Squarespace vs Wix

Squarespace

A precision drag-and-drop editor (Fluid Engine), AI drafting with Blueprint, custom CSS and uploaded font files, custom code on paid plans, granular contributor roles and a blog workflow with draft, schedule and review states are documented. We found no public information on separate mobile or breakpoint editing, reusable global styles, site version history, or multilingual sites beyond a note that translations are optimised for search, which keeps this short of professional-level design control.

Wix

The editor is documented in depth: pixel-precise drag-and-drop on a fluid canvas, a template gallery (the captured pages give different figures for the number of templates), a separate mobile editor whose changes leave the desktop untouched, thousands of components and animations, a CMS with collections and dynamic pages, multilingual sites, custom code with GitHub integration, collaborator roles with permissions and restorable site history. We found no public information on staging or branching before publishing or on a design-system variable model, which is what separates professional-grade design tooling.

Squarespace

Domains are documented in depth — free SSL, WHOIS privacy, premium DNS, transfers, an ICANN accreditation and over 400 TLDs — and business email runs through a Google Workspace partnership. We found no public information on storage or bandwidth limits, backups or a restore function, uptime commitments, data-centre locations, or an export of site pages and content beyond order details and product importers, so an owner cannot rely on or leave the hosting on the strength of these pages.

Wix

Free hosting with SSL, stated storage per plan, restorable site history, Google Workspace mailboxes, multi-cloud hosting and WebP image compression are documented; the captured pages give different figures for uptime, 99.98 and 99.99 per cent. Portability is the weak point for a business owner: we found no public information on exporting pages, content or media, and none naming data-centre locations — the sub-processor list names cloud providers' headquarters only — while the terms put the duty to back up content on the owner.

Squarespace

Editable meta titles and descriptions with AI copy suggestions, static URLs, an automatic sitemap, 301 and 302 redirects, structured data by default, social preview images, page hiding from indexing, a dedicated SEO panel with a best-practices checklist, Google Search Console integration, built-in analytics and even AI search visibility tracking are documented. We found no public information on robots.txt editing, canonical or hreflang control, local business listings, or privacy-friendly analytics without third-party cookies, so this stops short of full technical and privacy-aware SEO control.

Wix

Meta tags, canonical tags, robots.txt, structured data markups, bulk 301 redirects with CSV import up to 500 URLs, an automatically updating XML sitemap, server-side rendering and Core Web Vitals progress are documented, alongside Google Search Console and Business Profile connections, Semrush keyword research, an SEO setup checklist, a learning hub and an AI visibility tool for LLM mentions. We found no public information on multilingual hreflang settings, and the documented analytics route runs through Google Analytics and Facebook Pixel rather than a privacy-friendly option.

Squarespace

Member areas and gated pages, payments through four gateways, invoices, donations, online courses, podcasts, an extensions directory and a commerce API are documented in depth, which is strong business breadth for a website. We found no public information on the contact and custom forms themselves — field types, spam protection, notifications, where entries are stored or for how long — and that entry handling is the gap I weigh most as data protection officer.

Wix

Custom forms with conditional rules and multi-page flows, payment fields (product, fixed price, custom price, donation), real-time submissions with spam filtering, bookings with Google and iCal sync and Zoom video, member areas, a built-in CRM, invoices, events and an app market with hundreds of apps are documented. What I need for a client file is a retention period per form, and we found no public information on that or on per-form consent settings, file uploads or confirmation emails; the terms state the site owner is solely responsible for deleting their visitors' data through the services.

Squarespace

A branded cookie banner, a Data Processing Addendum that forms part of the terms, and stated EEA and UK legal bases are documented, but the banner's script-blocking behaviour and any consent logging are not described. The terms place GDPR and e-Privacy compliance squarely on the customer, and we found no public information on legal-text generators or partners for imprint and privacy pages, retention periods for form entries, fonts and maps served without third-country transfer, or accessibility under the European Accessibility Act.

Wix

The data processing agreement is public and binding, incorporates the EU Standard Contractual Clauses, names a data protection officer contact and gives seven days' notice of sub-processor changes; a cookie alert app and a cookie policy are documented. Beyond that, the pieces my companies are audited on are not documented: we found no public information on a consent banner that blocks scripts and embeds until consent, on imprint or legal-text generators or partners, on fonts or maps served without a third-country transfer, or on accessibility features or an accessibility statement.

Squarespace

Customers outside the United States contract with Squarespace Ireland Limited, an Irish company with a published registration number and VAT number, and a data processing addendum is available; the payment processors Stripe and PayPal are named. However, the hosting location for sites, form entries and visitor data is not stated on these pages, the information technology vendors behind the websites remain unnamed, the financial vendors Stripe, Sift, Inscribe and Plaid are listed without locations, and the parent is Squarespace, Inc. of New York, so the chain behind a client's website cannot be traced end to end.

Wix

I can file the paperwork: a public data processing agreement and a sub-processor list naming each vendor with its country and transfer mechanism. But the chain is not European — the contracting party is Wix.com Ltd. in Tel Aviv, processing may take place in the EU, Israel and adequate countries, and the list runs heavily through United States providers (Amazon Web Services, Fastly, SendGrid, Twilio, Snowflake, Sentry, New Relic, TaskUs, Microsoft) under Standard Contractual Clauses alongside Google Ireland; server locations are not given, we found no public information stating ISO 27001 or SOC 2 (certifications are offered on request), and the vendor shares data with a US subsidiary and is certified under the EU–US Data Privacy Framework.

Squarespace

Plan names with feature gating, a free trial without a credit card, a free domain for one year on annual plans that renews at the standard rate, fees exclusive of taxes, cancel-anytime and no-refund terms, and checkout-page price disclosure including renewal information are documented. But no monetary figure for any plan, renewal, domain, mailbox or transaction fee appears in the captured pages, so the real cost of a site over two or three years cannot be computed from them.

Wix

The plan page shows what each plan includes — storage, collaborators, the eCommerce and marketing tier, and a free domain voucher for a year on selected yearly plans — and the terms state that a discounted subscription auto-renews at the full then-current fee, with all fees deemed US dollars paid in advance. To compute a two-year cost I am missing too much: we found no public information on the renewal price of that free domain after year one, on mailbox or transaction fees, on VAT treatment, on minimum term and notice period, or on what AI credits cost — and Wix reserves the right to change fees at any time in its sole discretion.