobserver at 1:35 PM on January 26, 2011


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