3 Website Hosting Platforms I Recommend (and Why Squarespace is My Favorite)
After more than ten years of designing websites for business owners at every stage (and many more building for myself), from brand-new entrepreneurs building their first site to established clients ready for a full rebrand, I've worked inside a lot of platforms. And I've developed some pretty strong opinions about what I like and dislike about website platforms, and more importantly, what makes a website platform actually work well for the people using it.
As you will always hear me say, the truth is, there's no single platform that's the best for everyone. And I’ll say it again for those in the back who haven’t heard me yell it 5,000 times: There is no RIGHT platform.
What works beautifully for one business owner can feel clunky and overcomplicated for another. What I look for when I'm evaluating a platform isn't just how it looks on the surface. But how it holds up over time, how easy it is for my clients to manage on their own after we're done working together, and whether it can grow alongside their business without requiring a full rebuild every couple of years.
I also pay close attention to the backend experience. A pretty website that's painful to update isn't serving anyone. And a platform that requires constant plugin maintenance or developer support isn't realistic for most small business owners who are wearing a lot of hats already.
In this post, I'm walking you through three platforms I genuinely recommend, with an honest look at the strengths and limitations of each—and who I think each is best for. My goal is to give you enough clarity to make a confident decision for your own business, whatever that ends up being.
How to Choose a Website Platform for Your Online Business
Before we get into the platforms themselves, it's worth spending a few minutes on the factors that actually matter when making this decision. These four considerations will help you filter your options quickly.
Budget
Website platforms vary quite a bit in cost, and the initial price you see isn't always the whole story. Some platforms have low monthly fees but require paid plugins, separate hosting, premium themes, or developer support to get the functionality you actually need (I’m specifically talking about WordPress here). Others are priced a bit higher upfront but include everything in one place.
Think about both the initial investment and the ongoing cost. Factor in whether you'll need to hire someone to help you maintain or update the site over time, because that's a real cost too, even if it doesn't show up on a platform's pricing page.
Business Goals
Where do you want your business to be in two or three years? If you're planning to add a membership community, a course platform, heavy commerce, or a paywalled blog, your platform needs to be able to support that without requiring you to start over.
On the other hand, if you need a clean, professional website that showcases your services and captures leads, you don't necessarily need a platform built for heavy e-commerce. Matching the platform to your actual goals (not your aspirational goals) will serve you much better in the long run.
How Tech-Savvy You Are
This one matters so much. If you're someone who enjoys learning new tools and doesn't mind a learning curve, OR are planning on always having someone else maintain your website, a more customizable platform might be a great fit. If the idea of managing plugins, troubleshooting formatting issues, or dealing with updates makes you want to chuck your computer out the window, you'll be much happier with something more streamlined and intuitive.
Be honest with yourself here. There's no wrong answer, and your comfort level with technology is a completely valid factor in this decision.
Integrations with Your Business Tools
Your website doesn't exist in isolation. It needs to work with your email marketing platform, your scheduler, your checkout tool, your CRM, and anything else that's part of how you run your business (i.e. your tech stack). Before committing to a platform, make sure the integrations you rely on are available natively or through a tool like Zapier.
A beautiful website that doesn't connect to your other systems creates more manual work, not less. And we're all about eliminating manual work around here!
Recommendation #1: Squarespace
Squarespace has been my personal favorite for many, many years, and it's the platform I recommend most often to my clients. After nearly a decade of designing on it, I keep coming back to the same reasons: it lets me deliver a customized, beautiful, professional website that clients genuinely connect with and can manage on their own without needing to call me every time they want to update a photo or swap out some copy (unless they don’t want to do it themselves, of course!).
Why I Love Squarespace
I always loved the ease of using Squarespace and the customization you could do with fairly basic code. And in my world, the two heavy hitters were Squarespace and WordPress. Between the two, it was Squarespace all the way for me, even though it lacked some of the customization I could get with WordPress.
However, Squarespace has put some serious work into its design capabilities over the past few years, and it has changed. the. game. What used to be a relatively template-bound experience that relied on code or plugins to customize has evolved into a genuinely flexible drag-and-drop builder. You can now group and layer elements, play with angles and rotations on content blocks, and create layouts that feel custom without writing (or googling) a single line of code. For a designer (who is not also a developer), that kind of creative flexibility is exciting. For a business owner managing their own site, it means changes are actually doable.
Beyond the design side, Squarespace has built out its native features in a way that makes it genuinely useful for small business owners. You've got e-commerce, scheduling (through Acuity, which Squarespace now owns), email marketing (though I don’t currently recommend their email marketing service), invoicing, and SEO tools all inside one platform. As many businesses have, they have also incorporated AI throughout their builder to help with SEO. That consolidation is huge. The fewer places you have to log into to run your business, the better.
I also appreciate how well Squarespace handles the things that can cause problems on other platforms: mobile responsiveness, page load speed, and consistent formatting across browsers. These aren't the fancy features, but they matter a lot to how your site actually performs.
Who It's Best For
Service-based business owners who want a professional, polished site without a steep learning curve
Business owners who want to be able to update their own content without relying on a developer
Anyone who wants strong native integrations for scheduling and e-commerce, without piecing together a dozen separate tools
People who need a small, basic website
Possible Limitations
If you need highly customized functionality, complex membership structures, or extremely advanced e-commerce capabilities, you may find Squarespace's native features limiting. There are workarounds and third-party integrations available, but the platform is not designed to be endlessly extensible in the way that WordPress is.
