When it comes to choosing a platform for your website creation, many options exist. However, two of the most popular choices are Godaddy and Squarespace. Here’s a look at some of the key differences between Godaddy and Squarespace to help you decide which one is the best choice for your dream website.

Winner Snapshot: Check out this summary table to quickly compare these two providers

Winner: Squarespace

Overall, Squarespace is the winner in our comparison with the platform offering more creative and attractive templates, features, and enough support. While its plan isn’t as affordable as GoDaddy, it offers more flexibility. GoDaddy is perfect for users who are new to the web hosting service scene and need a relatively straightforward platform with solid performance. Keep reading our Squarespace vs. GoDaddy comparison to see how both platforms stack against each other.

About GoDaddy and Squarespace

GoDaddy is a popular web hosting company founded in 1997 and is considered the most recognizable domain registrar. The platform offers great web hosting services, website building, marketing features, and e-commerce plans. GoDaddy is relatively easier to use because it offers users fewer technical features and cheaper plans. In recent years, GoDaddy has set up 82 million domains and attended to over 20 million customers worldwide. For every 20 websites you see, GoDaddy hosts 1 of them.

Squarespace is a New York-based website hosting and publishing company founded by Anthony Casalena in 2004. The platform offers software for clients seeking to host and build services while allowing users to leverage pre-built website templates to make and modify web pages. It offers features for blogging, social media marketing, eCommerce, etc. Over 4 million websites and 1.9% of the top 10 million websites presently use Squarespace.

GoDaddy vs. Squarespace: A Side-By-Side Comparison

To make fair comparisons between GoDaddy and Squarespace, we had to compare a common feature/service they are known for: web hosting and domain registrars. While they appear to offer similar services, there are many key differences in quality for either platform.

Squarespace and GoDaddy provide users with customizable, drag-and-drop templates, simple search engine optimization (SEO) perks, solid security features, and simple website building features necessary for beginner builders.

GoDaddy’s offers come at a cheaper plan than Squarespace, but both are still as affordable as web hosting services come. However, they differ in functionality and creative flexibility, so your choice of host service will depend on what you expect your site to do and the plan you can afford.

We’ve already broken the two platforms into bits. Still, the next thing to do is an in-depth overview of their features, price, performances, customer support, ease of use, scalability, security, and server location of both hosting providers to see which is better in every comparison round.

Round 1: Hosting Features – Key Hosting Features and Services

Key GoDaddy Features

GoDaddy has several great features that hosting services should have in its web hosting bundle. Below we highlight and further explain some of the most significant and key GoDaddy features.

• GoDaddy website builder
• Online store builder
• Email
• Marketing tools
• SEO Wizard

GoDaddy Website Builder

GoDaddy’s Website Builder  allows users to build a website with one of its already-made templates. The platform divides these templates into different categories so users don’t waste time searching for the perfect pick. Besides, GoDaddy’s website builder is also a drag-and-drop type which makes website building easier.

One reason why you might prefer GoDaddy’s website builder is that it is fast and creates a website that both you and your clients will like. You only need to type in an idea or industry and the GoDaddy Website Builder will bring up several ready-to-launch and professionally designed templates.

Online Store Builder

The Online Store Builder from GoDaddy is one of its best features. It allows users to create amazing online stores as easily and quickly as possible with different free tools. GoDaddy users can choose from a library of over 100 mobile friendly designs arranged according to industry. You can easily customize these designs to build the eCommerce website you desire without having any tech skills. How cool is that?

Email

Professional email is another top tier feature of GoDaddy that allows users to send and receive emails from their domain. The email feature gives a website a more professional outlook and is likely to attract more page traffic.

Marketing tools

In addition to a Website builder, Online store builder, and emails, GoDaddy has marketing features loaded with superb tools. GoDaddy has three tools dedicated to marketing—Search Engine Visibility, GoDaddy InSight, and Email marketing.

Search engine visibility will suggest keywords and phrases, and populate your page titles and metatags. GoDaddy InSight is great at scoring and comparing your website’s performance to that of other sites in your industry.

Furthermore, it has key metrics like site views and social media engagement you can monitor and it also allows users to choose business goals. Finally, the email marketing tool is present in all GoDaddy hosting plans. Let’s find out what features our GoDaddy alternatives offer.

