Of the two, Bluehost is the best web host because of its scalable hosting plans and optimized features for WordPress sites. Squarespace, on the other hand, is a website builder which hosts your website for you. While this is useful for beginners, you’ll get more control over your hosting experience if you choose Bluehost.
- Bluehost is the best web host we’ve tested for WordPress sites, offering expert support and seamless WordPress integration
- Squarespace is a beginner-friendly website builder for design-focused projects or service-based businesses
- Bluehost’s pricing starts at $3.99 per month (for a 36-month term), whereas Squarespace’s pricing starts at $19 per month (billed annually)
Is Bluehost Better Than Squarespace for Hosting?
Bluehost is a better web host than Squarespace, because the two platforms offer entirely different customer experiences.
I highly recommend choosing Bluehost if you’ve built a website with WordPress, since every plan includes free WordPress migration, automatic updates, a staging environment, and other optimized features for the CMS. In fact, Bluehost has been recommended by WordPress for over two decades, showing just how trusted Bluehost is for WordPress-built sites.
Of course, Bluehost has its drawbacks, namely steep renewal fees and a considerable number of premium add-ons (including security and domain privacy). That said, you can choose a hosting plan that suits your budget, storage needs, and performance requirements.
Who Should Choose Squarespace?
Squarespace is ideal for portfolio sites, creatives, or service-based businesses, because of its built-in functionality (including scheduling tools) and stunning designs.
Squarespace doesn’t offer hosting-only plans. Instead, you need to sign up to its website builder, which has hosting built into the package. As a result, Squarespace is only compatible with Squarespace-built websites – website management, hosting, security, ecommerce, and content creation exists within the Squarespace ecosystem.
This is incredibly convenient for beginners and small businesses looking for an easy-to-use solution and a simple billing cycle. You pay for your website builder plan and the essentials are included automatically.
Squarespace is a website builder that handles hosting for you – you don’t need to source a separate web host for your Squarespace site. That said, you get less control over your hosting because it’s packaged in this way and hosted on Squarespace’s own servers.
With a standalone web host, like Bluehost, you can decide on a hosting plan that suits your storage, performance, and security needs.
Plus, you can’t easily migrate your Squarespace website elsewhere if you want to find a different web host. Your site exists within Squarespace’s infrastructure, so you’d need to redesign it from scratch.
Bluehost vs Squarespace: Comparison Table
To help you compare Bluehost and Squarespace, I’ve put them side-by-side in the table below:
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Starting from
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Renewal price
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Types of hosting
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Money-back guarantee
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AI website builder
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Number of sites
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Storage space
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Uptime guarantee
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Server locations
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Free domain
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SSL certificate
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Email accounts
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WordPress migration
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Automated backups
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Security features
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24/7 support
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|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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WINNER
 |
 |
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Bluehost |
Squarespace |
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$3.99 |
$19 |
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From $9.99 per month |
From $19 per month |
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Shared, WordPress, WooCommerce, VPS, dedicated |
Fully-managed cloud hosting |
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30 days |
14 days |
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Bluehost AI Site Creation tool |
Blueprint AI Builder |
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10 – 100 |
1 |
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10 – 3,000GB NVMe SSD |
Unlimited |
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99.99% |
99.9% |
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USA, Canada, Germany, France, UK, Spain, India, Brazil, Australia |
USA |
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Free for 1 year |
Free for 1 year |
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Free |
Free |
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1 month free trial (then $2.99/month) |
Google Workspace (free for 1 year, then $7/per user per month) |
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Free |
Manual |
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Weekly |
None |
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Malware scanning, web application firewall, DDoS protection, weekly website backups, SiteLock Essentials, Codeguard, domain privacy |
Web application firewalls, DDoS protection, domain privacy, 24/7 monitoring, PCI compliance |
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Live chat, phone |
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| Visit Bluehost | See Squarespace |
Is Bluehost More Affordable Than Squarespace?
Squarespace is a cheaper option than Bluehost, but you’re paying for a website builder, not a web host. Squarespace’s plan pricing stays the same year-on-year, whereas Bluehost’s cheap introductory deals are replaced by higher standard rates eventually. Plus, a lot of features, such as ecommerce and security are included in the price for Squarespace, whereas these are add-ons with Bluehost.
