Squarespace vs Format: Comprehensive comparison guide for 2024

Final verdict

Squarespace and Format both offer unique strengths, but they cater to different audiences.

• 
  Squarespace (Overall Grade: 7.9/10)
  
  is a versatile website builder that excels in providing a user-friendly experience with a wide variety of templates and comprehensive support. It is ideal for users seeking a hassle-free website creation process with robust ecommerce capabilities. Squarespace’s extensive learning resources and active community make it a strong choice for a broad range of users, from personal bloggers to small business owners.
• 
  Format (Overall Grade: 5.8/10)
  
  is tailored specifically for creative professionals such as photographers, artists, and designers. It offers customizable templates that are visually appealing and easy to manage. While it may not have the extensive feature set of Squarespace, Format’s focus on high-quality imagery and portfolio presentation makes it an excellent choice for creatives looking to showcase their work and connect with potential clients.

Best for ecommerce

Verdict

: Format is tailored for creative professionals with basic ecommerce needs, while Squarespace offers a more robust and comprehensive ecommerce solution.

• 
  Squarespace
  
  : Squarespace excels in providing a user-friendly interface with a range of customizable templates and essential ecommerce features. It supports secure payment processing, flexible shipping options, and automated tax calculations, making it a strong contender in the ecommerce space. When comparing Squarespace vs Format, Squarespace is the better choice for those looking for a more complete ecommerce solution.
  
  Score: 8.2
  
• 
  Format
  
  : Format is designed for creative professionals and offers basic ecommerce functionalities. It includes features like inventory management, discounts, and multiple currency options, but lacks the depth and scalability of Squarespace. Format is ideal for those who prioritize showcasing their portfolios over running a full-fledged online store.
  
  Score: 5.2
  

Best for informational & business websites

Verdict

: When it comes to creating informational and business websites, Squarespace stands out as the superior choice due to its versatility, extensive design functionalities, and comprehensive support. Format, while excellent for creative professionals, falls short in broader applications.

• 
  Squarespace
  
  : Squarespace is a robust website builder that excels in creating professional and visually appealing websites without the need for coding. It offers a wide variety of templates and design options, making it suitable for a broad range of industries. With a user-friendly interface and extensive learning resources, Squarespace is ideal for users seeking a hassle-free website creation experience. Its comprehensive support and high security measures further enhance its appeal for business websites.
• 
  Format
  
  : Format is tailored specifically for creative professionals such as photographers, artists, and designers. It offers nearly 100 customizable templates that are perfect for showcasing portfolios. While Format provides an intuitive drag-and-drop interface and features like an integrated online store and client proofing, it is less versatile compared to Squarespace. Its limited feature set and less intuitive interface make it more suitable for niche creative needs rather than broader business applications. When comparing Squarespace vs Format, Format is best for creatives looking to showcase their work.

Detailed comparison

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Winner: Squarespace.

If you’re looking for a platform that offers a wide variety of templates and design, Squarespace is the preferred choice.

Squarespace boasts an impressive variety of website templates, offering over 120 pre-designed options to choose from. These templates cater to a wide range of needs and industries, from creative portfolios and sleek online stores to professional business websites and personal blogs.

Squarespace Themes

On the other hand, Format is a website builder specifically designed for creatives, offering nearly 100 customizable templates tailored for various artistic disciplines. It emphasizes high-quality imagery and mobile-friendly designs, ensuring portfolios look professional on any device. While it offers easy-to-use features and e-commerce tools for selling work directly, some users find its interface less intuitive and its feature set somewhat limited for broader website needs.

Format Themes

🏆 Winner: Squarespace

. Both Squarespace and Format scored an 8.3 for ease of use, indicating that both platforms are user-friendly and intuitive. However, Squarespace edges out Format due to its versatility, extensive learning resources, and active user community. While Format is a great choice for creative professionals, Squarespace caters to a broader range of users and provides more comprehensive support.

Learning Resources

🏆 Winner: Squarespace

. Squarespace provides a comprehensive Help Center, video tutorials, live webinars, an informative blog, and an active community forum, offering a varied and accessible learning experience. Format, on the other hand, provides a help center and a YouTube channel, but lacks an official community forum.

When it comes to ecommerce, Squarespace offers a more comprehensive solution compared to Format. Squarespace is designed to simplify the setup of an online store with an intuitive interface, customizable templates, and a range of features including secure payment processing, flexible shipping options, and automated tax calculations. Format, on the other hand, is primarily designed for creative professionals and offers basic ecommerce functionalities.