SEO Wizard

GoDaddy takes care of users’ technical SEO aspects for them. They don’t need to use custom codes or search for plugins. The platform assists users with keyword suggestions, title and meta tags, image alt text, and URL slugs.

SEO Wizard by GoDaddy is the platform’s one-stop shop for all things optimization. You get to answer some business-related questions and the SEO tools will make effective technical adjustments based on the answers you give.

You also get access to personalized tips on the best ways to optimize your SEO strategy. In recent times, they have even added blogging functionality to the SEO Wizard but it still has some way to go before being the perfect tool. One downside of this tool is that it is impossible to edit SEO settings for blogs and you have no control over page URLs since GoDaddy auto generated them.

Key Squarespace Features

Squarespace allows users to leverage website building and marketing tools to create websites and eCommerce sites. These are some of the key features of Squarespace:

• Squarespace Websites
• Commerce
• Marketing
• Analytics
• Extensions
• Connected Services

Squarespace Websites

With this feature, Squarespace invites you into a world where you can let your imagination roam free with tons of customizable options. The website builder helps users create professional sites that stand out on the internet, whether they are blogs or portfolios.

In terms of templates and template designs, Squarespace has some of the very best designs on the market. There are several high-quality modern templates for customers to select from and use.

Meanwhile, every template translates easily to a mobile device with the drag-and-drop feature helping newcomers customize their websites as freely as possible. Templates come in handy for creatives who want to use Squarespace to display their online store and products or photography and artwork neat but extra creative.

With a click of a button, you can turn your amazing ideas into a reality with the perfect template. Under this Website feature, you get access to the following:

• Blogging
• Portfolio
• Customizable Templates
• Website builder

Commerce

Most people use web hosting services for their new and existing eCommerce platforms, and Squarespace understands their needs. eCommerce plans from Squarespace have integrated eCommerce functionality completely.

This means that users can manage anything, no matter how basic or complex their store is. The New York-based web host allows users to showcase and sell thousands of their products via online stores with Point of Sale available and manages subscriptions and important business needs.

Your visitors browse through several of your goods, add items to their cart, and check out easily and safely. Under this Commerce feature, you get access to:

• Sell services and products
• Sell subscriptions and digital content
• Product merchandising
• Inventory management
• Mobile-Optimized Checkout
• Express Checkout Mode
• Member Areas
• Multiple Payment Methods
• Product reviews, etc.

Marketing

Marketing is an integral part of any online business. As a business owner, you need detailed analytics to track popular content, traffic, sales, etc. there are many automated marketing solutions that Squarespace offers website owners, especially those just getting started with their marketing plan.

You can increase the traffic to your Squarespace site and build your business by using some fantastic tools. For one, social media marketing could be ideal for you if you need to generate more engagement and promote the business.

Furthermore, marketing endeavors like pay-per-click marketing (PPC) allow marketers to receive charges when a visitor or user clicks on their ads. Need to run a PPC marketing campaign on Squarespace?

There are a variety of connectors available to you, but Squarespace staff will only help you disconnect or connect an extension. That said, the Squarespace Marketing feature has these tools and more:

• Email Campaigns
• Squarespace Video Studio App
• Newsletter Blocks
• Social Media Integrations
• Banners & Promotions
• Marketing Analytics
• Marketing Extensions and Connected Services
• Custom Favicon.

Analytics

In addition to your marketing efforts, Squarespace’s analytics feature will help you keep an eye on several other key indicators to see how your site is growing.

You can view your traffic, sales, and visitor geography.

Amongst the key performance metrics to track are orders, revenue, conversion rate, revenue per visit, orders, units sold, and average order volume. You can also track and gain more insight into the location with your most visitors or customers. All of these can help you channel your marketing efforts effectively and scale.

Extensions

Extensions can help eCommerce businesses record more sales and meet customer needs faster. Squarespace has several extensions that users can leverage, one of which is the finance extension. Finance extension is a third-party tool to help users reconcile their sales transactions, file all sales taxes, properly manage accounts, and make bookkeeping effective.

Inventory and product extensions are other useful extensions you can integrate into your sites. They help users manage inventory, stock levels, SKUs, and seamlessly offer new products and services to clients.

