From Showit to Squarespace to Wix to Pixieset to WordPress… It’s natural to feel a little bit overwhelmed when deciding which website platform is right for you and your business. Today, I’m sharing with you the pros and cons between two platforms that I’ve used as a web designer — Showit vs Squarespace.

So, let’s dive right in, shall we?

Showit vs Squarespace

Let’s start off with Squarespace. Squarespace is known for it’s clean and user-friendly platform (oh, and that Keanu Reeves uses Squarespace for his motorcycle brand). All jokes aside, when I first opened Patricia Mari Creative, I designed my own website on Squarespace so I can confidently say that I’m familiar with the platform.

Pros of Squarespace

Drag and drop platform

When I designed on Squarespace, I loved how I could drag and drop elements into blocks and it would just snap to the grid (hello, symmetry!). Showit is also a drag and drop platform but you cannot snap to the grid. Ultimately with Showit, you have full creative control of your website design. Being a designer, full creative control is a dream come true! It does mean that you do need to pay a bit more attention to the layout to ensure everything is balanced visually.

No coding required (if you want)

One of the main selling features of Squarespace is that anyone can learn to use the platform quickly and easily. With 110 free templates to choose from, Squarespace is great for DIYers as no coding knowledge is required.  From a designers perspective, I loved that I still had the ability to customize the templates with code.  Personally, I thought it was really fun to be able to customize my clients site with coding. Plus, being able to offer custom coding put me at an advantage over other designers who didn’t have that experience. Showit on the other hand is almost completely code-free with the expectation of being able to embed codes.

All-in-one platform

Squarespace to me is truly an all-in-one platform and if you are looking to simplify and have everything all in one place, Squarespace may be the best choice for you and your business.  You can blog, schedule appointments, create an online store, and track analytics directly through the Squarespace platform. These are all features you can integrate into your Showit website however, you will most likely require third-party plugins and embedded codes.

Cons of Squarespace

Design Limitations

It’s almost impossible to create an “ugly” site on Squarespace. That’s because Squarespace limits what you can customize within each template. With Showit, you have complete control of your design (both for desktop and mobile) however there is a bit more of a learning curve. As a designer, my vote is always for whatever gives me the most creative freedom.

Cannot Customize Mobile design

Squarespace does not allow you to customize your mobile design. Yes, you save time however, with 55.56% of web traffic coming through mobile phones, it makes sense to want to pay more special attention to your visitors mobile viewing experience. On Showit, you can completely customize your mobile design separately from your desktop design.  This gives you the freedom to add or remove content from your mobile design without interfering with your desktop design.

Squarespace may be right for you if…

  • You want an all-in-one-platform to keep things simple and not have to worry about maintaining/learning a bajillion different subscriptions and platforms.
  • You want to DIY your website quickly and easily.
  • You’re okay with limited design options
  • You’re Keanu Reeves

Pros and Cons of Showit

You probably can already guess that as a designer I’m all #TeamShowit. There are so many reasons why I love Showit but I’m just going to share with you the important details you may want to consider if you are thinking about switching to Showit…

What I LOVE about Showit:

Full Creative Freedom

There is nothing more in this world that makes my little designer heart pitter patter than being able to design with zero limitations! I absolutely love that I can design and deliver whatever vision my client dreams up for their website. 

The Best Support Team

Showit has without a doubt the best support team ever. I love that I have direct chat access to them in my Showit dashboard. Every time I’ve been in a design pickle, the support team has been there to help me and are just super easy to talk to. Also, extra snaps for the team because their .gif game always brings a smile to my face.

Things to consider before switching to Showit:

The Learning Curve

“With great power comes great responsibility” – Uncle Ben (Not the rice.)

Having full creative freedom is a dream for a designer. However, if you’re a photographer whose passion is photography and not design websites, you may feel a bit overwhelmed when you first interact with the Showit design platform. That is why for my custom design clients and template users, I include a resource library along with video tutorials to walk them through the Showit design platform!

The Blog Migration

Like I said earlier, the Showit Support team is amazing! They will handle the entire blog migration for you when you are switching platforms (you can read about their full blog migration details here).  With that being said, Showit only currently supports the blog migration for WordPress and Squarespace. If you are coming from Squarespace, some content may change such as your blog post URLs during the migration process. This is especially worrisome if your blog has a lot of backlinks as it could break those links if the URL changes.  The good news is that you can go in and edit your blog post URLs once the migration is complete. The bad news is that it’s going to be a pain in the butt if you have a lot of posts to edit as you’ll need to do this for each post.

Showit may be right for you if…

  • You’re a designer and want full creative freedom
  • You plan on hiring a designer and value one-of-a-kind custom website designs
  • You’re comfortable with a bit of a learning curve and are willing to put in the time to learn how to use the platform
  • You are okay using third-party plugins and using embedded codes

So, Showit vs Squarespace… which platform is best for you?

There is no right or wrong answer here because this decision is completely dependent on the season of your business and where you are hoping to take your business going forward.  

A lot of the information in this post were factors that I’ve presented to my own clients. These are all considerations that helped them decide between Showit vs Squarespace and what would work best for their business. I sincerely hope you found it helpful as well.

If you have any more questions don’t be shy to reach out to be as I would be more than happy to answer them!

x. Patricia

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Showit vs Squarespace – Which one is for you?

Business

Mar 8

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