Divi vs Squarespace | 9 Crucial Differences To Know in 2024

Having doubts about Divi vs Squarespace?

I get you! It’s a choice many people have doubts about. And I’m here to help you understand the differences, so you can make the choice that’s best for you!

You found the right page. I’ve built and analyzed over 300 websites built with Divi and Squarespace and I’m here to share my experiences with you.

My work is supported by affiliate commissions. Learn more.

My name is Ralph de Groot. I’m the founder and author at My Codeless Website. Wake me up for a great web design!

Divi vs Squarespace at a glance

1. Two most popular website builders

Divi and Squarespace are the 2 very popular website builders on the market. Combined they have over 5 million websites up and running.

2. Aggressive feature releases

Both Divi and Squarespace have been releasing new features at the speed of light. It’s clear that they’re going head to head to become the most popular website builder. That being said, when one of them releases a popular feature, it won’t be long until the other released it as well.

3. Main difference between Divi and Squarespace

Divi is the only one offering a lifetime license with unlimited websites for a one-time fee of $249. Squarespace has a monthly recurring fee starting at $12 per month for one website including hosting.

4. Incredible templates

Squarespace has over 100 incredible free layouts, while Divi has 215. That being said, I’m sure you’ll find a beautiful one with both of them!

5. Disadvantages Divi ❌

• Divi’s popup builder isn’t amazing
• It has a lot of features, which could take some time to grasp
• Divi gets glitchy with long pages

6. Disadvantages Squarespace ❌

• It’s impossible to get custom solutions from support
• They don’t offer a one-time pricing
• Narrow design flexibility

Here you can find the full Divi review for 2021.

Installing Divi or Squarespace is actually super easy! Just follow my steps, and you’ll have everything set up in less than 5 minutes. Pinky promise!

I split it up into 2 phases. Step 1 is just for Divi, as Squarespace includes free hosting.

Phase 1: Get hosting 

Phase 2: Install Divi or Squarespace

So let’s start with phase 1. Get Hosting.

I assume you want your website to be visited by thousands of people around the world.

That’s why you need to publish your website on the world wide web.

You can do this by getting a hosting company to publish your website. Over the past 5 years, I’ve tried dozens of hosting companies.

Why did I switch that much? Because many of them suck.

Many web hosting companies are only after your money and don’t care if your website gets hacked or has bugs. Sure, they’ll look into it – for a few hundred bucks.

But one of them caught my attention.

I’ve experienced this web hosting company to be extremely helpful. They have 24/7 support which helps you with basically everything. Alongside, they’re cheap too!

The best part? It has a one-click WordPress install, so you’ll be live within 5 minutes.

Follow these 4 steps to set up your hosting account:

Step 1: Open the website of Bluehost and click ‘get started’

I arranged a nice 50% discount for your entire hosting plan.

Step 2: Select your hosting plan

Depending on how many websites you’re planning to host, you can select your plan. If you only need to build 1 website, you can select the cheapest one.

Step 3: Find an available domain name

Here comes the fun part. Play around with the domain name checker and find one that’s available. Click ‘next’ if you found one.

Step 4: Enter your details and confirm the payment

Now you’ve registered with Bluehost, it’s time to install Wordpress. Luckily for you, this is the easiest part. Bluehost offers a one-click install for Wordpress.

Here’s what you need to do:

In the control panel on your left  side, click ‘My Sites’.

From here you can launch your Wordpress website by clicking on ‘Create site by Wordpress’.

That’s it. It’s dead easy.

Now you’ve registered your WordPress website it’s time to install Divi or. I’ll start by explaining how you can install Divi, and then I’ll explain how to install Squarespace below.

Phase 2 – How To Install Divi

Step 1: Go to the website of Elegant Themes and click on pricing

Step 2: Select the plan which fits your needs

I would recommend taking the lifetime plan, but if you’re short on cash or doing a short-term project the annual plan is obviously fine as well.

Step 3: Fill in the payment details

Step 4: Log in to your account and go to downloads

Download the Divi theme. If you do this, you won’t need the Divi builder plugin. All its features are included in the Divi theme. 

Now you’ve downloaded Divi or it’s time to upload it to WordPress.

Uploading a theme is very simple. Here’s what you got to do:

Step 5: Go to your WordPress dashboard

Step 6: On the left side, click on ‘appearance’, and then on ‘themes’

Step 7: Click on ‘add new’ and go to ‘upload theme’

Now select your Divi Theme file and submit it.