Sales and marketing are both important aspects of eCommerce, and Squarespace has an extension dedicated to promoting products across several selling channels while incentivizing customers and shoppers. There are also shipping and fulfillment extensions to help you fulfill orders on time, ship merchandise, manage returns, and keep your customers in the loop with notifications and branded tracking.

Connected Services

Squarespace lets users stay socially connected by adding social links to display icons to site visitors. This makes it easier for them to find you wherever you have an online presence on the internet. You can easily connect with a wide audience and improve your site’s reach when you leverage Squarespace’s integrations and social sharing tools.

Another aspect of Squarespace’s connected services is Squarespace scheduling which users use to add online appointment booking to their website. With the scheduling block, class-based businesses can easily streamline workflow and get new clients.

You can easily reel in content from Instagram, Bandsintown, Twitter, Flickr, and Soundcloud straight to your site. Another exciting aspect of the connected service feature is that it allows for simultaneous posting.

Squarespace can authenticate with your social profiles and allow you to auto-post content to pre-scheduled Facebook, Twitter, or Tumblr pages. This feature highlights that every post entry and image is optimized and properly tagged so that titles and descriptions are referenced correctly.

What’s more, if you have little to no coding knowledge but require your site to get the support of third-party services like Disqus or Google Analytics, you’re in luck. Squarespace allows smart third-party service support to integrate these services.

And the Winner Is…

Squarespace! There was not a lot to choose from between these two, but when it comes to some advanced features that offer more value, Squarespace is your web host choice.

Round 2: Website Performance (Uptime & Speed) – Who’s the Faster Provider

Speed is one way to see which web hosting service providers are effective at what they do. To judge a website’s performance, you need to look out for two key indicators:

• Speed: Your website’s speed is an important factor that can potentially make or ruin your online site. More often than not, fast websites translate to a better customer experience. Faster load time and speed affect customer experience positively because they decide if visitors will have an enjoyable experience when surfing your site or not.

Websites with terrible loading times and sluggish responses will have more visitors likely to leave without returning. This is because people don’t have the patience to wait for your site to load when they can easily get the same information or product from several other faster sites. Besides, sluggish loading time and poor speed lead to a higher bounce rate and fewer visitors.

• Uptime:  Uptime refers to the time your website is available to visitors in a specific period. It is usually expressed in percentage, and an uptime figure of 99.999% in the web hosting industry is considered high availability. This means that if you’re looking for a web hosting service provider, look for the ones that offer uptime closer to 99.999%.

The closer you are to a server, the faster your speed and the further you are from one. People farther away from a server can search for a web host with a content delivery network (CDN).

Now, to compare and test the speed of GoDaddy and Squarespace, we tested each platform’s speed and load times from different locations. Here is what the test showed us:

GoDaddy Performance & Speed

To see how GoDaddy measures up in terms of performance and speed, we’ve got to put the platform to a series of tests, and that’s exactly what we’ve done in the above table. According to our tests, GoDaddy performed superbly with 2.0 seconds, its slowest time.

GoDaddy’s fastest time was 0.4 seconds in Vancouver, followed closely by 0.5 seconds in San Francisco. We’ll wrap this up with GoDaddy’s fantastic uptime of 99.9%. Let’s see how Squarespace did on the test.

Squarespace Performance & Speed

While they do a respectable job, Squarespace websites aren’t the fastest websites around. Its fastest time was a poor 0.8 seconds in Vancouver, Canada, and Squarespace’s slowest time was a disappointing 8.8 seconds on the speed insights test.

And the Winner Is…

GoDaddy! GoDaddy posted better figures to show it has the edge in speed and performance compared to Squarespace, whose fastest time in Vancouver is closer to GoDaddy’s 3rd fastest time recorded in Sydney.

Round 3: Prices & Plans

Prices and plans are very important when comparing web hosting providers, especially if you want optimal resources while running on a tight budget. To help you make the best choice, we’ve highlighted the hosting plans of both GoDaddy and Squarespace to see which of them is cheaper and the plans you can choose.

GoDaddy Pricing Plans

While GoDaddy is arguably the biggest domain registrar globally; its plans go beyond domain prices. GoDaddy has some web hosting plans like Business hosting, Shared Web hosting, Dedicated server hosting, WordPress hosting, WordPress eCommerce hosting, VPS hosting, and Windows hosting. In the following paragraphs, we explain these plans and their prices.