For those who have a very specific vision of what they want their website to be, while I find Squarespace extremely customizable, you will hit design walls and may want to consider WordPress or ShowIt for fairly limitless visual customization.
It's also worth knowing that Squarespace uses a closed system. You don't have access to the underlying code and files in the same way you would with WordPress, which means some very specific customizations simply aren't possible without workarounds. For most small business owners, this is never an issue. But it's worth knowing going in.
Recommendation #2: WordPress
Strengths
WordPress is the most widely used website platform in the world, and for good reason. The level of customization available is genuinely unmatched. With thousands of themes and plugins, you can build virtually anything on WordPress, from a simple blog to a complex membership site with multiple tiers, a large e-commerce store, or a fully custom web application.
WordPress also gives you complete ownership and control over your website. You're not dependent on a third-party platform's feature decisions, pricing changes, or design constraints. For business owners with specific technical requirements or a development team/contractor available to support them, this flexibility is a real advantage.
Who It's Best For
Business owners with complex, custom functionality needs that go beyond what out-of-the-box platforms offer
Those who have a developer or technical support available for maintenance and troubleshooting
Business owners who want full ownership and control over every aspect of their site
Bloggers or content-heavy sites where WordPress's robust content management system genuinely shines
Possible Limitations
WordPress has a steeper learning curve than most other platforms, and that learning curve can get bigger depending on the themes and builders you use. So not every person who is familiar with WordPress is familiar with every possible building tool that you can use within WordPress.
Also, the ongoing maintenance requirements with WordPress are real. Plugins need to be updated regularly. Themes can conflict with updates. Security vulnerabilities can emerge if things aren't kept current (i.e., your website can get hacked). If you're managing your site yourself without much technical confidence, WordPress can quickly start to feel like a second job.
I have designed and maintained many a website on WordPress, and it’s simply not my fave. There are so many more moving parts. I find that while I can do some pretty cool customization, no matter what theme or builder I use, there are always tiny, annoying glitches that make me bang my head against the wall repeatedly and end up taking me hours to figure out. (Note: I could just move on from them, but when I’m designing, I’m a bit of a perfectionist and prefer the design to be clean.)
The costs can also add up. While WordPress itself is free, you'll need to factor in hosting, a premium theme (if you actually want the kind of customizations I’m talking about), essential plugins, and potentially developer time for setup and maintenance. What starts as a budget-friendly option can become more expensive than a platform like Squarespace once all those pieces are accounted for.
Recommendation #3: ShowIt
Strengths
ShowIt is a platform built with designers and visually-driven business owners in mind. It offers some of the most beautiful, customizable templates available, and its drag-and-drop editor gives you genuine pixel-level control over how your site looks. If visual impact is the top priority for your brand, ShowIt is worth a serious look.
I have seen some of the most beautiful damn websites ever built on ShowIt.
One thing that makes ShowIt interesting is that it uses WordPress for its blog backend while handling the design side separately. If you want the beautiful frontend design of ShowIt combined with the content management capabilities of WordPress's blogging platform, this combination can work really well.
Who It's Best For
Photographers, creatives, and visual brands where stunning design is a core part of the client experience
Business owners who want maximum design flexibility and are comfortable spending more time on the visual details
Those who want a WordPress-powered blog without building their entire site in WordPress
Possible Limitations
ShowIt is not designed to be a self-managing platform in the same way Squarespace is. The design flexibility it offers is wonderful, but it can also make updates more time-consuming if you're not comfortable with the editor. It's also a less commonly used platform, which means finding support, designers with ShowIt experience, and community resources can be harder than with Squarespace or WordPress.
One of the biggest drags I experienced when I last used ShowIt was their mobile optimization. When designing a website, we always want to think about how it looks on mobile, since a very large portion of people viewing your site will be viewing it from a phone. In ShowIt, you essentially have to design the mobile layout separately, which is horrifically time-consuming both in the initial design and in making any updates to content moving forward.
The native e-commerce and business tool integrations are also more limited compared to Squarespace, so if you need robust built-in functionality beyond design, you may need to rely more heavily on third-party integrations.
Every platform I've mentioned here is a solid choice in the right context, and the best one for your business is ultimately the one that fits how you work, what you need now, and where you're headed. If you're still not sure which direction to go, that's completely okay. Sometimes it helps to talk it through with someone who's seen a lot of websites built on a lot of different platforms and can give you a straight answer based on your specific situation.
I think it’s also important to remember that while revamping your website can feel daunting and a bit of a pain in the butt, it’s also super normal to have to refresh your website as you and your business grow. So if you choose a website builder that turns out not to be the best choice, that’s ok! Your business will likely evolve enough in 3-5 years, and you can rebuild on a different platform then.
Build Your New Website with BizMagic
Whether you're starting from scratch, updating an outdated site, or finally ready to build a website that actually reflects where your business is today, I'd love to help. I work primarily in Squarespace and bring more than ten years of web design experience to every project, with a focus on sites that are beautiful, functional, and genuinely manageable for the people who own them.
You can check out samples of websites I’ve created in the past here, or I would love to chat and learn more about your business and the kind of beautiful web presence I can build for you.