Step 8: Click ‘activate theme’

That’s it. Divi is installed!

Regarding website building, Squarespace offers a drag-and-drop interface that contains all of the features you’d need in a single package—including website hosting.

Integrating hosting distinguishes website builders like Squarespace from content management systems (CMS) like WordPress, which do not include hosting (which needs to be installed on a host).

Although Squarespace offers a free trial, there is no free plan. Annual plans begin at $12 / month for the first year.

Phase 2 – How To Install Squarespace

Step 1: Go to the website of Squarespace and click on Get Started

Step 2: Choose a template

Once you pressed Get Started, you’ll be prompted to choose a template.

On the Squarespace website alone, there are already more than 100 visually appealing templates to choose from.

It may be time-consuming and stressful to decide which option is the greatest match for your website, even while it is good to have so many alternatives. To make your job easier, check out the type or topic options to filter. You can also select a blank page.

Divi has a large selection of templates to choose from. Users may choose from more than 1000 designs that are available in various categories for usage on their websites. These are optimized for mobile and tablet as well.

If you are not interested in using these pre-designed layouts, you definitely should go the route of building your website from scratch. Or go crazy on a premade template and adjust it. The choice is yours.

– I’m sure you’ll like a couple of Divi’s 215 free templates.

Here are a couple of Divi templates:

Example template 1 – Agency Template

Example template 2 – Juice Shop Template

Example template 3 – Travel Agency Template

Things you should know about Divi Templates

A few important notes:

All templates are responsive

• Which means they will fit any browser on any device. They are 100% mobile-friendly.

All templates can be customized to the maximum

• There are literally no limitations. I’ve been in a situation where I started with the Agency Website Template but gradually customized it all so that it had literally no building blocks of that template left.

Great images will improve any template

• Web design nowadays is highly affected by great images. You can find great stock images for free using Unsplash or Pexels to improve your design.

Squarespace Templates

Let’s continue with some amazing Squarespace templates.

Squarespace provides a fantastic selection of templates.

Although aesthetics are subjective, I believe that no other website builder can compete with Squarespace’s clean, contemporary templates.

Just replace the placeholder content with your own and that’s it, you got a website. You can adjust elements to make them just the way you like it.

In fact, click here if you want to see the other 110 Squarespace templates.

Squarespace template 1 – Emmeline 

Squarespace template 2 – Reseda 

Squarespace template 3 – Condesa 

Things you should know about Squarespace Templates

Here are a few essential points to remember:

Templates are responsive, which means that they adapt to the size of the browser window, making them suitable for use on desktops, mobile devices, and tablets.

• Squarespace templates offer a distinctive style and feel – Squarespace designs have a distinct appearance that includes bold text, white space, and ample website area to display photos.

• You are unable to change templates — As of Squarespace 7.1, templates serve as starting points for new projects. Every template is a member of the same family and shares the same features and customization possibilities.

• Your template will be elevated by the inclusion of photographs – Squarespace designs are intended to display photography. Even the most basic stock photographs will improve the overall appearance of a Squarespace website.

• Great images will improve any template

  Web design nowadays is highly affected by great images. You can find great stock images for free using Unsplash or Pexels to improve your design.

Choose wisely

• Really make sure to choose your ideal template and experiment a bit. Once you finish editing a website there is no possibility to change templates.

It’s tough to compare the user interface of Divi and Squarespace, as it’s highly dependent on personal preferences.

There will be tons of people who think that Divi clearly has a better editor. But then again, others will say Squarespace wins.

I’ll start by explaining how you can edit pages in Divi. Then I’ll do the same for Squarespace.

The Divi Editor compared to Squarespace

The Divi visual builder allows you to customize everything.

Divi works with Sections, Rows, and Modules.

When you view your website you can enter the visual builder with just one click which enables you to work on your website and the different structural parts. If you exit this editor, you will be sent to a live view of the page you were working on.

What is a Divi Section

Sections are the biggest building block in the Divi builder. You can think of them as horizontal stacking blocks that can group your content into visually distinguishable areas. In Divi, everything you build starts with a section. This content wrapper has various settings that can be used to do some really awesome things.

What is a Divi Row

Rows are the various column layouts that can be placed inside of sections. Much like modules, rows have various settings that can be accessed by clicking the settings icon on the top left of the row. Rows settings in particular can be used to greatly increase the variety of layouts built with the Divi Builder since they create the structure that your modules are housed in.