Business Hosting Plan

The Business hosting plan provides users with the power of a VPS and a special but simple control panel. This plan has four levels:

• Launch: Launch is the cheapest business hosting plan and is great for multiple primary sites. You will have to pay $19.99/month and a renewal price of $29.99/month to get this plan.
• Enhance: Enhance is ideal for Joomia, WordPress, and other sites. It will cost you $34.99/month to get this plan and $49.99 to renew it. 
• Grow: With the Grow plan, advanced eCommerce sites can scale their website and get more patronage. Grow has a $44.99/month price and a $69.99/month renewal cost.
• Expand: The Expand is great if you’re into something like photography or any other resource-heavy activity. It costs $59.99/month to get Expand and the same amount to renew. 

Shared Web Hosting Plan

The Shared Web Hosting plan offers users sound and expert hosting support, fantastic load time, and all-around performance. The plan has four levels available to users:

• Economy: Economy is the most affordable shared web hosting plan, and it carries a free matching email and domain. You can get it for $5.99/month and renew it for $8.99/month. 
• Deluxe: Deluxe is great for the unlimited storage that follows its unlimited sites offer. It carries a price of $7.99/month and costs $11.99/month to renew.
• Ultimate: Ultimate will come in handy for websites with higher traffic. The plan offers users increased storage, processing power, unlimited sites, databases, and storage. To get this plan, you have to pay $12.99/month and renew for a price of $16.99/month.
• Maximum: Maximum level features the best processing power, unlimited databases, and speed. You can buy it for $19.99/month and renew it for a similar amount monthly. 

Windows Web Hosting

Windows Web Hosting is ideal for Net Core, ASP.NET, ASP, and SQL Server users. Subscribers get three windows web hosting levels to choose from;

• Economy: Economy is the first level of windows web hosting and is the ideal basic plan for newbies. It is the cheapest at $5.99/month, with a renewal price of $8.99/month.
• Deluxe: This level of windows web hosting plan offers more flexibility and space for multiple sites. You will have to pay $7.99/month or $11.99/month for renewal.
• Ultimate: Need to host a complex site with heavy traffic expected? Then the ultimate plan is perfect for you. It carries a price of $12.99/month or a renewal fee of $16.99/month.

WordPress Plan

The WordPress plan is reliable and fully managed with some pre-installed plugins, themes, and extensions. The plan has four levels:

• Basic: The Basic level of the WordPress plan is its cheapest and will cost users $8.99/month and $9.99/month for renewal. 
• Deluxe: Deluxe is perfect if you want to get more traffic and integrate an SEO wizard. It costs $11.99/month and $14.99/month for renewal.
• Ultimate: Ultimate offers users with WordPress plans more security, storage, and online marketing. It costs $18.99/month and $19.99/month for renewal.
• eCommerce: With the eCommerce level, you’ll get a full-featured online store and a fast setup, all for $20.99/month. To renew it, you will have to pay $24.99/month.

Managed WordPress eCommerce Hosting

The Managed WordPress eCommerce Hosting has WooCommerce extensions that allow users to quickly set up their customizable online store for a price of $20.99/month and a renewal fee of $24.99/month.

VPS Server

The VPS server plan gives you complete control and full root access with an optional control panel. There are four plan levels for the VPS server, and these plans come with Standard RAM and High RAM.

• One vCPU with standard RAM is priced at $4.99/month, and with high RAM, it is $9.99/month.
• Two CPUs with a standard RAM priced at $39.99/month. It costs $49.99/month with a high RAM.
• Four CPUs with standard RAM cost $39.99/month, while with a high RAM, it costs $49.99/month.
• Eight CPUs with standard RAM are priced at $69.99/month, and with high RAM, it is $99.99/month.

Dedicated Servers

With dedicated servers, GoDaddy provides users with two unique options: servers with SSD NVMe with 25x speed or dedicated servers with HDD drives with increased capacity. Each option has four plan levels you can select:

• DS-32 with HDD has a fee of $129.99/month and $169.99/month when renewing. The SSD NVMe will cost you $139.99/month and $179.99/month for renewal.
• For DS-64 with HDD costs $169.99/month and $219.99/month to renew. SSD NVMe charges a fee of $179.99/month, and you pay $229.99/month for renewal.
• DS-128 at $299.99/month and HDD carries a $359.99/month fee. For the SSD NVMe, you will pay $319.99/month and $379.99/month for renewal.
• Finally, DS-256 with HDD costs users $399.99/month and $499.99/month to renew. For a similar plan but SSD NVMe, you will pay $419.99/month and renew for $519.99.

