Squarespace, So Far, is Full of Win

It's been about a month since I first tinkered with a free trial Squarespace account. What started as just a few minutes of playing around and trying to figure out if I hated Squarespace ended with me burning Blogger to the ground. It all happened in a matter of hours. I created a layout, imported all of my posts from Blogger, and pulled the trigger that switched the .com over to the new platform very quickly. I haven't regretted it for even a second.

Now that I've had some time to get used to Squarespace, I think I've sorted out the good and the bad. It's not perfect on this side of the fence, but I am liking it. Definitely.

First, the bad:

1. The cost. There is no arguing that getting Blogger for free is better than paying to use Squarespace. More on that in a bit, though.
2. Spell check. Squarespace has a built in spell check feature, just like Blogger does, but I happen to prefer to use the one built into Firefox. Something about how the new post window pops up renders Firefox's spellchecker useless. So, rather than getting little red underlines as I go, I have to remember to run spell check at the end. Annoying.
3. Comment threading. I didn't have it at Blogger, and I don't have it here. I'm probably going to install some 3rd party commenting tool, but it would be better if Squarespace would just get its act together. Comment threading is a pretty basic feature, IMHO.
4. Automatic draft saving. Blogger had it. Squarespace doesn't. I've lost (and had to rewrite) more than a few posts because I had been timed out of Squarespace before I had a chance to save my progress. First of all, I don't really see the point in getting timed out and automatically logged out of Squarespace. I would rather it just left me logged in at all times, but if they insist on that little layer of security, at least save my posts for me automatically. Again, annoying.
5. No Gravatar support. Blogger made it possible for most anybody to make sure they had an avatar next to their name when they left a comment on my site. Squarespace makes it pretty much impossible for anyone to do the same. My preferred way of solving that little dilemma would be for Squarespace to start supporting Gravatars.

I could probably come up with a few more "bad" things about Squarespace, but it would require some nitpicking for sure. Truly, it's very easy to use and, overall, has been a good thing for me. Here's some of the best things about it:

1. Customer Support. THEY HAVE IT. If something was wrong in Blogger (such as the never-ending mystery of my occasionally disappearing comments), there wasn't a thing I could do about it. You get what you pay for, and I wasn't paying for customer support. Squarespace, on the other hand, has answered questions in a matter of minutes each time I've asked. I once submitted a support ticket at 2:00am. It was resolved at 2:12am. I'd call that a win.
2. Spam control. Again, THEY HAVE IT. I didn't have a lot of trouble with spam comments on Blogger, but I did have to occasionally turn on word verification to get rid of a spam-bot. So far, I've had two spam comments on Squarespace and both were easily deleted and the IP addresses attached to them were blocked with just one click.
3. HTML and CSS. I dont' need to know them anymore. I used to spend hours playing in HTML and CSS to force my Blogger site to look the way I wanted it to look. I still believe you can do anything on Blogger, if you have the time and know-how to do it (Which, by the way, I don't. I am just stubborn enough to try to figure things out, though.). However, on Squarespace, I don't need to know how to do it. There are easy-to-use site building tools in place that make it possible to modify the site appearance without having a clue about HTML and CSS. This makes me happy.
4. Multiple blogs. If I had wanted to do an ad-free page on Blogger for the express purpose of doing reviews, I know it could have been done. However, it would have been a giant pain in the ass. It took three seconds for me to create a new page within Squarespace. It took an additional four seconds for me to add a blog to the page and then configure the page to not display ads in the sidebar.
5. Control panel. The Control Panel within Blogger is fairly easy to navigate, but it looks like it was created by a group of drunk 4-year olds when you compare it to the equivalent within Squarespace. Everything on the back-end is just crazy simple here, and I mean that in the best way possible.

In short, Squarespace > Blogger. There is no doubt about it.

Comments

[Jon]

I haven't used Squarespace to develop a blog but have used it to develop my website. I think its great and I agree, the support is absolutely awesome! In all of the support tickets I have sent in, the average response time from Squarespace has been all of 10 minutes. No complaints from me and I'm totally sold on Squarespace and think its terrific.

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[bebe]

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Squarespace is great and I agree, the support is absolutely awesome! In all of the support tickets I have sent in, the average response time from Squarespace has been all of 10 minutes.

[Patty]

I use Squarespace for my blog based on a friend's recommendation. I think it's fine. The only problem I'm having is that lately I have been getting automatically logged out SUPER quickly! It's quite annoying. But, maybe it's just my computer. It only started happening recently, so I hope it goes away. Other than that, I like it because I don't have to deal with code. I'm a non-technical person, so it works for me!

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[Mary]

I think it's fine. The only problem I'm having is that lately I have been getting automatically logged out SUPER quickly! It's quite annoying.
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