What is a Divi Module

A Divi module is a content element that’s represented visually by a block. We can drag and drop that block anywhere within sections, rows, and columns to build our layouts. Each module has individual settings that can be adjusted with visual adjustments such as color selections, slider controls, or switches. Examples modules: images, testimonials, videos, text, carousel, and lots more.

The Squarespace editor compared to Divi

The Squarespace editor is similar to Divi at first glance, however, it’s a bit less fully featured. 

Sections and content blocks are the building components of Squarespace pages.

Content blocks are the various pieces that make up your websites, such as text, buttons, photos, maps, forms, and other features. Content blocks are also known as building blocks.

Sections are stacked vertically on your website and include content chunks that are linked together.

Even though you may build a part from scratch, you can also select from a library of pre-designed sections, such as the following:

Background pictures may be used in sections, which is essential for achieving that contemporary, full-bleed image feel. The height, breadth, alignment, and colors of a section may all be customized, but you aren’t allowed to go too much from this basic structure.

Both Divi and Squarespace allow inline editing. This means you can simply start typing and instantly see it on your screen.

That being said, Divi has just a little bit more options than Squarespace on this one.

Both Divi and Squarespace have great features like:

• Undo
• Copy
• Paste
• Set back to an older version

So. in that sense, there isn’t a whole lot of difference between both site builders.

The editor I prefer the most however is Divi. Then again, that’s very subjective, and you might prefer Squarespace.

Are you able to use Microsoft Word or Google Docs? Great.

Then you’ll be fine with both Divi and Squarespace. I’m not exaggerating.

The best way to describe these site builders is intuitive.

Everything is thoughtful and clear. The interface is never overwhelming.

Although I don’t have any proof, I’m sure the youngest user is probably around 8 years old. And the oldest around.. 80?

I mean, I’m not sure. But it’s just so super easy to use.

Divi

Because Divi works with WordPress, Divi users get all the features of WordPress of their CMS but with none of the disadvantages. Zero coding! There are a lot of options here so sometimes it can be overwhelming. Nothing a quick googling can’t fix though! 

Squarespace

Squarespace is a website builder geared for beginners that allows users to construct websites without having to know any code. Anyone may take charge of the construction process and develop a website of any sort from the ground up in their spare time. 

Furthermore, customers may choose a package that already includes a name and hosting, eliminating the need to maintain or purchase these items independently. 

One downside, however, once you choose a template and edit it to your liking, it’s not easy to change to a different template. In fact, it means you have to start over.

On Squarespace, you can even build and fully complete your website before ever paying. This is super handy if you’re comparing different builders.

Can you use Divi or Squarespace for eCommerce?

Yes, actually, they’re both perfect for it. Let me show you why.

Let’s start with Divi.

Divi has a custom Ecommerce toolkit that integrates seamlessly with Woocommerce. Woocommerce is the world’s most popular e-commerce plugin and is great to run an e-commerce website. 

A few of Divi’s Ecommerce features:

Sell Your Products

Showcase unlimited items in your store for users to browse and purchase your products online. Selling with WordPress has never looked so good.

Build Product Layouts with Divi’s WooCommerce Modules

Enjoy full control over the design of your product pages with custom WooCommerce Modules that allow you to create and control any individual WooCommerce element anywhere on your website.

Decide what shows up on your product listings, move things around and even mix WooCommerce modules with standard Divi modules to create just about anything. Divi takes WooCommerce to the next level.

Squarespace

Listed below are some of the more advanced eCommerce features available with Squarespace :

• Subscriptions – You may offer items that charge on a regular basis as subscriptions. This is something that eCommerce website builders are capable of, but I am not aware of a single website builder that is capable of doing so.

• Email receipts that may be customized — This is a feature that far too many website builders overlook. Squarespace allows you to personalize the email receipts that consumers get after making a purchase. Customers’ email receipts provide an excellent opportunity to thank them or upsell them.

• Product Variations of Superior Quality – You may develop several product variations, each with its own pricing.

• Using Squarespace for Digital Items and Services — You are not limited to using Squarespace only for physical products. You may also sell digital items or accept payments from clients for services you provide.

• Incorporation of ShipStation — ShipStation is a widely used application for printing shipping labels.

• Apple Pay Integration – Squarespace allows you to utilize Stripe as a payment provider, which enables consumers to pay you using Apple Pay on their devices. Apple Pay has been demonstrated to improve the number of successful mobile checkouts (it lets customers authorize payments with only Touch ID).