Squarespace Pricing Plans

Squarespace is an all-in-one web hosting platform and one of the most efficient means of building a website. The platform provides users unlimited storage, quick content delivery, built-in security, SSL certificates, and 24/7 customer service.

Squarespace offers users more plans as varied as personal, business, commerce basic, and commerce advanced. In the following paragraphs, we highlight these plans and what they cost.

Personal Plan

Squarespace’s first plan might be similar to GoDaddy’s, but its features differ. The personal plan offers users some of the platform’s core features for $16/month. If you’re thinking of creating a portfolio site, we recommend the personal plan for the marketing features it allows. Here are its other features.

• SSL Security
• Creating new websites and full website editing
• Unlimited storage and bandwidth
• Free custom domain.

Business Plan

The business plan is a step higher than the personal plan because it offers all of the features and extra perks like eCommerce (3% transaction fee) and Advanced analytics.

Squarespace’s business plan is great for business owners because it is business-focused. However, some users might skip this plan because of the extra 3% transaction after paying $23/month for it.

Commerce Basic Plan

If the Business plan didn’t do enough to convince you that it was truly for business owners, then the basic commerce plan will. It is great for users with a product to sell, and you can get the $27/month plan. Here are some of its features:

• Professional emails and customer accounts
• Zero transaction fee for eCommerce
• Advanced eCommerce analytics
• Full JavaScript, CSS, and HTML customization available.

Commerce Advanced Plan

Need something more than the basic commerce plan? Then the advanced commerce plan should be a perfect fit with features that help you regain your subscription fee from client sales.

Its features make it easier to retain customers and are best suitable for more established and bigger businesses. At $49/month, you get access to the following extra features:

• Selling subscriptions
• Advanced shipping options
• Abandoned car recovery,

And the Winner Is…

Squarespace! This is a close call because GoDaddy’s plans are cheaper than Squarespace’s. However, Squarespace just about edges GoDaddy because it offers more advanced features for each plan.

Round 4: Customer Support – Who Offers the Better Support System?

Another factor you need to consider when selecting your preferred web hosting service is customer support. It is important you go for web host providers that offer prompt and decent support when you need it.

The absence of reliable customer support means your customers might end up feeling disappointed with your product or services when you can’t get help to fix small issues surrounding site accessibility and more.

To know a suitable web host provider, look for support like live chat, knowledge base, phone support, ticketing support, and even email support. The table below summarizes how both providers performed in our GoDaddy vs. Squarespace customer support comparisons.

GoDaddy Customer Support

GoDaddy offers customers good support features capable of helping them solve any issues they encounter easily. The platform has phone support, live chat, a comprehensive help center, a GoDaddy community, and video tutorials.

The live chat option attends to users’ needs from Monday to Friday, but on weekends, you won’t get through to an agent despite the severity of your issues. Most people consider GoDaddy’s live chat disappointing, but its phone support makes up for this, with phone support available all year round and at any hour.

GoDaddy’s help center is arguably one of the best in the web hosting industry. It contains guides to help newcomers get used to the site. GoDaddy’s help center gives you access to info about domains, account management, websites+marketing, Microsoft 365 from GoDaddy, Managed WordPress, Workspace Email, SSL Certificates, Linux Hosting, etc. There is also a search box where you can put a personalized question if you can’t find what you need help for.

GoDaddy’s tutorial videos are also available for users who are more visual learners. These videos contain hundreds of important lessons and tips to help every GoDaddy user. One great thing about these videos is that they come in high-quality resolutions with easy hacks to your needs.

GoDaddy community is another customer support advantage for GoDaddy. The community encourages users to ask other experienced GoDaddy users about their personal experiences. You can also get discussion topics, an inspirational section, announcements, events, and groups like WooCommerce users and  GoDaddy pro.

GoDaddy’s support is generally superb and spot-on, but they need to add email support and a solid ticketing system. Now let’s see what Squarespace’s customer support offers users.

