Interested in building a website but don’t have much experience with coding and website design? Trying to decide which website builder is best for you?
Are you looking for the easiest and fastest way to set up a simple website? Then you have probably heard about Godaddy, Wix, and Squarespace.
If you’re struggling to decide which company is better for your needs, continue reading this comparison review. Before we start comparing the features and prices, there are a couple of things you need to keep in mind.
First Things First
These aren’t typical shared hosting companies. Godaddy does offer dedicated hosting with a Cpanel that supports over 125 apps, including WordPress, and their own website builder.
Besides Godaddy, the other two companies don’t offer dedicated hosting and you’re limited to their respective website builders.
In other words, if you’re looking for a website hosting company to upload your website to, Wix and Squarespace are not the right choices. Wix and Squarespace are website builders, while Godaddy has many other services, one of which is a website builder.
What is Godaddy Hosting?
Godaddy is one of the world’s most popular domain and website marketplaces.
It has branched out into the website hosting industry. Founded in 1997, it’s also much older than the other companies, which were founded in 2006, and 2003 respectively.
One of the main key differences between this company and the other two is that it has branched out into almost every category of website development.
Basically, Godaddy is a one-stop-shop for everything related to building an online business.
Now, to keep the comparison simple, we’ll be comparing Godaddy’s website hosting service, specifically their website builder, to see how they hold up to the other two companies on our list.
Moving on.
Below are some of the services they offer:
- Domain Name Marketplace
- Domain Registrar.
- Web-hosting
- Dedicated Servers
- Virtual Private Services
- Website Builders
- Online Store Tools
- Website Design
- Logo Design
- Email Management
- And a lot more.
What is Wix?
Unlike Godaddy, Wix focuses on one goal; making it as easy as possible for people to create a simple website in a matter of minutes.
And it seems like they have reached that goal because in 2018 they won an award for Best Website Builder Software. Their core feature is a website builder, called Wix Editor, which is a drag and drop based, with a wide variety of templates.
Although they offer website hosting it’s built around their website builder, and you can’t use any other software. Wix is one of the most popular website solutions for small mom-and-pop businesses, mainly designed for people that want to get a website up as quickly as possible.
What is Squarespace?
Squarespace is quite similar to Wix as their core feature is a website builder, and they make it really easy for anyone to create a simple website. Their slogan is “Look like an expert right from the start”.
One way Squarespace claims to be different from Wix is they design professional templates designed specifically for bloggers, with a few extra tools thrown in, to create a more professional and premium experience. As you might imagine, Squarespace costs a little bit more than Wix.
Comparing Features
Now that you have a general idea of what these companies offer, let’s quickly compare some of the features they have in common.
Sub Domains
Keep in mind, when it comes to website builders, all of the companies mentioned in this article offer a free version for websites hosted on subdomains. A subdomain is essentially an extension of the main website, for example: “yourwebsite.goddadysites.com”.
Hosting a professional website on a subdomain isn’t a great idea because it doesn’t give off the impression that you’re actually serious about your business. It’s also not the best for search engine optimization. In short, it’s much more beneficial to connect a domain to your website, which each of these companies allows you to do, for an extra price.
Nevertheless, that’s one important distinction to remember. When website builders advertise a free service what they usually mean is your website will be on a subdomain.
Getting Started:
As a matter of fact, most of these companies have similar steps to getting a website up and running in a matter of minutes.
Let’s run through the process.
Godaddy
Godaddy has a drag-and-drop website builder called Website Builder 7, which users can try out for free, on a one month trial basis. The introduction to the website builder will ask you a few questions about your industry and you can choose the template that best matches your needs. You can also just type in a few words that best match your website, and a list of templates will appear with those keywords.
They also include a few other tools, such as InSight Score, InSight Metrics, GoDaddy Guides, and a couple of others designed to make your work easier.
Don’t forget that you can get 5% cash back on GoDaddy purchases using a Chase Ink Business Card.
Wix
As you might imagine, Wix’s website builder also tries to make the process as simple as possible. After creating an account, you’ll be asked what kind of website you want to make from a list of website styles. There’s also the option to choose “Other” if your idea doesn’t match any of the templates.
From there, you can browse through the templates that match your requirements and then start dragging and dropping elements to design the website.
One great thing about Wix is almost every aspect of the template can be changed in a couple clicks, such as background, headlines, menu, and many other style elements. You can also upload a video to the background. Plenty of features to work with.
Keep in mind, the builder is unrestricted, and you can drag elements anywhere on the page. They don’t lock in place. Wix is also has a lot of apps, which we’ll discuss later on.
Squarespace
Once again, Squarespace is quite similar to Wix. The main difference between Wix and Squarespace is the editor.
Squarespace uses a block system, similar to the new block system found in WordPress, except for website design. This means you can drag and drop elements, move them around, and edit with ease.
The good thing about this system is everything remains structured and locks into the appropriate grid.
Now that you have a basic idea of how these website builders work, let’s move on to the price.
Plans & Prices
Price us a major factor when trying to decide which company to use. We’ll talk more about the storage and features later on.