Squarespace ecommerce features:

• Intuitive interface
• Secure payment processing
• Built-in marketing tools
• SEO optimization
• Website analytics

Format ecommerce features:

• Inventory management and tracking
• Discounts
• Multiple currency options

Ecommerce themes & templates

Squarespace provides a diverse selection of around 50 ecommerce templates, catering to various industries like fashion, beauty, home goods, and technology. These templates range from clean and minimalist to bold and colorful, accommodating different brand aesthetics and product types. Offering unique layout elements such as product sliders and featured collections, these templates enhance visual interest and engagement. Format, however, does not offer ecommerce specific templates.

Product page customization

Squarespace offers options for layout, design, and interactive elements on product pages. You can choose templates, customize colors, fonts, and content. Enhance engagement with features like customizable buttons, wishlists, comparisons, reviews, and related products. Advanced options include custom code injection and third-party app integrations. Limitations include fixed core page structure and the need for technical expertise. Free templates have fewer customization options than premium ones. Format offers limited specific details on product page customization directly, but its e-commerce features suggest a focus on showcasing products through high-quality imagery and detailed descriptions. You can manage product specifics like shipping, availability, and pricing, with customization likely extending to layout and presentation styles to highlight products effectively.

Payment processing

Squarespace provides flexible payment processing for online stores with integrated gateways like Stripe and PayPal. External gateways can be set up for specific needs. Transaction fees may apply depending on the plan and payment method. Security measures include PCI compliance and fraud prevention. Additional features include payment links, support for subscriptions, and the ability to accept international payments in various currencies. Format offers integration with major payment gateways, including Paypal and Stripe. It charges a 15% commission on the Pro plan and 5% on the Pro Plus plan. However, the platform does not have built-in POS (Point of Sale) capabilities.

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Winner: Squarespace

. Squarespace, with a score of 8.3, offers a user-friendly editor that allows easy drag-and-drop website creation without coding. With visually appealing templates and customization options, it caters to beginners and pros alike. The real-time editing experience ensures instant previews. Prioritizing content, it’s mobile-responsive and offers functional features like forms, social media integration, and online stores. Squarespace seamlessly integrates with tools for extended capabilities.

Format’s editor, scoring 7.5, offers a variety of features for creating online portfolios. It provides nearly 100 professionally designed templates and thousands of design variations without requiring any coding. Users can express creativity with custom pages, incorporating unique gallery layouts, colors, text formatting, and custom code embeds. The templates and pages are fully responsive, ensuring a mobile-first experience. Format also supports direct video hosting, high-quality image rendering, and easy template switching to give sites a new look. Additionally, it includes studio management tools, e-commerce capabilities, and SEO tools.

Mobile editor/app

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Winner: Squarespace

. Squarespace and Format both offer mobile editing capabilities, but they differ significantly in their approach and functionality. Squarespace has a mobile app that allows users to manage their website, edit content, view analytics, manage their online store, and schedule social media posts. However, it lacks some advanced features available on the desktop version.

On the other hand, Format does not have a dedicated mobile app. Users can edit their website using a mobile browser, but the interface is the same as the desktop version, which can be challenging to use on a smartphone. Given these factors, Squarespace has a higher mobile editor score than Format, making it the better choice for mobile editing.

Overall Result

:

Format Wins

. Format scores 8.3, slightly higher than Squarespace’s 7.4. Both platforms offer a 14-day free trial, but Format provides a 30-day money back guarantee and allows users to test all premium features during the trial period. Squarespace, on the other hand, restricts access to certain premium features during the trial period.

Squarespace and Format offer a range of pricing options to cater to different user needs. Squarespace offers more comprehensive features for businesses and online stores, while Format is more tailored for creative professionals. Both platforms offer significant discounts for annual subscriptions. Squarespace offers an enterprise plan with custom pricing, while Format does not have an enterprise plan.

Winner: Squarespace

. Squarespace provides more detailed information about its hosting services, including the type of hosting, uptime, uptime guarantee, and data center locations. On the other hand, Format does not provide detailed information about its hosting services, which results in a lower hosting quality score.

🏆 Winner: Squarespace

Both Squarespace and Format prioritize website performance and page speed, but Squarespace outperforms Format in this area with a more comprehensive approach to speed optimization and a higher average PageSpeed score.

Squarespace’s approach to enhancing site speed includes responsive design, image optimization, use of a content delivery network (CDN), code minification, and lazy loading of images. These strategies help to improve load times and PageSpeed scores, which range from 20/100 to 93/100, with an average of 62.7/100. Load times vary from 0.7 seconds to 9.1 seconds, with an average of 2.9 seconds. Squarespace also places emphasis on improving Core Web Vitals, specifically LCP, FID, and CLS.