Squarespace Customer Support

Regarding customer support, Squarespace has different support options to cater to users’ needs. You get access to email assistance 24/7, live chat, a Squarespace blog, and a comprehensive knowledge base/library.

The first thing you’ll notice when you contact Squarespace’s customer service is a prompt to use the knowledge base. Squarespace’s knowledge base is full of insightful articles on how to do almost anything on the platform.

However, the Squarespace live chat service is only available to users from Monday to Friday and between 4 a.m; to 8 p.m every week. If the time zones aren’t comfortable for your location, you can contact Squarespace support via email. Remember that you can only contact a Squarespace customer support staff if you own Squarespace accounts.

And the Winner Is…

Squarespace! Squarespace’s help center is clean and clear. It’s easy to navigate and find exactly what you’re looking for, and the absence of phone support doesn’t diminish its chances as GoDaddy lacks email, ticket, and forum support.

Round 5: Ease of Use – Which Platform Is Easier to Use?

The next round in our Squarespace vs. GoDaddy comparison is for ease of use which plays a very big role in how users perceive a web hosting service provider. Providers whose sites are easy-to-navigate and use won’t encounter many issues. So which platform is easier to use? Let’s find out.

GoDaddy Ease-of-Use

GoDaddy is a user-friendly web hosting service that is great for newbies. One of the reasons newcomers might use GoDaddy is because it has a cPanel and a very straightforward dashboard.

Another reason is that GoDaddy allows users to create an account quickly and in simple steps. In a matter of minutes, you would have created a GoDaddy account in a few minutes with no issues because the platform explains the steps as you progress.

Users can also install WordPress or purchase WordPress hosting plans making it even easier to use because WordPress is unarguably one of the best website builders in the world. To cap it all, you can also connect your domain for free.

Squarespace Ease-of-Use

Squarespace has a more business-oriented interface but still focuses on ease of use. The platform offers a range of website building tools and has a basic/simple grid system users can follow when designing.

Its setup menu is sleek and easy to navigate with a thoughtful and intuitive UX design. One standout thing about Squarespace when you use the platform is that you get several customization options, but this can mean less simplicity.

And the Winner Is…

GoDaddy! While both providers focus on making their platform easy to use, GoDaddy just edges Squarespace because its speed in designing a website and the guidance in customizing is impeccable.

Round 6: Scalability – Which Platform Is Better for Growth?

Scalability is another incredibly important factor in judging a web hosting service provider because all business owners expect their business to grow in the future. It also presents business owners the chance to give their customers a latency-free online experience while attracting more page traffic to business websites.

Besides, problems like latency and downtimes need to be avoided at all costs, so you should pick the perfect web host that allows for better scalability. So which platform is better for growth? Let’s find out.

GoDaddy Scalability

Although it might be one of the largest domain registrar globally, GoDaddy is a tad behind regarding scalable web hosting. For one, GoDaddy doesn’t have plugins and applications that could meet customers’ needs.

This lack of integration makes it a terrible choice. Also, owners of eCommerce websites are limited to 100 different products for their online store. People with goods that have variety won’t find this enough.

Squarespace Scalability

Squarespace is widely considered one of the best website builders and hosting services in terms of scalability. The platform is great for businesses and individual users looking for means to strengthen their online presence and brand.

Creatives like artists and bloggers who want their websites to reflect what they do can rely on Squarespace to do just that, especially if they’re planning to expand.

The platform’s thoughtful features and exciting designs allow customers to create professional and highly-customizable websites despite their level of experience with web hosting services. All of these combine to make Squarespace perfect for people keen on scaling their personal brands or eCommerce business.

And the Winner Is…

Squarespace! Despite both brands actively working to help eCommerce scale, Squarespace offers more features and an enabling environment than GoDaddy, which restricts the integration of apps and plugins.

Round 7: Security – Which Platform Is More Secure?

GoDaddy Security

The plans that GoDaddy offers come with some basic security features to protect users and keep their data private. Below are some of these basic security features:

• Email privacy
• SSL certificates
• Protection against viruses
• DDoS protection
• Fraud
• Spam protection
• Firewall and malware protection

Keep in mind that when you pay for any of the two most expensive shared web hosting plans, SSL certificates are free for a whole year. However, you can also purchase SSL protection containing malware and firewall protection. GoDaddy has three types of SSL certificates you can choose from, with the price starting at $63.99 monthly.