Godaddy
Basic
$
10
/month
Standard – $15/Month
Premium – $20/Month
eCommerce – $25/Month.
Wix
Connect a Domain (Most Basic)
$
4.50
/month
Website:
Wix has two categories: Website and Business & eCommerce. Business sites contain apps and other tools to make your business easier, such as accepting online payments but at an increased monthly price.
Combo – Personal Use – $8.50/month
Unlimited – $12.50/month
VIP – $24/50/month
Business & eCommerce:
Combo – Personal Use – $8.50/month
Unlimited – $12.50/month
VIP – $24/50/month
One thing to keep in mind about Wix’s plans is only Combo and above remove the Wix ads from your website. With Connect a Domain, you’ll have to display ads.
Squarespace
Personal
$
12
/month
Business – $18/month
Commerce - $26/month
Advanced Commerce - $40/month
SSL Certificates?
Do these website builders provide free SSL certificates? The good news is all of the website builders on this list, Godaddy, Wix, and Squarespace, include free SSL certificates on all their paid plans, even the cheapest ones. That’s one less thing that you need to worry about.
Connecting & Buying a Domain:
The good news is that each of these website builders makes it easy to buy and connect a domain name. They have their internal domain marketplace, as well as the option to connect domains from other registrars.
At Wix, a 1-year domain voucher is included in Premium annual packages. Squarespace also offers a similar promotion. Godaddy’s website builder doesn’t seem to include a free domain, although their domains are cheaper than the other two companies.
Overall, though, if you’re looking for the cheapest option, Wix is probably the best choice.
- Winner: Wix
Hard Drives & Disk Space:
How much disk space? Do They use SSDs or HDDs?
Godaddy
Godaddy claims to offer unmetered hard drive space on all of its subscription plans. What this means is that they don’t limit the amount of space you can use. The downside is their hosting doesn’t use SSD drives, but there are specific plans you can choose which do have SSDs.
Wix
With Wix, there are bandwidth and disk space limits. The limits start at 1 GB of bandwidth and 500 MB of storage (Connect a Domain) to unlimited bandwidth and 20 GB storage. Not that much space. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like Wix uses SSDs either.
Squarespace
Squarespace, like Godaddy, offers unmetered storage and bandwidth on all of their accounts. Unfortunately, Squarespace also doesn’t use SSDs.
So, out of these three, Wix is the only one that limits your bandwidth and storage. On the other hand, they all use HDDs, instead of SDDs.
Email Hosting:
Which company offers free email addresses? Once again, these services are quite similar. From the looks of it, neither company includes the option to create custom email addresses for free but they all have dedicated add-on email services.
With Godaddy, you can choose to buy an additional service for creating and managing an email address. There are three packages: Email Essentials ($1.99/month), Email Plus ($3.99/month), and Business Premium ($9.99/month).
At Wix, you’ll have to buy a G Suite Mailbox which costs $6/month. If you want a custom email address, then you must subscribe to their service. The same goes for Squarespace, they also use G Suite Mailbox for $6/month.
So in the category of custom email addresses and email management, it seems like Godaddy has a cheaper option, Email Essentials, which only costs $1.99 a month.
- Winner: Godaddy
Daily Backups:
How often do they back up your website? Is it easy to restore a backup? Let’s see.
Godaddy
With Godaddy automatically creates a backup of your website when you publish it or select a new theme. On the other hand, it doesn’t periodically create backups. However, they do allow you to create up to five backups manually.
Wix
What about with Wix? Now Wix’s backup service is pretty cool. Whenever you make a change to your website, Wix automatically creates a backup, called Site History. So if you make a mistake, you can select the version of your website prior to the mistake, and restore it.
Squarespace
And Squarespace? From what I can tell, Squarespace doesn’t provide the option to create manual or automatic backups. However, they do save deleted pages and other content on their servers for up to 30 days.
When it comes down to it, I would choose Wix. Their backup system is much easier to use than the other two companies. You can also duplicate a website. sa
- Winner: Wix
Customer Support:
Which company has the most efficient customer support? Godaddy has a help center, a community forum, a phone hotline, and live-chat service.
Wix offers a call-back service, support ticket, help center, and live-chat service. The call-back service schedules a call for you, you don’t call them directly. Most common problems can be resolved through the help center.
And Squarespace? Squarespace has a help center with not only articles but guides and videos, a community forum, webinars, support ticket, and live chat. They like to keep communications online, so they don’t offer phone calls at this time.
Wrapping it up, in the section of customer support, I would say Wix has a more efficient customer support service.
- Winner: Wix
Squarespace vs Wix vs Godaddy - Who’s The Winner?
You’re probably wondering which of these companies are the best. I admit, most of them offer similar services and features. In my opinion, the winner out of these three is Wix. Not only do they offer cheap website plans, but their website builder is flexible, and their customer support service is great.
If you’re not familiar with WordPress and other software for website design, Wix is probably the best choice for you.
Thanks for taking the time to read this breakdown. Hopefully now you know more about these website builders and which one is right for you.