Format, on the other hand, focuses on image and video optimization to enhance website speed. However, they do not provide specific information about their performance tools, load times, PageSpeed scores, or Core Web Vital improvements. This lack of transparency makes it difficult to assess the effectiveness of their speed optimization strategies.

🏆 Winner: Squarespace.

Squarespace scores 6.8, leading the way with its wider range of integrations and extensions, even though it lacks an official app store. It supports integrations through custom code injection and third-party tools, with over 20 official partner integrations in categories like analytics, marketing, commerce, and social media. Format, with a decent 4.9, offers a limited selection of plugins/integrations, including Adobe Lightroom, Mailchimp, and Google Analytics. However, its overall capabilities for expansion through plugins and integrations are notably limited, posing a challenge for users looking for a more extensive suite of tools to customize and enhance their website’s functionality.

Squarespace Applications

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Overall Winner: Squarespace

. Squarespace offers more comprehensive and advanced marketing tools, especially in analytics and reporting, social media integrations, and ad campaign management. Format’s marketing features are relatively basic, with limited social media integrations and reliance on external services for analytics and reporting.

🏆 Winner: Squarespace

. In the Squarespace vs Format comparison, Squarespace takes the lead with a customer support score of 7.8. Squarespace offers a variety of support options, including live chat, email, a community forum, and a comprehensive help center. Live chat and phone support are available on weekdays from 6 AM to 6 PM PST, while email support is available 24/7. The community forum and help center provide 24/7 access, ensuring users can find help at any time.

Format, with a customer support score of 7.0, provides 24/7 customer support through email and live chat. The tech support team is distributed across different countries to ensure round-the-clock availability. However, Format lacks dedicated enterprise support, which may be a drawback for larger businesses.

Overall, Squarespace’s extensive support options and dedicated enterprise support make it the better choice for users seeking reliable and comprehensive customer assistance.

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Winner: Squarespace

. Squarespace takes a comprehensive approach to security, with a high security score of 8.8. It prioritizes data privacy and security through secure server storage, encryption, strict access controls, and compliance with regulations such as GDPR and CCPA. Squarespace also provides transparent privacy policies and additional security measures like vulnerability scanning and malware detection.

On the other hand, Format, with a security score of 7.4, also emphasizes the security of user data through encrypted data storage and strict access controls. However, it provides less detailed information about its security measures compared to Squarespace. Therefore, Squarespace is the more secure option between the two.

🏆 Winner: Squarespace

. Squarespace, with a score of 7.5, offers a range of AI-powered features that assist in website creation, eCommerce, content generation, and other additional features. These tools contribute to a more efficient and effective website building and management experience.

Format, on the other hand, does not have any AI capabilities. This lack of AI features may limit the efficiency and effectiveness of website building and management on the Format platform.

🏆 Winner: Squarespace

. Squarespace offers a more robust user management system compared to Format.

• Squarespace allows different numbers of users with editing access depending on the plan. The Personal Plan allows one owner, Business and Commerce Plans permit 2 collaborators with different access levels, and the Enterprise Plan offers unlimited users, each with customizable access privileges, from full administrators to restricted contributors.
• Format, on the other hand, only allows one user to manage and edit websites.

Squarespace User Roles and Access Levels:

Format User Roles and Access Levels:

Format does not provide different user roles and access levels. It only allows one user to manage and edit websites.

Additional Features

User Feedback

Squarespace is well-liked for its easy-to-use interface and versatile tools, making it ideal for those who aren’t tech-savvy. It offers various features like website creation, SEO, online selling, and more, catering to different users. Customers appreciate its good customer support and visually appealing templates, creating a professional online presence. However, some users find issues with domain transfer/setup, limited customization options, and consider the pricing slightly higher. There are also occasional concerns about customer service and technical limitations like template rigidity and missing features.

Users highly praise Format for its user-friendly website builder, particularly noting the ease of adding images and the effectiveness of customer service. Many reviewers appreciate the variety of modern templates and the platform’s suitability for users without technical expertise, especially photographers. Format’s mobile app and proofing section receive special mentions for their convenience and functionality. However, some users desire more customization options, particularly for mobile views, and mention minor limitations in template flexibility and SEO functionality. Overall, Format is celebrated for its ability to provide a professional online presence easily and efficiently, solving users’ needs for showcasing work and attracting new clients.

FAQ