• POS (Point of Sale) — In November 2019, Squarespace introduced a Point of Sale system that works in conjunction with Square’s credit card reader and the Squarespace Commerce app.

Keep in mind that you can only start an online shop by choosing the appropriate plan. Plans for eCommerce are slightly more expansive than regular plans and start at $24. Squarespace eCommerce is capable of running a fully-fledged shop but competitors like Shopify may have more options to offer.

Concluding: Both Divi and Squarespace are perfect for eCommerce. Both of them have great modules that allow you to create amazing shop pages.

Both Divi and Squarespace have a lot of features. Honestly, I can’t think of any features I would like to add to either one of them.

However, I can imagine you want to know more about what features are included. So here we go.

Blogging

Let’s be honest, Divi is the best blogging tool out there. It’s great for SEO and has all the features you need to build a successful blog:

• Text blocks
• Image blocks
• Video blocks
• Email options
• … and so much more

I’ve built several blogs which have over 1 million annual visitors – all built with Divi.

Contact Form

Enjoy a full-feature contact form builder. Create custom form fields to collect any type of information from your visitors. Hide and display input fields using advanced conditional logic. Style each input individually using a full range of design options.

Photo Galleries

Divi has always been popular with designers and photographers— partly because of their beautiful photo galleries.

• Gallerie styling
• Click-through URLs on images
• Lightboxes

Optin Forms

Build your email marketing lists with Divi’s email opt-in module. Divi comes with an impressive range of email provider support, allowing you to build lists on almost any platform. You can even create custom fields, allowing you to build segmented lists and collect unique information from your subscribers. It also comes with GDPR compliance features.

Analytics

Divi has some powerful analytics tools, that allow you to see which buttons or which headlines perform better.

Marketing Tools

Divi is great for online marketing wizards. It comes with some powerful tools:

• Lead generation
• Built in Split Testing
• Conversion Insights

Squarespace

Now let’s continue with Squarespace.

Blogging

Excellent. In terms of blogging, Squarespace is the only website builder that competes with WordPress. If you’re a blogger looking for a website builder, Squarespace is a great option.

Form Builder

My only concern is this: Squarespace does not automatically save your submissions; you must link it to a source. Why can’t submissions be saved by default?

Photographic Galleries

Squarespace has long been a favorite among artists and photographers, thanks to its stunning picture galleries.

Scheduling Appointments

Visitors can arrange and pay for visits using Appointment Scheduling. There is a monthly charge, and options begin at $14 per month.

Analytics

While Google Analytics may always be added, Squarespace offers its own analytics that seamlessly integrates with current Squarespace capabilities to measure sales per product.

Members’ Only Area

Members Area, which allows you to produce and manage premium content for registered customers, was introduced by Squarespace in 2020. It does come at a cost (monthly plans start at $9), and there is a transaction fee.

Let’s talk about pricing. This might be the variable that could help you choose between Divi and Squarespace.

In my opinion, Divi is the clear winner here. Let me explain.

Divi Pricing

You can try the demo version of Divi for free. If you decide to purchase the full version of Divi, you’ll have a 30 day money-back guarantee, with no questions asked.

Divi has 2 pricing options:

• Unlimited websites for $89 per year/ Pro Plan $277 per year
• Unlimited websites for $249 lifetime

I’d recommend going with the lifetime plan.

The Divi Pricing is pretty straightforward. You’re always going to get the full package, you just have to decide how long you want to be able to update your website.

Sure, you might pay a little extra now, but in the long run, you’ll save a lot of money down the road.

I did the math for you.

It all comes down to how long you’re planning to use Divi.

You should purchase Divi for the lifetime price if you’re planning to use Divi for 34 months or more. If you use it for 33 months or less it’s better to get the annual license.

And the best thing?

You can use your Divi license for unlimited websites. That’s crazy!

Squarespace Pricing

Prices on Squarespace work a bit differently.

They have multiple tiers with each tier to offer more functionalities. You pick from a variety of different plans, based on the project’s requirements.

The best part about the pricing of Squarespace? It all comes with a free domain and a free SSL certificate.

Pricing

Squarespace may cost anywhere from $12 to $40 per month on a yearly basis. Squarespace has four pricing options, two of which are for eCommerce:

Personal Plan vs. Business Plan

There are several compelling arguments for upgrading to the Business Plan:

• Ecommerce functionalities are available with the Business plan.
• Third-party integrations are included in the business plan (example: Mailchimp).
• Advanced metrics are included in the business plan.
• Some marketing tools are included in the business plan (example: Announcement Bars and Pop-ups).

