Editor X vs Squarespace (Full Review)

If you haven’t heard of Editor X, it is a subsidiary of Wix, the most popular drag and drop website builder in the market.

You found this blog because you are probably exploring new options outside of Squarespace, so let us guide you through the process and help you make a wise business decision.

We are a boutique website design agency based in Saigon, Vietnam. We provide custom web design and development solutions using different website building platforms including Editor X and Squarespace. Since we have extensive first hand experience with both platforms, we will show you which platform is best for your business and give you some ideas of what you can expect when you decide to make the migration.

We will be covering different capabilities of each platform, including:

1. Design Capabilities (Styling)
2. Development Capabilities (Custom Code, Animation)
3. Hosting Plans
4. Collaboration
5. Editability
6. Transfer
7. SEO
8. App Market
9. eCommerce
10. Community
    

What is Editor X?

Editor X is an advanced website creation platform for designers and agencies, released by Wix in early 2020.

You might have heard of Wix, and Editor X inherits almost all the proprietary features from Wix. The only difference is that Editor X allows you to design your website for multiple device screens (each screen is called a breakpoint). 

Editor X also has the latest web technology such as CSS Grid and Flexbox.Additionally, with the advantage of being a child company of Wix, Editor X was born in a rich ecosystem that gives you superpower to design and build a website in any way you can imagine.

What is Squarespace?

Squarespace is the all-in-one solution for anyone looking to create a beautiful website. Squarespace released its newer version 7.1 in early 2020 from its predecessor 7.0 with better UI and a lot of new features. Some features on 7.0 version are not available on the 7.1 version such as cover pages, secondary navigation, etc. The most prominent change was the removal of index pages (replaced by section). This change makes more sense in terms of SEO, as index page creates new individual URL and it confuses Google (not great for SEO at all). You can read more here.

Squarespace makes it easy for beginners to build a complete website using their beautiful templates (currently 110 templates while Editor X only has 26). At the time this blog was written, Squarespace stock was at $53.92 (NYSE: SQSP) while Wix stock was at $295.70 (NASDAQ: WIX)

Full Comparison

1. Design Capabilities

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Editor X:

With the advantage of CSS Grid, Flexbox, and its drag and drop Editor, creating a fully customizable website has never been easier. You can create a nice masonry image layout or even a staggered blog layout with ease. You can do something similar in Squarespace but it takes more effort as you will need to know how to do custom codes.

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It sounds great but it comes at a cost. Even if you have used Wix before, Editor X is a totally different game here as you will have to deal with breakpoints. It behaves in a top down cascading fashion, where styling from bigger breakpoints trickles down to the smaller ones. We made so many mistakes when we started to use Editor X, but we have written them all down and we think these 21 Tips & Tricks When Using Editor X will likely help you overcome any obstacles.

You can upload your own fonts and manage your design assets with ease.

Squarespace:

The pre-designed Squarespace templates are really the lifesaver for most people out there who want to set up a website for their side business quickly.

You can drag and drop, but it is a bit different than Editor X (more like Webflow and Elementor in Wordpress. 

One advantage of Squarespace is that you can get your site up and running very quickly. Their pre-built components really help with you setting up the site layout that no other platforms can. The padding and margin have already been set and done and you only need to edit the content such as images and texts.

As far as it gets, there are not a lot of options for pre-built components. And you oftentimes need the help from Custom CSS to customize your web design.

2. Development Capabilities (Custom Code, Animation)

Editor X: 

Editor X offers robust web development capabilities for static pages as well as dynamic pages. You can create a custom database using Editor X CMS. This means your data will look like a Google Sheet or Excel table, and you can pull the data from that table right onto your website to display as the web content. This is a great solution if you have a lot of content and you want to save time on designing a different page for each set of content.

In addition to the CMS capabilities, Editor X offers Velo, an open development platform that accelerates the way you build web applications. Work in Wix's visual builder, add custom functionality and interactions using Velo's APIs, use your own tools, and enjoy serverless coding in both the front-end and backend, all in an open, extendable platform.

With Velo, you can do much more, but that involves coding and it could be a hurdle if you don’t have any experience with it. You can check out Velo documentation to learn more.

