Squarespace
Hosted website builder for portfolios, business sites, blogs and online shops.
For a portfolio or blog that you update yourself, a static site (Markdown, a few templates, RSS feed, contact form) can be set up in a weekend and costs you only hosting. Squarespace is paid for its templates, visual editor and peace of mind (hosting, certificate, domain). If you are comfortable with a text file and git, replaceable. If you want to edit your site from your phone, no.
What you lose
- Polished templates and the visual editor.
- Managed hosting, certificate and domain.
- The built-in online shop and forms.
- The proven mobile display and support.
- The ability to change your site without touching code.
Existing alternatives to Squarespace
- MicroweberOpen source
Drag-and-drop page builder with blog and e-commerce, self-hostable.
- Odoo CommunityOpen source
Free business application suite including website, blog, shop and CRM; administration is heavy.
- VvvebOpen source
Visual CMS with blog, pages, forms and e-commerce, installed on PHP hosting.
The prompt to build it yourself
Build me my personal site (portfolio, blog, contact form), to replace Squarespace. Stack: static site Eleventy, Nunjucks, Markdown. To do: - Home, about, project grid and blog. Content lives in content/ as Markdown files with frontmatter (title, date, tags). - A base layout and partials for the header, footer and cards; system fonts; responsive images with @11ty/eleventy-img; no CSS framework. - Tag pages and RSS feed generated at build time. - The contact form POSTs to a small Express server: it emails me (SMTP in .env) and appends each message to data/messages.jsonl. Honeypot field against spam, no captcha. - `npm run build` produces dist/; `npm run deploy` syncs it by rsync to my VPS, served by Caddy with automatic HTTPS. - No accounts, no telemetry, no database: the content is in git. Out of scope: drag-and-drop editor, e-commerce, interchangeable themes. README: DNS to configure, Caddyfile excerpt, SMTP configuration of the form.
Frequently asked questions
- Can Squarespace be replaced by a custom-built tool?
- casevibecode verdict: Partly replaceable. For a portfolio or blog that you update yourself, a static site (Markdown, a few templates, RSS feed, contact form) can be set up in a weekend and costs you only hosting. Squarespace is paid for its templates, visual editor and peace of mind (hosting, certificate, domain). If you are comfortable with a text file and git, replaceable. If you want to edit your site from your phone, no.
- What is Squarespace used for?
- Hosted website builder for portfolios, business sites, blogs and online shops.
- What alternatives to Squarespace already exist?
- Microweber (open source), Odoo Community (open source), Vvveb (open source). Options to compare before committing to a custom build.
Community feedback
Readers tell what they built instead of this tool, or what broke along the way. Every entry is reviewed before publication.
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