If you’re paying for Squarespace’s cheapest Basic plan, you’ll be charged $192 upfront (your first year includes a domain name and email for free). By year two, the plan remains the same, but you’ll need to pay for the domain and email, resulting in a higher upfront cost of $290.With Bluehost’s Starter plan, an annual subscription costs $140.53 upfront – this includes hosting, domain privacy, security, and email. This increases to $303.63 in year two, with all of the same extra features, as well as a custom .com domain name.
Bluehost’s pricing ranges from $3.99 to $144.19 per month (for a 36-month term):
| Cheapest plan | Introductory deal (36-month term) | Standard rate (36-month term) | Standard rate (monthly) |
| Shared hosting (Starter) | $3.99 per month | $9.99 per month | $15.99 per month |
| WordPress hosting (Starter) | $3.99 per month | $9.99 per month | $15.99 per month |
| WooCommerce hosting (eCommerce Essentials) | $14.99 per month | $21.99 per month | $32.99 per month |
| VPS hosting (NVME 2) | $4.99 per month | $4.99 per month | $9.99 per month |
| Dedicated hosting (Standard NVME 32) | $144.19 per month | $191.79 per month | $209.47 per month |
- Email – $2.99/mo (1 month free trial)
- Security – SiteLock Essentials ($2.99/mo) + Codeguard ($2.99/mo)
- Domain names – free for 1st year (.com renews for $12.99 per year)
- Domain privacy – $11.88 for 1st year, renews at $15 per year)
- Extra features – Yoast SEO ($2.99/mo), Google Workspace ($3.50/mo)
- Non-WordPress migration – $149.99 for one website
Squarespace’s pricing ranges from $19 to $99 per month (billed annually), split across four plans:
| Plan | Price with our discount: WBE10 | Standard rate (12-month term) | Standard rate (monthly) |
| Basic | $17.10 per month | $19 per month | $25 per month |
| Core | $26.10 per month | $29 per month | $39 per month |
| Plus | $44.10 per month | $49 per month | $65 per month |
| Advanced | $89.10 per month | $99 per month | $139 per month |
- Processing fees – 2.5%-2.9% + $0.30 (depending on your Squarespace plan)
- Transaction fees – 2% on the Basic plan, or 0% on the Core, Plus, and Advanced plans
- Email – Google Workspace (from $7/mo)
- Domain name – free for 1st year (.com renews at $14 per year)
- Extra features – Squarespace Email Campaigns ($8 to $118/mo), Acuity Scheduling ($16 to $49/mo)
Which Is Better for Performance and Speed?
Bluehost is a reliable and fast web host, with our tests recording a US server response time of 0.58s. Our website builder site speed tests found Squarespace to be a little sluggish at times, with an average score of 53 – a sign that improvement’s needed.
Additionally, Bluehost has a better uptime guarantee of 99.99%, whereas Squarespace promises 99.9%. This makes Squarespace less reliable than Bluehost. Of course, both platforms aim for 100% uptime, but you could experience up to 44 minutes of downtime with Squarespace, versus Bluehost’s potential for four minutes of downtime.
What the Community Says
- Trustpilot: 4.6
- G2: 3.4
- Capterra: 3.6
- Trustpilot: 3
- G2: 4.5
- Capterra: 4.5
Bluehost is a very recognizable web host, with most customers offering positive feedback about its WordPress-optimized plans and 24/7 support. However, I noticed negative sentiment around Bluehost’s parent company, Newfold Digital, particularly for its poor customer service and aggressive upselling schemes.
And, with some customers feeling trapped by Bluehost’s renewal rates, it’s not surprising to see less-than-glowing feedback around billing.
Praise for Squarespace is mostly directed at its easy-to-use editor and professional templates, especially for beginners to website building. However, some users have difficulty with the limited 24/7 support options and payments, especially for domain names.
Bluehost vs Squarespace: Which Is Better?
Bluehost is a better web host than Squarespace because of its cheap introductory prices, WordPress integration, scalable plans, and 24/7 customer support. With a range of hosting types, from shared to dedicated, Bluehost offers something to both beginners and advanced users, personal projects and high-traffic businesses.
On the other hand, Squarespace provides convenience and a beginner-friendly experience for users looking to build a website from scratch. While I’ve made my recommendation clear, assess your business needs, long-term goals, and budget before deciding which web host or website builder to choose.
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