Squarespace: 

If you have been using Squarespace for some time, and you want to push Squarespace customization limits, here are all the best resources that you will ever need:

1. Ghost Plugins
2. Will-Meyers
3. Elfsight ‍
4. Inside the Square
5. Kate Scotts ‍
6. Rebecca Grace Design‍
7. Square Stylist ‍
8. Pixel Haze ‍
9. SF Digital  
10. SQSPThemes
    

If you need help implementing them to your Squarespace website, do not hesitate to reach out to us.

They come in handy when you have that extra functionality where it’s just not possible to do on Squarespace natively. One drawback is that it increases the amount of external requests, and essentially affects your site loading speed if the plugin’s server is not optimized.

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With the new Squarespace 7.1, we have seen a significant improvement in the number of pages that they are offering. You were limited to 100 static pages in version 7.0, but you can now create up to 1000 static pages.

Squarespace is a CMS website builder, where you can create and manage web content directly on Squarespace. However, Squarespace does not offer dynamic collection pages. Squarespace’s blog and gallery pages are dynamic pages, but that is all you get. If you need to create a custom dynamic page with your own data, you may have to create a new static page for every new set of data you have. The number of pages stack up quickly and it will slow your website down significantly.

3. Hosting Plans

Both Editor X and Squarespace are built to provide robust scalability for your business. There are different tiers of hosting plans that you can choose from. Depending on your business needs, you can pick a smaller plan and when the time is right, you can choose to upgrade.

Both Editor X and Squarespace offer domain and website hosting. This is a big advantage for both platforms because you can manage everything on one platform. However, only Editor X offers free website hosting (staging domain) while with Squarespace, you are tied to use their trial and you would need to upgrade.

Editor X:

Editor X offers free website hosting and you can create as many websites as you want. When you are ready, you can upgrade and buy a domain directly from Editor X.

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With website hosting, Editor X uses Amazon Elastic Cloud Computing and Google Cloud and this is a huge advantage for your site loading speed.

However, Editor X pricing is significantly higher than Squarespace. It goes from $21/mo to $190/mo.

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Squarespace:

Squarespace has a 14-day trial period. You can have a go and figure things out. Once the trial period is up, you’d need to upgrade to continue the service.

Squarespace also hosts your domain and website, which is great for website management. 

“We store your data in multiple Tier III data centers across the United States. We serve images and other static assets via multiple geographically distributed content delivery networks (CDNs). This system ensures that the data in each page view is served from the data center closest to the visitor’s location.” 

So far so good, your website is in good hands.

• Tier 1 – 99.671% Guaranteed availability
• Tier 2 – 99.741% Guaranteed availability
• Tier 3 – 99.982% Guaranteed availability
• Tier 4 – 99.995% Guaranteed availability
  
  

Squarespace pricing starts from $16/mo to $54/mo.

Editor X has more options for you to choose from, but the overall cost is a lot higher than Squarespace.

4. Collaboration

It is not new that we include this in our evaluation. As we progress into the future, collaboration is more important than ever. As a business owner, you want to focus on making it work, while delegating the web design or copywriting part to the professionals. This is why collaborators are needed if you want to scale your business. And the platform must be able to deliver this feature to make it work. Luckily, both platforms provide collaborator access, but there is a slight difference.

Editor X:

With Editor X or Wix in general, you are allowed to add as many collaborators as you want, even when you have not upgraded your site to a premium plan. This gives you unlimited power in terms of business scalability.

Squarespace:

Squarespace offers only 2 collaborators when you are on their Personal Plan (the lowest premium plan with $16/mo). And you get to add Unlimited collaborators if you are on the Business Plan or higher ($26/mo). We always recommend our clients to go with the Business Plan from the start so you can save 30% while benefiting from the Unlimited collaborators, and custom codes.

5. Editability

It is very easy to edit the content on your site on both Editor X and Squarespace. You can simply choose the block/element you want to edit, and swap out the texts/images/videos. It cannot get any easier than that. However, there are some differences that you should be aware of if you are going to make the switch from Squarespace to Editor X.

Editor X:

The drag and drop interface makes it so easy to edit the design as well as the content. And it is even easier to mess up the design while editing because Editor X is a responsive web design builder. As you change one thing from one breakpoint, others will follow suit. If you don’t have any experience with it, you may end up wondering why the changes here are not applied there, or why you move the element here and it’s affecting other breakpoints. 

