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Which CMS is right for you?

Website CMS Comparison

HubSpot CMS vs. WordPress vs. Squarespace

There are plenty of CMS platforms out there, but these are three of the most popular. They each have their pros and cons. Let's check out how they stack up against each other.

HUBSPOT CMS

HubSpot-2

WORDPRESS

WordPress

SQUARESPACE

Squarespace_WHT

DEVELOPMENT & DESIGN

HubSpot_WHT_SM
WordPress_WHT_SM
Squarespace_WHT_SM

THEMES

DRAG-AND-DROP CREATOR

MOBILE RESPONSIVE

Depends on theme

PAGE SPECIFIC CSS

Need a plugin

ECOMMERCE

HubSpot Payments powered by Stripe

Need a plugin

Available in Business or higher plans

MEMBERSHIPS

Available in CMS Enterprise

Need a plugin

MAINTENANCE & UPDATES

Manual - substantial time commitment

SMART (PERSONALIZED) CONTENT

SERVERLESS FUNCTIONS

Available in CMS Enterprise

CUSTOMIZABILITY

Very customizable

Customizable (with technical knowledge)

Very limited customization

A/B TESTING

Available in CMS Pro and Enterprise

Need a plugin

MARKETING & SALES

HubSpot_WHT_SM
WordPress_WHT_SM
Squarespace_WHT_SM

LANDING PAGES

SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION

Available in CMS Pro and Enterprise

Need a plugin

PUBLISH TO SOCIAL MEDIA

Available in CMS Pro and Enterprise

Need a plugin

ANALYTICS

Need a plugin

Very limited

BLOG

GOOGLE AMP

Need a plugin

CALLS-TO-ACTION

Available in CMS Pro and Enterprise

LIVE CHAT & CHATBOTS

Need additional software

Need additional software

LEAD SCORING

Available in CMS Pro and Enterprise

PPC ADVERTISING MANAGEMENT

Available in CMS Pro and Enterprise

CONTACT RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT (CRM)

PERFORMANCE

HubSpot_WHT_SM
WordPress_WHT_SM
Squarespace_WHT_SM

AVERAGE SPEED

Very fast - built-in optimization tools for fast loading

Average to slow - plugins and themes slow down websites

Very fast - low customization options keep websites light

CONTENT DELIVERY NETWORK (CDN)

Additional cost

Additional cost

INTEGRATIONS

Large App Marketplace & open API

Very large plugin and theme community

Limited

SUPPORT & SECURITY

HubSpot_WHT_SM
WordPress_WHT_SM
Squarespace_WHT_SM

SECURITY

High

Depends on hosting package - prone to attacks

Basic

HOSTING

Requires separate hosting - typically $10 - $50/month

SSL CERTIFICATE

Additional cost - typically $70 - $100/year

TECH SUPPORT

Basic

FIREWALL/VPN

Additional cost

Additional cost

COST

CMS Starter - $25/month
CMS Professional - $400/month
CMS Enterprise - $1,200/month

Average between $100 - $200/month

$16 - $46/month + additional marketing tools

BEST SUITED FOR:

Small, medium, and enterprise level businesses

Small and medium sized businesses

Startups and small businesses

DEVELOPMENT & DESIGN

DEVELOPMENT & DESIGN

THEMES

THEMES

DRAG-AND-DROP CREATOR

DRAG-AND-DROP CREATOR

MOBILE RESPONSIVE

MOBILE RESPONSIVE

PAGE SPECIFIC CSS

PAGE SPECIFIC CSS

ECOMMERCE

ECOMMERCE

MEMBERSHIPS

MEMBERSHIPS

MAINTENANCE & UPDATES

MAINTENANCE & UPDATES

SMART (PERSONALIZED) CONTENT

SMART (PERSONALIZED) CONTENT

SERVERLESS FUNCTIONS

SERVERLESS FUNCTIONS

CUSTOMIZABILITY

CUSTOMIZABILITY

A/B TESTING

A/B TESTING

MARKETING & SALES

MARKETING & SALES

LANDING PAGES

LANDING PAGES

SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION

SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION

PUBLISH TO SOCIAL MEDIA

PUBLISH TO SOCIAL MEDIA

ANALYTICS

ANALYTICS

BLOG

BLOG

GOOGLE AMP

GOOGLE AMP

CALLS-TO-ACTION

CALLS-TO-ACTION

LIVE CHAT & CHATBOTS

LIVE CHAT & CHATBOTS

LEAD SCORING

LEAD SCORING

PPC ADVERTISING MANAGEMENT

PPC ADVERTISING MANAGEMENT

CONTACT RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT (CRM)

CONTACT RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT (CRM)

PERFORMANCE

PERFORMANCE

AVERAGE SPEED

AVERAGE SPEED

CONTENT DELIVERY NETWORK (CDN)

CONTENT DELIVERY NETWORK (CDN)

INTEGRATIONS

INTEGRATIONS

SUPPORT & SECURITY

SUPPORT & SECURITY

SECURITY

SECURITY

HOSTING

HOSTING

SSL CERTIFICATE

SSL CERTIFICATE

TECH SUPPORT

TECH SUPPORT

FIREWALL/VPN

FIREWALL/VPN

COST

COST

BEST SUITED FOR:

