As of 29 Oct 2026, the panel rates Squarespace 2.5/5 and Wix 3.5/5 in Website Builders. Weighted by what each judge cares about, 0 of the 6 judges pick Squarespace and 6 pick Wix. Squarespace scores higher on 1 of 7 criteria (European sovereignty). Wix scores higher on 6 of 7 criteria (Hosting, domains & portability, Editor, templates & design control, Forms, bookings & business features, plus 3 more). Provenance — Squarespace: Rest of world; Wix: Rest of world. Ratings are the AI panel’s opinion, formed from public evidence: how scores are made.
Wix leads the means on six of seven criteria — editor and design 8.8 to 6.7, SEO and marketing 8.8 to 7.0, forms and business 8.3 to 6.2, hosting and portability 6.5 to 4.0, legal compliance 4.7 to 4.0, and pricing transparency 4.8 to 3.3 — with 6 judges leaning Wix on the first four, 5 on pricing transparency (1 tie) and 4 on legal compliance (2 ties). Squarespace's sole lead is sovereignty, 4.7 to 4.2, where 3 judges lean Squarespace, 3 tie and 0 lean Wix — the genuine split. As captured, Squarespace's legal entity jurisdiction is Ireland with data residency unknown; Wix's is Israel with a United States default; both list US Cloud Act subprocessor exposure. The computed judge totals run 4.8 to 5.6 for Squarespace and 5.8 to 7.3 for Wix. We declare no overall winner: the lean flips on sovereignty.
Choose Squarespace if
You need a contracting entity inside the EU: Squarespace's legal entity jurisdiction is listed as Ireland, while Wix's is listed as Israel (Wix.com Ltd. in Tel Aviv).
Your procurement weights sovereignty above editor and features: sovereignty is the one criterion where the bench leans Squarespace — 3 judges lean Squarespace, 3 tie, 0 lean Wix — with means of 4.7 to 4.2.
Your compliance review asks the vendor where data is hosted before signing: Squarespace's data residency attribute reads unknown and the captured pages give no hosting location, while Wix's data residency attribute reads a United States default.
Choose Wix if
You need pixel-precise drag-and-drop editing with a separate mobile view: editor and design scored 8.8 to 6.7, with 6 judges leaning Wix.
You rely on organic search and need bulk 301 redirects of up to 500 URLs: SEO and marketing scored 8.8 to 7.0, with 6 judges leaning Wix.
Your site runs on forms that take payments and bookings alongside a built-in CRM: forms and business scored 8.3 to 6.2, with 6 judges leaning Wix.
You need a public, binding data processing agreement with EU Standard Contractual Clauses: legal compliance scored 4.7 to 4.0, with 4 judges leaning Wix and 2 ties.
You weight hosting and portability heavily in the purchase: Wix scored 6.5 to Squarespace's 4.0 on that criterion, with 6 judges leaning Wix; the captured pages describe order data as Squarespace's only export.
Read this comparison as one judge. Each weighs the same scores by what they care about.
The Small-Business Owner
Runs a joinery with six staff and builds the company website on a Sunday afternoon. Wants a template that looks like a craftsman and not like a start-up, to be found when someone nearby searches for a carpenter, an enquiry form that lands in the inbox, the imprint and cookie banner handled without a lawyer, and a price that is still clear in the second year.
Squarespace
Wix
This judge's pick
Criterion by criterion
Editor, templates & design control
Squarespace
Fluid Engine drag-and-drop described as "total creative control", designer templates customised by AI, my own font files, custom CSS and custom code, a blog with draft, schedule and review workflow, and granular roles for my six staff cover most of a Sunday build. I found no public information on separate mobile editing, a built-in multilingual setup with translated URLs, or site versions I can restore, which is what would take this further.
Wix
This is the full package: drag and drop on a fluid canvas with pixel-level precision, 900-plus templates, an AI builder for the first draft, a separate mobile editor whose changes leave the desktop version alone, site history you can restore, collaborators by plan, custom code and CMS collections. The only things I could not see documented were design variables and staging before publishing, so it sits just short of the top.
Hosting, domains & portability
Squarespace
Free SSL on every connected domain, over 400 TLDs, an ICANN-accredited registrar with domain transfer, one free domain year on annual plans, and Google Workspace mail give me the front door my shop needs. I found no public information on backups, storage limits, speed measures or an uptime commitment, and the only export described is shop order details as CSV — my pages and photos are not covered by anything we read.
Wix
Hosting is free and included with SSL, a custom domain I can buy from Wix or transfer in, storage stated per plan from 2 GB to unlimited, restore from site history, image compression, and a business email via Google Workspace. The captured pages give different figures for uptime (99.98 and 99.99 percent), data-centre locations are not named, and we found no public information on exporting my pages, content and media when I move on — the terms even tell me to save and back up my own content — so I stop below the deeper tier.