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Squarespace:

Similarly, you can edit the content and design on your Squarespace site directly on the Editor. However, since Squarespace doesn’t have the flexibility to drag and drop anywhere, you are less likely to make a big mistake.

6. Transfer

Editor X:

If you are a freelancer or an agency, you are in luck. Editor X lets you transfer site ownership with no extra cost for you. The transfer is pretty straightforward, and your client can receive the website instantly via an invitation email.

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If you want an edge in the web design market, you can sign-up as a Wix Partner so that you can save 20% for the Premium Plans. However, you will need to make a bulk purchase up front to get this 20% off. Editor X site will also give you more partner points than a Wix site (300 points if you upgrade an Editor X Premium Plan, and 100 points for a Wix Premium Plan).

Squarespace: 

You can transfer the site ownership on Squarespace easily, but you will need a premium account or at least on a 14-day trial. Squarespace does not host your website for free, so you are limited to a 14-day timeframe to make your design and transfer it, or you will need to pay at least a month of premium plan so you can access the Squarespace editor.

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Squarespace also has its own partner area called Squarespace Circle. You can sign up as a Circle Member if you are a contributor to at least 3 Squarespace websites with Premium Plans. As a Circle Member, you get a 6-month trial for every new website you create, so you will have more than enough time to design and develop your website. You will also be able to give a 20% discount to your client when they are ready to upgrade to a Premium Plan.

7. SEO

Editor X and Squarespace SEO are both very advanced, and you will be able to rank on page #1 on Google in no time.

Basic to Advanced SEO from metadata to Schema customization. Editor X has 6 heading tags from H1-H6, whereas, Squarespace only has H1-H4.

Editor X is more superior in terms of SEO guidance. Once you are ready to upgrade, Editor X will give you a SEO checklist to make sure you take all the basic SEO in consideration.

8. App Market

Editor X:

Editor X inherits all the perks from Wix as a Wix’s subsidiary platform. With the massive eco-system that its predecessor has built since 2006, Editor X users can use any apps available on the Wix App Marketplace. This gives the users unlimited access to functionalities that are not available natively including Wix Hotel, Wix Branded App, Wix Booking, Wix Event, Wix Paid Plans, and many more.

Squarespace:

Squarespace also has its own App Marketplace, but it is rather limited with a countable amount of 26 apps.

For advanced integration, you may want to check out Section 2 above to see if what you are looking for is available as a plugin. Don’t forget that you can also use third party integrations like Zapier, Integromat, and Automate. 

9. eCommerce

Editor X:

Editor X inherits the Wix payment system, and it is very handy if you don’t have a third party payment gateway like Stripe, Square, or Paypal. 

You can customize your cart using Velo custom codes. It is a bit more advanced, but we just want you to know that you can create a complete custom product page for better user experience.

Squarespace:

Squarespace eCommerce is not too far behind with subscription plans, selling both physical and digital products, including taxes, and various payment methods. There is no database, so if you need to edit your products in bulk, it is currently not available on Squarespace.

Either way, if you are building a massive eCommerce business, we always recommend our clients to go with Shopify. We find that you get more eCommerce functionality out of Shopify with minimal effort compared to Editor X, Wix, Squarespace, or even Webflow.

10. Community

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Editor X:

Since Editor X is relatively new, it is rather small, but you are more than welcome to ask any questions on the Editor X Community. We are proud to be an Editor X Ambassador. If you have any trouble with Editor X, feel free to reach out to us.

Squarespace:

Squarespace community is super helpful with many knowledgeable members, especially Squarespace Circle Member Tuan Phan. We are amazed by the amount of work he put into the community. If you need help, reach out to him. Here is his website 

Conclusion

We use both Squarespace and Editor X. Although this post is more leaning toward How to migrate from Squarespace to Editor X, we always try our best to consult with our clients about which platform they should go with. If you are still unsure whether you want to make the switch or not, this post from Style Factory Productions would give you a deep dive into Squarespace.

While Squarespace is great, you will hit your limit and a migration would be needed so you can achieve more than what the platform can offer. Wix has always been the competitor of Squarespace, and it is rather a tight battle. However, when it comes to Editor X, it is the closest if not the best platform for a Squarespace user to get all Wix’s benefits but also all the good stuff from responsive design that Editor X has to offer.

Editor X is the best candidate against Webflow. If you want to learn more about the difference between the two platforms, check out our Editor X vs. Webflow post.