{"slug": "squarespace", "name": "Squarespace", "category": "other", "category_name": "Other software", "description": "", "recommenders": 3, "commenters": 6, "warners": 1, "score": 2.397, "rising": 0.35, "first": "2026-03-19", "latest": "2026-09-10", "why": "if you want all the bells and whistles on a platter: Squarespace, Wix, etc.", "why_is_quote": true, "has_verdict": false, "sentiment": {"recommend": 3, "neutral": 2, "compare": 0, "warn": 1}, "spark": [0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 2, 0, 0, 1, 0], "listed": true, "loved": [], "caveat": "", "short_quote": "if you want all the bells and whistles on a platter: Squarespace, Wix, etc.", "icon": true, "domain": null, "github_repo": null, "official_url": "https://www.squarespace.com", "pricing": "", "aliases": ["Squarespace"], "verdict": null, "praise": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 794322561, "item_id": 49645160, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49645160", "by": "stasomatic", "date": "2026-09-10", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Not Square Space or Shopify, although those are good products imo.", "excerpt": "Who uses WP outside of legacy installs? I used to love it 15 or so years ago for side hustle work, but over time it gained weight and vulnerabilities, whack-a-mole. Plug-ins were nice, but that <?php...> inlining wasn't. I don't hate PHP, the things were just clumsy and messy inside the loop and I wasn't smart enough. What's the replacement these days in case I need to set up something simple quickly? Not Square Spac", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Automattic's board forces CEO Matt Mullenweg into leave of absence"}, {"id": 779384896, "item_id": 48711556, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48711556", "by": "cjk", "date": "2026-06-28", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "use some hosted platform like Squarespace", "excerpt": "Depends on your goal. If you\u2019re not interested in hand-maintaining the code of the website(s), and you just want a nice GUI for publishing pages/posts/etc., then I\u2019d say use some hosted platform like Squarespace. For actually learning how to build websites, start with something more low-level and barebones like a static site generator (Jekyll, Hugo, Gatsby, etc.), or even plain GitHub Pages without a static site gene", "context": "", "use_case": "no-code website publishing", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Is WordPress the best way to create new websites for beginner"}, {"id": 779370243, "item_id": 48710640, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48710640", "by": "daemonologist", "date": "2026-06-28", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "if you want all the bells and whistles on a platter: Squarespace, Wix, etc.", "excerpt": "I would definitely not recommend WordPress. If you just want a website for cheap: Bearblog, carrd.co, etc. if you want all the bells and whistles on a platter: Squarespace, Wix, etc. if you want to supply all the HTML/CSS yourself: Github Pages or Cloudflare Pages. (Later, if you want to host the above (except the \"bells and whistles\" tier) yourself: Hetzner, Digital Ocean, etc.)", "context": "", "use_case": "full-featured website builder", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Is WordPress the best way to create new websites for beginner"}]}], "caveats": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 785352048, "item_id": 49084503, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49084503", "by": "infogulch", "date": "2026-07-28", "stance": "warn", "quote": "I guess that means squarespace is not a good fit for our needs", "excerpt": "LLMs are very good at helping you manage DMARC/DNS related configuration, even as a non-expert. I used it to develop custom DMARC report processing app that: 1. sucks in reports sent to our dmarc inbox into a sqlite db, 2. displays the results in a web page. The reports queue up in the mailbox and I open and start the app once a month to check the status. The agent also also reviewed the state of email-related DNS re", "context": "manages DMARC/DNS for a company", "use_case": "company website and transactional email", "switched_from": "", "story": "DMARC Has Been Public Since 2012. 68.4% of Domains Still Don't Enforce It"}]}], "who": [], "tags": [], "use_cases": ["company website and transactional email", "no-code website publishing", "full-featured website builder", "ephemeral microsites", "cancelled, replaced by ai"], "compared": [{"slug": "wordpress", "name": "WordPress", "co": 4, "switched_from": 1, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "github-pages", "name": "GitHub Pages", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}], "makers": [], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48709796", "title": "Ask HN: Is WordPress the best way to create new websites for beginner", "mentions": 2}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49636283", "title": "Automattic's board forces CEO Matt Mullenweg into leave of absence", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49081783", "title": "DMARC Has Been Public Since 2012. 