SEO, analytics & visibility
Squarespace
A dedicated SEO panel with a best-practices checklist, automatic sitemap, clean static URLs, 301 and 302 redirects, structured data by default, hiding pages from search, social preview images and an AI audit that adds metadata and alt text is more than I could set up myself. Google Search Console integration, AI-search visibility tracking and advanced analytics on paid plans push it further; local business listings and robots.txt editing are not described on the pages we read.
Wix
For a joinery that wants to be found when someone nearby searches for a carpenter this is close to ideal: editable titles and descriptions, an automatic sitemap, 301 redirects with bulk import, structured data, the Google Business Profile managed straight from the dashboard, server-side rendering, a setup checklist with Semrush keyword research, and even a tool tracking how the site is mentioned in ChatGPT-style engines. Only privacy-friendly first-party analytics and multilingual SEO settings are not documented.
Forms, bookings & business features
Squarespace
Member areas with gated pages, donations including volunteer events, invoices, proposals and contracts, a full shop with several payment gateways, an extensions directory and a commerce API — the business side is well documented. The captured pages say nothing about contact forms, spam protection, where form entries are stored or appointment bookings; scheduling appears only as a brand name inside the terms.
Wix
The enquiry form is covered: conditional rules, multi-page forms, spam filtering and submissions showing up in real time in the dashboard, with payments possible on the form itself once the site is upgraded. Around it sit bookings with Google and iCal sync and video appointments, a members area, events with tickets, invoices, a built-in CRM and an app market — what I did not find documented are file uploads, confirmation emails or consent and retention settings per form.
Imprint, privacy & cookie compliance
Squarespace
A branded cookie banner and a Data Processing Addendum that "forms part of this Agreement", plus processor-role and EEA/UK legal-bases sections, are a start for a German site. But the terms put me "solely responsible" for data-protection and e-privacy compliance, and I found no public information on consent blocking, help with imprint or privacy pages, or accessibility.
Wix
The data processing agreement is public, binding and even explained in a German help article, GDPR compliance is claimed with a privacy centre, and a cookie alert is documented — but we found no public information on an imprint generator or legal-text partner, on a banner that blocks scripts until consent is given, or on accessibility features. As an owner who wants the paperwork handled without a lawyer, I would still be buying legal texts elsewhere.
European sovereignty
Squarespace
As a non-US customer I would contract with Squarespace Ireland Limited in Dublin with an Irish VAT number, and the named billing processors are Stripe and PayPal, with Sift, Inscribe and Plaid for financial checks. The parent sits in New York, the captured pages give no location for where my site and my customers' data are hosted, the actual website-hosting vendors stay unnamed, and no certifications are stated.
Wix
The contracting party is Wix.com Ltd. in Tel Aviv with a US subsidiary, and visitor data is first processed in Israel under an adequacy decision; the subprocessor list is commendably open and names locations, but the chain runs largely through US providers under contractual clauses, with Google Ireland the only EU infrastructure provider shown. Server locations for the sites themselves are not stated, and no ISO 27001 or SOC 2 certification is named.
Pricing transparency
Squarespace
The pricing page names the plans with some inclusions, offers a no-credit-card trial and one free domain year that renews "at standard rate", and the terms are frank about auto-renewal, cancellation, no refunds and tax treatment. But not a single price figure appears in anything we read, so I cannot work out what the first or the second year of my site would cost.
Wix
The plans page shows the plans with what each includes — storage from 2 GB to unlimited, collaborators, a free domain voucher for one year valid only on brand-new domains — and a free tier and 14-day money-back guarantee exist. But we found no public information on the regular price after the introductory term, domain or mailbox renewals, VAT treatment or notice periods, and the terms reserve the right to change fees at any time and to auto-renew at the full then-current fee without notice — so the price in the second year is not computable from these pages.
Sovereignty, side by side
Dimension
Squarespace
Wix
Legal entity
Not determined
Not determined
Hosting location
Not determined
Not determined
Hosting options
Not determined
Not determined
Open source
Not determined
Not determined
Data processing agreement
Not determined
Not determined
Transfer impact assessment
Not determined
Not determined
Facts, side by side
Only facts both products carry under the same definition — anything else would not be a fair row.
As of 29 Oct 2026, the panel rates Wix higher: 3.5/5 against 2.5/5. Weighted by what each judge cares about, 0 of the 6 judges pick Squarespace and 6 pick Wix. Which one fits depends on the criteria that matter to you; the table on this page shows both side by side, and each judge’s reading has its own page. Both were scored by the same AI bench under the same rubric, from public evidence only, as the methodology describes.
Is Squarespace or Wix European?
Squarespace is not European by provenance (Rest of world). Wix is not European by provenance (Rest of world). Provenance is read from each company’s own legal pages: who builds it and who owns it.
Do Squarespace and Wix have a free plan?
As of 29 Oct 2026, Wix’s own pages state a free plan; Squarespace’s pages as captured do not. Each product page links the pricing page it was read from.