I skip the closed ecosystems like Wix or Squarespace and build directly on WordPress. It gives me the absolute control I need to manage everything from heritagediner.com to marcellinony.com and x9m8.com without being locked into a proprietary platform. That is my preference, stated as a preference. Marcellino NY, which has been my own business since 2010, is one of those sites, so anything I say here about choosing a platform comes from a seller with a stake in the question. I have no financial interest in Wix, Squarespace or WordPress.com.

Wix vs WordPress vs Shopify vs Squarespace: Which is Best in 2026?, Adam Enfroy on YouTube

What the word builder covers

A wooden architect scale rule and a pencil on blank graph paper on a drafting table

A website builder is a tool that puts a site together without making you write the code, and the word hides three separate things that a shop owner ends up paying for. One is the editor, where the pages get arranged. One is the hosting, which is the computer that serves the pages to visitors. The third is the domain, the name people type to reach it.

The builders differ mostly in how many of those three they sell as one package. Wix and Squarespace sell all three together. WordPress comes in two versions, and the two versions are the clearest example of the difference, so that is where this post spends most of its time.

Wix

Wix describes itself on its home page as a website builder and domain registrar. It lists an AI website builder, drag-and-drop editing and more than two thousand templates. Hosting is included, and free sites come with web hosting along with a Wixsite subdomain, which means the address of a free site is a Wix address and not the shop’s own name.

The page says plainly where free stops. A custom domain is free for one year with an annual Premium plan, and selling through an online store requires an upgrade to a Premium plan. So the free plan is a place to build and look around, and the moment a shop wants to take orders under its own name, it is a paid customer.

Wix also makes a claim about its hosting, saying free sites get web hosting with 99.99% uptime. That is the company’s own figure, from its own page, and there is no way to check it from here, so read it as marketing and not as a measurement. The point that holds up on any reading is that hosting is part of the package, so there is no separate bill and no separate company to call when the site is down.

That is a fair arrangement, and I mention it only because “free” in this category usually describes the entrance and not the room.

Squarespace

Different keys hanging on hooks on a wooden board with blank tags in a workshop hallway

Squarespace calls itself a website builder and business platform and says all of its websites come with both hosting and security. Its pricing page lists four paid website plans, Basic, Core, Plus and Advanced, each billable monthly or annually, and says there is no permanently free plan: every site starts with a free trial that does not require a credit card.

The commerce side is where the plans divide. According to the same page, every plan can sell products, services and gift cards, but the entry plan charges a transaction fee on its online store, the next tier up charges none, and several selling tools (discounts, shipping labels, carrier-calculated shipping) start above the entry plan. I am deliberately leaving the dollar figures and the percentage out, since they are the part of a pricing page that moves.

Squarespace also says every plan includes a custom domain option, that annual plans include a year of free registration for an eligible domain with renewal at the standard rate afterward, and that you can connect a domain you already own or buy one through Squarespace on any plan. The renewal line is the one to notice. A free first year is a way of getting the name onto the company’s books, and the second year is the year the real price shows up.

The structure is easy to describe. The entry plan is the cheapest way in, and a shop that sells will probably outgrow it, so the real plan for a shop is the second one. The decision is worth making before the site is built, since changing plans after customers have found the shop is a worse afternoon than choosing the right one at the start.

WordPress, in two versions

WordPress.org describes WordPress as open source software under the GPLv2 or later license, and lists four freedoms that come with it, the first being “The freedom to run the program for any purpose.” The software costs nothing, which is the free in “free and paid” that most people mean. It does not include a place to run it.

WordPress.com is the hosted version, and its own comparison page draws the line. On WordPress.com, managed hosting is built in, updates, backups and SSL certificates are handled for you, and plugins and custom theme uploads require an eligible paid plan. With the self-hosted version, you find, pay for and set up your own hosting, you handle the setup and upkeep, and you get what the page calls great technical freedom, including custom code and changes to the PHP environment. The page says WordPress.com trades some technical freedom for managed convenience, and self-hosting gives more control at the price of more maintenance.

My own choice is the second version. The phrase in my opening, “without being locked into a proprietary platform,” is a statement about what I want from a site, and the comparison page backs up the difference in control without making any claim about what any other company does with your content.

What the hosting question hides

Hands tightening a bolt with a wrench on an open wooden cabinet frame

The hosting arrangement is the quiet difference between all of these, and it is easier to see at the counter than on a pricing page. A shop that rents a seat inside Wix or Squarespace has one landlord, one bill and one support line. A shop that runs its own WordPress has a different landlord for the hosting, another for the domain if it chose to separate them, and a person inside the business who knows where the passwords are.

Neither arrangement is wrong. The first is a lease with the repairs included, and the second is owning the building and fixing the roof yourself. A cook understands this without a diagram: a rented kitchen comes with the hood cleaned and the rules posted on the wall, and a kitchen you own comes with nobody to blame. Which one is cheaper depends on what your own hours are worth, and a small shop usually undervalues them.

The WordPress.com comparison page says the hosted version handles updates, backups and SSL certificates, and that you keep ownership of your content and can move it whenever you want. That last claim is the company’s own, and it is worth reading in full on the page itself. It does not settle the question for Wix or Squarespace, and I do not use it for that.

The part I cannot verify

Here the argument has a hole, and I would rather point at it than stand in front of it. My reason for avoiding Wix and Squarespace is lock-in: the worry that a site built inside a closed platform stays there. Both companies publish help pages about exporting a site, and I tried to read them for this post. Neither page would load for me, so I can neither confirm nor deny what a Wix or Squarespace site can take with it when it leaves.

If that question matters to you, and it should if you are about to spend a month building something, the way to settle it is simple. Search each company’s help center for the word export, read what it says is included and what is left behind, and decide whether you can live with the difference. What moves and what stays behind is the whole question, and the answer may differ between the text, the layout, the store and the forms.

The honest turn is that control costs something. Running your own WordPress means a person in the business has to care about updates and backups, and WordPress.com’s own page says exactly that about the self-hosted version. If nobody in the shop wants that job, a builder that does it for you is not a compromise. It is a division of labor.

A short decision for a small shop

  • A shop that has nothing yet and wants a page this week can start with any of the three, and the one-page approach in the post on a one-page website for a small business is a reasonable first goal.
  • A shop that sells should price the selling tools before the design, since the commerce limits are what separate the plans.
  • A shop that expects to run several sites, or to change direction, should weigh control above convenience. That is where my own preference comes from, and it is a preference, with no promise attached that it will suit anyone else.
  • Whatever you pick, register the domain yourself. The post on a domain and business email explains why the name should belong to the business and not to the tool that happens to show it.

None of these builders is a bad choice, and all of them are bad choices for somebody. The mistake is picking one by its advertisement, then finding out in the second year what it does and does not let you take with you.

For informational purposes only. Plans, prices and export options change, so check each company’s current terms, and if a site will collect payments or personal data, consult a licensed attorney or accountant about what you owe customers.

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