As a website designer, I see this question ALL the time in business groups. Small business owners constantly ask “Which platform should I build my website on?”

It’s a valid question and even web designers ask it from time to time. We all want to ensure we’re using the best tools possible, right? And there’s such a learning curve for each, you don’t really have time to sit down and try them all.

I’ve worked with a few in my time, so here are my thoughts on the most popular platforms. This list won’t be extensive but it will be honest and based on my own experience. No Chat GPT here. I’ll be rating them each in terms of the design/builder experience, functionality and ease of use.

Least fave: Showit

Page builder: 2/5| Functionality: 2/5 | Ease of use: 4/5

Showit sites are beautiful. Everyone knows this. They’re like this because Showit has one thing in its favour: it’s really, really easy to create interesting designs on. Unlike other platforms, it’s completely uninterested in responsive, mobile-friendly design. Instead, you’ll need to design your desktop website and then reposition every single element separately for mobile. If you understand CSS, this is because Showit exclusively uses absolute positioning, a practice that became heavily frowned on 20 years ago once smart phones were invented.

The Showit builder is super easy to use due to the fact that it’s incredibly limited: You can do images, text and rectangles. There are no buttons. You make those by positioning text over a rectangle.

Yeah.

A lot of DIYers love this simplicity though and most won’t need anything more. Showit is especially popular among service-based businesses in the wellness and creative industries due to its pretty aesthetic (if you have the right eye) and its lack of need for tech knowledge. It’s also one of the easiest platforms to make, sell and install templates on, which adds to its massive DIY appeal.

If you want e-commerce or something with more functionality than a simple 5-page website with a contact form, I suggest looking at another platform.

Mid: Squarespace

Page builder: 3.5/5 | Functionality: 4/5 | Ease of use: 5/5

Squarespace is ok. With 7.1, it seems to have taken inspiration from Showit in that you now have to design your website twice for desktop and mobile, however unlike Showit, you still have limitations on where you can actually place your elements. If you’re a designer who likes full control over where things go, this will drive you mad. If you’re a DIY business owner who just wants something easy that works, you’ll love Squarespace. Squarespace’s page builder also includes a LOT more elements, like galleries, maps and charts. You can get a lot done without having to embed elements from third parties.

Unlike Showit, it’s got e-commerce capability built in, along with some other nice features, like email marketing and the ability to sell online courses. Squarespace aims to be an all-in-one solution and it does a pretty good job of it. Will it ever be the best option for a large, complex e-commerce store? Unlikely. But for a small business with only a few items to sell, it does the job.

Where Squarespace falls down for me (besides the builder aspect) is its SEO. Squarespace websites are notorious for their poor SEO. A large part of this comes down to one bizarre limitation: their headings and subheadings. You don’t get to choose how your H1s, H2s, H3s etc look on an individual level; instead you must set their styles globally and either use code if you want to change the individual appearance of something or just use the wrong subheading to get the look you want.

Naturally, most people don’t really know or care about how code and SEO work, so they’ll opt for the latter option, resulting in poor SEO and a reduced Google ranking.

My pick: WordPress

Page builder (Divi, Elementor & Bricks): 4/5 | Functionality: 5/5 | Ease of use: 3.5/5

WordPress is vast. It scares people. I get it.

Much of this is myth, however, spread by the marketing teams of its competitors. At the end of the day, WordPress will always win for me for two reasons:

It’s open source.

This means that, unlike the other platforms, it will never charge you to use it. You’ll never wake up one day to find that your subscription fee has jumped 40% and you now have to rebuild your entire site somewhere else (while learning a new platform). You still need to buy a domain and hosting but WordPress itself is free.

It’s flexible.

Not only can you happily run a simple website with a contact form on there, but you can also run a large e-commerce store, an online course, and of course, a monetised blog. If you can imagine it, there’ll be a way to do it. Multiple ways, in fact.

As far as builders go, you can choose the one that works best for your skill level and budget. Elementor is the go-to at the moment, with its generous free plan, large community of teachers and creators, and a strong library of elements to choose from.

Divi, its main competitor offers a similar experience and is currently in the process of completely revamping its core so that it will no longer rely on obsolete shortcodes and will instead put out cleaner, lighter HTML/CSS. The thing I love about Divi is that it’s a buy-once kind of deal. You don’t need to commit to subscription and this makes it a great builder to use for DIYers and new web designers.

Both builders grant you a similar level of design freedom to Showit if you know what you’re doing and come with an extensive library of templates built-in. If you don’t want to use them, you can still buy a standalone theme and edit it – just be aware that you get what you pay for.

Where WordPress really shines, however, is its massive plugin ecosystem. Almost every third-party app integrates with it and there’ll often be several free plugins that do what you need, including SEO optimisation (I recommend SEOPress for this).

In summary

Here’s who I recommend each platform for:

Showit: Designers and DIYers who are uncomfortable with technology and value creative design and just want something that lets people send them enquiries.

Squarespace: DIYers and business owners who don’t have a big budget, don’t need a super pretty website and just want something easy to use.

WordPress: Designer, business owners and DIYers who are a little more comfortable with technology and want something that will growth with their business – especially if you’re planning a blog, e-comm or courses.

At the end of the day, there is no “good” or “bad” tool; there is only the tool that meets your needs at that time.

Need help building your website?

Alchemy Creative builds high-end, custom websites on WordPress, as well as Squarespace and Showit. Check out my Custom Web Design package or get in touch directly.