I’m going to keep this short. Both of them are great for SEO.

I’ve been able to rank multiple of my websites to the number one spot in Google for very high competitive keywords. A few of my Divi websites actually get more than 500,000 visitors per year through Google.

Actually, the website you’re looking at is built with Divi. And it’s getting over 30.000 views per month – all with SEO.

That being said, the same goes for Squarespace. I’ve seen several big Squarespace websites with millions of visitors per month, all because of SEO.

As many website builders provide a free email, I wanted to cover this in my Divi vs Squarespace review as well.

That being said, I can be short. Squarespace offers a free domain and a free email. Divi doesn’t.

Divi however, has a clever solution. In fact, Bluehost, the hosting I recommend for your Divi website, does offer you a free domain and email address.

Just scroll back to the ‘How to Install‘ section to sign up for your Bluehost account.

• Here is a collection of my favorite 69+ Divi websites
• Here is a collection of my favorite 79 Squarespace websites

Definitely have a look at both these collections to get a better understanding of what’s possible with each site builder.

In this review, however, I’ll share 2 special examples.

Let’s start with my favorite Divi website.

It’s the website of Divi itself. It has great animations and feels incredibly smooth as you scroll down. Have a look and see what’s possible.

https://elegantthemes.com

To be fair, Squarespace also has a killer website. Let’s have a look.

https://www.squarespace.com/

If you care a lot about good customer support, this could help you make a decision.

Again, Divi is a clear winner here.

Have a look at the Trust Pilot profile of Divi.

It has over 16,000 reviews and 97% of them are 5 stars. SO yeah. Their support is pretty good.

And what about Squarespace? Hmm. Not so much.

Have a look at the Trust Pilot profile of Squarespace.

It has only 897 reviews with an average of 1.5. If you read the comments, you’ll see a repetition of people complaining about a lack of customer support.

In the end, I recommend Divi over Squarespace. Here’s how I would summarize it:

• Divi has better customer support. They’ve got 16,000 reviews and an average of 5 stars on Trustpilot. Squarespace scores a 1.6 out of 2865 reviews.
• Divi is cheaper. A license is valid for unlimited websites, and they even offer a cheap lifetime license.

It’s worth mentioning that this doesn’t mean Squarespace is bad. It’s more about how good Divi is.

I hope you found this comparison helpful – thanks for reading until the end!

Which is faster, Divi or Squarespace?

Both of these themes are really fast. In fact, they’re doing speed updates continuously. It depends on the website you build. Try to use lightweight images to keep your website fast.

Is Divi better than Squarespace?

Not necessarily, it’s just that I prefer Divi based on pricing and customer support.

Divi is a wonderful choice for individuals and businesses who wish to use a drag and drop structural system for WordPress while maintaining complete control over every feature and having the ability to select their own hosting.

Squarespace offers an easy-to-use website builder as well as a variety of hosting solutions. It’s an excellent alternative for anyone who wants to develop a website with an all-in-one solution.

How many websites can you build with the Divi theme?

You can build unlimited websites with the Divi theme. That being said, if you purchase the 1-year license, you won’t be able to update your website after 1 year. The website will still be alive, but it will be exposed to safety risks if you don’t update your website every now and then.

Do I need a separate Divi license for my client?

No. If you’ve bought the Divi theme and the Divi builder you only need one license for you and your clients.

Can I create popups with the Divi theme?

Yes. If you purchase Divi you’ll get a free popup maker called Bloom. That being said, I don’t love it.

What do you dislike about the Divi theme?

Once you’ve built your website with Divi, it’s almost impossible to change to a different platform.

But does that really matter?

No.

I know multiple developers who customize Divi templates and building great websites in a fraction of the normal time to build a website.”

Concluding on this topic – yes, you’re stuck with Divi. But that’s not a bad thing.

How to get the Divi theme?

You can buy Divi by clicking here with an exclusive 10% discount.

Is it best to purchase Divi for the ‘one-time’ price?

My recommendation is to go for a lifetime license. Sure, you might pay a little extra now, but in the long run, you’ll save a lot of money down the road.

What is the difference between Divi and WordPress?

WordPress is a Content Management System (CMS) that allows you to manage your website.

The Divi theme is a layer that you put on top of your WordPress website which enables you to create a good-looking design.

The Divi builder is a tool that you can use to build your website with a powerful drag & drop builder. The Divi builder has 46 elements you can use for free.