Squarespace Security

Squarespace assumes responsibility for the safety of your website. Any threat to hack your site is Squarespace’s concern, not yours. The platform offers a free SSL certificate, Cloudflare, DDoS protection, and daily backups.

The 24 hourly backups ensure further reliability and protection in case of a breach. Besides, suppose a data center burns down; you don’t need to worry about your site going offline when you’ve got backups.

And the Winner Is…

Squarespace! Squarespace gives you unrivaled access to several solid security features, including free SSL in all the plans.

Round 8: Server Location

The final factor we will compare the two platforms is the location of their respective servers. This is important because a web host’s server location can affect the speed of your website.

Suppose you go for a web host with relatively fewer servers globally; you stand the risk of slower loading speeds and increased downtimes. So let’s find out which of either GoDaddy or Squarespace is better at server locations.

GoDaddy Server Location

While GoDaddy has its headquarters in Tempe, Arizona; it also has over 320,000 square feet of a data center in Phoenix. GoDaddy also has three other data centers globally in the following locations.

• United States of America (North America)
• Netherlands (Europe)
• Singapore (Asia)

Squarespace Server Location

Squarespace stores customers’ data on its servers located around the U.S., and these servers meet modern industry standards. The web hosting service provider has its headquarters in New York but stores data in multiple Tier III data centers across the U.S.

The web hosting platform also serves images and static assets through several geographically distributed content delivery networks (CDN). This ensures data in every page view is served from the data center nearest to a visitor’s location.

Squarespace has tasked an Operations team with monitoring Squarespace sites 24/7. This team is always ready to respond to issues within minutes of detecting any unusual activity.

And the Winner Is…

GoDaddy! As the Squarespace vs. GoDaddy comparison ends, we’ve seen just about how much better GoDaddy is at its Server location than Squarespace.

GoDaddy vs. Squarespace: Final Recommendations

Squarespace and GoDaddy are incredibly popular website builders but very well suited for different uses. Squarespace’s templates make it great for building a solid online presence, while GoDaddy is the perfect choice for small businesses that need to leverage user-friendly design assistants. But when should you choose GoDaddy or Squarespace?

When to Choose GoDaddy?

As I’ve mentioned, GoDaddy is the most popular domain registrar worldwide, with millions of active users. However, here’s when you should use it:

• Use GoDaddy if you are new to web hosting and are looking to try out some features for a short-term website.
• You can also use this provider if you require 24/7 phone support
• If you want inexpensive domains, GoDaddy is the brand.

Go For Squarespace If

Squarespace is a top web hosting and publishing site that helps thousands of users set up their online site yearly. You should use Squarespace if:

• You are more creative and have no problem designing and creating your ideal website.
• You require more aesthetic templates to assist your website to have a unique outlook compared to rivals. Squarespace has more than 110 templates that aren’t one-size-fits-all. These templates are crafted for different websites.
• You don’t know much coding but need to modify your site further.

The Bottom Line

These two web hosts are giants in their rights, but one just about trumps the other in certain aspects. For instance, GoDaddy is quicker and inexpensive for users looking to build a website, especially small business owners that require a cheap one quickly.

They can comfortably sacrifice creativity for speed and get the job done as fast as possible. However, Squarespace offers some exciting and gorgeous templates, making it a haven for bloggers, artists, and online stores that upload high-quality photos. If you have the time and money to invest early on, Squarespace is your platform.

FAQs

1. Which is better, GoDaddy or Squarespace?

Your choice will depend partly on your needs. However, GoDaddy is cheaper than Squarespace and is preferred by people working on a budget. Although Squarespace is costly, it offers many design possibilities and amazing templates.

2. Can I use Squarespace with GoDaddy?

Yes! You can purchase your domain name with GoDaddy and direct it to a Squarespace site. Look at this Squarespace tutorial to know how to pull this off.

3. Do I own my Squarespace domain?

Yes, you own your Squarespace domain, even though Squarespace helps users register their domain names.

4. Who are GoDaddy and Squarespace’s main competitors?

GoDaddy and Squarespace have several other competitors in the website building space. Platforms like Weebly and Wix are good alternatives.