68.4% of Domains Still Don't Enforce It", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47638075", "title": "The CMS is dead. Long live the CMS", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47436526", "title": "Ask HN: Have you cancelled any software subscriptions because AI replaced them?", "mentions": 1}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {}, "2025-12": {}, "2026-01": {}, "2026-02": {}, "2026-03": {"neutral": 1}, "2026-04": {"neutral": 1}, "2026-05": {}, "2026-06": {"recommend": 2}, "2026-07": {"warn": 1}, "2026-08": {}, "2026-09": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-10": {}}, "quotes": [{"id": 794322561, "item_id": 49645160, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49645160", "by": "stasomatic", "date": "2026-09-10", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Not Square Space or Shopify, although those are good products imo.", "excerpt": "Who uses WP outside of legacy installs? I used to love it 15 or so years ago for side hustle work, but over time it gained weight and vulnerabilities, whack-a-mole. Plug-ins were nice, but that <?php...> inlining wasn't. I don't hate PHP, the things were just clumsy and messy inside the loop and I wasn't smart enough. What's the replacement these days in case I need to set up something simple quickly? Not Square Spac", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Automattic's board forces CEO Matt Mullenweg into leave of absence"}, {"id": 785352048, "item_id": 49084503, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49084503", "by": "infogulch", "date": "2026-07-28", "stance": "warn", "quote": "I guess that means squarespace is not a good fit for our needs", "excerpt": "LLMs are very good at helping you manage DMARC/DNS related configuration, even as a non-expert. I used it to develop custom DMARC report processing app that: 1. sucks in reports sent to our dmarc inbox into a sqlite db, 2. displays the results in a web page. The reports queue up in the mailbox and I open and start the app once a month to check the status. The agent also also reviewed the state of email-related DNS re", "context": "manages DMARC/DNS for a company", "use_case": "company website and transactional email", "switched_from": "", "story": "DMARC Has Been Public Since 2012. 68.4% of Domains Still Don't Enforce It"}, {"id": 779384896, "item_id": 48711556, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48711556", "by": "cjk", "date": "2026-06-28", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "use some hosted platform like Squarespace", "excerpt": "Depends on your goal. If you\u2019re not interested in hand-maintaining the code of the website(s), and you just want a nice GUI for publishing pages/posts/etc., then I\u2019d say use some hosted platform like Squarespace. For actually learning how to build websites, start with something more low-level and barebones like a static site generator (Jekyll, Hugo, Gatsby, etc.), or even plain GitHub Pages without a static site gene", "context": "", "use_case": "no-code website publishing", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Is WordPress the best way to create new websites for beginner"}, {"id": 779370243, "item_id": 48710640, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48710640", "by": "daemonologist", "date": "2026-06-28", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "if you want all the bells and whistles on a platter: Squarespace, Wix, etc.", "excerpt": "I would definitely not recommend WordPress. If you just want a website for cheap: Bearblog, carrd.co, etc. if you want all the bells and whistles on a platter: Squarespace, Wix, etc. if you want to supply all the HTML/CSS yourself: Github Pages or Cloudflare Pages. (Later, if you want to host the above (except the \"bells and whistles\" tier) yourself: Hetzner, Digital Ocean, etc.)", "context": "", "use_case": "full-featured website builder", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Is WordPress the best way to create new websites for beginner"}, {"id": 762262753, "item_id": 47641422, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47641422", "by": "snowwrestler", "date": "2026-04-04", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "For the latter we switched to Squarespace years ago", "excerpt": "Wordpress specifically ended up in no man\u2019s land for us. Not powerful enough for big sites with complex content types and design systems, and too big of a pain for ephemeral microsites. For the latter we switched to Squarespace years ago, and are now exploring AI options.", "context": "", "use_case": "ephemeral microsites", "switched_from": "WordPress", "story": "The CMS is dead. Long live the CMS"}, {"id": 759119393, "item_id": 47444962, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47444962", "by": "wmeredith", "date": "2026-03-19", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Grammarly and Squarespace.", "excerpt": "Grammarly and Squarespace. I have a Gost Pro newsletter I am replacing next with my own custom solution.", "context": "", "use_case": "cancelled, replaced by AI", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Have you cancelled any software subscriptions because AI replaced them?"}]}