Which Website Platform is best for your business in 2026?
Squarespace vs. Wix vs. Wordpress vs. Shopfiy - Which is best?
There’s A LOT of choice when it comes to choosing a platform to build your new site, or re-build your existing site. But if you’re running a business, you probably don’t know the ins and outs of someone who’s in the industry. You don’t know which platform suits the unique needs of your business the most. I’m going to briefly cover the pros and cons of each platforms and then make my case for Squarespace as the ‘goldilocks zone’ platform of the website world - and why it’s probably the best no matter who you are or what business you run.
So, firstly let’s talk about Wix…
Wix offers an all-in-one drag-and-drop platform, known for its vast template selection, powerful AI features, and strong designer tools. It is often recommended for beginners and small businesses. Sounds great right? Well… not so fast. You’re likely going to run into one of these problems at some point:
Once a site is published, the template cannot be changed, limiting flexibility for future redesigns.
The large number of features and settings can be overwhelming for beginners, and navigating them has a learning curve.
Performance can be affected by heavy designs; site speed and load times may lag, especially for content-rich sites.
What about Wordpress?
The most flexible and powerful option, providing unlimited customization for anything from blogs to large online stores, but requires more technical knowledge and hosting setup. Amazing! You can literally build anything you want! Potentially… however:
Self-hosted WordPress.org sites require you to handle hosting, backups, updates, and security, which can feel like ongoing “IT management” rather than a set-and-forget builder.
Core, theme, and plugin updates can break functionality or styling, so sites often need regular testing, troubleshooting, and sometimes developer help after updates.
Even basic features (forms, SEO, caching, backups, sliders, etc.) typically require multiple plugins, creating a complex stack to manage.
Due to it’s scale and complexity, third party hosting from agencies is typically required - this usually results in lofty monthly retainers for potentially mediocre work and dealing with in-communicative designers.
No bueno…
is Shopify the best for stores?
Well it’s definitely the go-to. Shopify Specializes in e-commerce, making it a top choice for online stores with integrated sales and inventory solutions. While shopify is a very strong and robust platform, it certainly has it’s drawbacks even in the e-commerce market:
It can get expensive over time due to monthly fees, paid apps, and potential extra transaction fees if you don’t use Shopify’s own payment gateway.
Design, blogging, and some SEO controls are relatively limited, so more advanced customisation or content marketing often feels constrained.
Strong reliance on Shopify’s ecosystem makes you dependent on third‑party apps and makes fully migrating away more complex and time‑consuming.
There’s a lot of common drawbacks with predominant web hosting platforms
While there’s pretty much no ‘bad’ web design platforms, there’s atleast 1 or 2 major drawbacks with each of the aforementioned ones along with others such as Framer, Go-Daddy and Hostinger. You will run into issues with complexity, management, restriction, costs, time and even more not so fun stuff. But in my opinion - potentially biased but DEFINITELY informed - Squarespace is king. Nit just in it’s capability but in it’s incredible experience using it.
The Goldilocks platform.
When I say goldilocks - I’m referring to Squarespace covering all bases and reaching a website builder sweet spot when it comes to building your business website in 2026. Squarespace directly opposes all of the major drawbacks of the above mentioned platforms whilst maintaining design capability, customisation, function, SEO and everything else you’d want to run your business’ site.
Complexity? No. squarespace is easy to use and understand.
Management? Simply log into the back-end and easily update what you want to.
Restriction? Squarespace offers everything you’d want from blogs, shops, stores, portfolios, booking as well as an array easily available third party plugins for added functionality and efficiency.
Costs? Pay a small annual fee to squarespace and avoid lofty recurring fees to developers.
Time? easily make changes and updates in minutes or even seconds.
Squarespace is evolving year on year, and as a professional Squarespace developer it’s so exciting to see it growing in popularity and getting the recognition it deserves as one of the major players in the web design game. I maintain that it’s the best overall platform if you’re unsure of where to start.