BEST SUITED FOR:

HUBSPOT CMS

HubSpot-2
DEVELOPMENT & DESIGN
HubSpot_WHT_SM
THEMES
DRAG-AND-DROP CREATOR
MOBILE RESPONSIVE
PAGE SPECIFIC CSS
ECOMMERCE

HubSpot Payments powered by Stripe

MEMBERSHIPS

Available in CMS Enterprise

MAINTENANCE & UPDATES
SMART (PERSONALIZED) CONTENT
SERVERLESS FUNCTIONS

Available in CMS Enterprise

CUSTOMIZABILITY

Very customizable

A/B TESTING

Available in CMS Pro and Enterprise

MARKETING & SALES
HubSpot_WHT_SM
LANDING PAGES
SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION

Available in CMS Pro and Enterprise

PUBLISH TO SOCIAL MEDIA

Available in CMS Pro and Enterprise

ANALYTICS
BLOG
GOOGLE AMP
CALLS-TO-ACTION

Available in CMS Pro and Enterprise

LIVE CHAT & CHATBOTS
LEAD SCORING

Available in CMS Pro and Enterprise

PPC ADVERTISING MANAGEMENT

Available in CMS Pro and Enterprise

CONTACT RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT (CRM)
PERFORMANCE
HubSpot_WHT_SM
AVERAGE SPEED

Very fast - built-in optimization tools for fast loading

CONTENT DELIVERY NETWORK (CDN)
INTEGRATIONS

Large App Marketplace & open API

SUPPORT & SECURITY
HubSpot_WHT_SM
SECURITY

High

HOSTING
SSL CERTIFICATE
TECH SUPPORT
FIREWALL/VPN
COST

CMS Starter - $25/month
CMS Professional - $400/month
CMS Enterprise - $1,200/month

BEST SUITED FOR:

Small, medium, and enterprise level businesses

WORDPRESS

WordPress
DEVELOPMENT & DESIGN
WordPress_WHT_SM
THEMES
DRAG-AND-DROP CREATOR
MOBILE RESPONSIVE

Depends on theme

PAGE SPECIFIC CSS

Need a plugin

ECOMMERCE

Need a plugin

MEMBERSHIPS

Need a plugin

MAINTENANCE & UPDATES

Manual - substantial time commitment

SMART (PERSONALIZED) CONTENT
SERVERLESS FUNCTIONS
CUSTOMIZABILITY

Customizable (with technical knowledge)

A/B TESTING

Need a plugin

MARKETING & SALES
WordPress_WHT_SM
LANDING PAGES
SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION

Need a plugin

PUBLISH TO SOCIAL MEDIA

Need a plugin

ANALYTICS

Need a plugin

BLOG
GOOGLE AMP

Need a plugin

CALLS-TO-ACTION
LIVE CHAT & CHATBOTS

Need additional software

LEAD SCORING
PPC ADVERTISING MANAGEMENT
CONTACT RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT (CRM)
PERFORMANCE
WordPress_WHT_SM
AVERAGE SPEED

Average to slow - plugins and themes slow down websites

CONTENT DELIVERY NETWORK (CDN)

Additional cost

INTEGRATIONS

Very large plugin and theme community

SUPPORT & SECURITY
WordPress_WHT_SM
SECURITY

Depends on hosting package - prone to attacks

HOSTING

Requires separate hosting - typically $10 - $50/month

SSL CERTIFICATE

Additional cost - typically $70 - $100/year

TECH SUPPORT
FIREWALL/VPN

Additional cost

COST

Average between $100 - $200/month

BEST SUITED FOR:

Small and medium sized businesses

SQUARESPACE

Squarespace_WHT
DEVELOPMENT & DESIGN
Squarespace_WHT_SM
THEMES
DRAG-AND-DROP CREATOR
MOBILE RESPONSIVE
PAGE SPECIFIC CSS
ECOMMERCE

Available in Business or higher plans

MEMBERSHIPS
MAINTENANCE & UPDATES
SMART (PERSONALIZED) CONTENT
SERVERLESS FUNCTIONS
CUSTOMIZABILITY

Very limited customization

A/B TESTING
MARKETING & SALES
Squarespace_WHT_SM
LANDING PAGES
SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION
PUBLISH TO SOCIAL MEDIA
ANALYTICS

Very limited

BLOG
GOOGLE AMP
CALLS-TO-ACTION
LIVE CHAT & CHATBOTS

Need additional software

LEAD SCORING
PPC ADVERTISING MANAGEMENT
CONTACT RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT (CRM)
PERFORMANCE
Squarespace_WHT_SM
AVERAGE SPEED

Very fast - low customization options keep websites light

CONTENT DELIVERY NETWORK (CDN)

Additional cost

INTEGRATIONS

Limited

SUPPORT & SECURITY
Squarespace_WHT_SM
SECURITY

Basic

HOSTING
SSL CERTIFICATE
TECH SUPPORT

Basic

FIREWALL/VPN

Additional cost

COST

$16 - $46/month + additional marketing tools

BEST SUITED FOR:

Startups and small businesses

Let's narrow it down

Which CMS is right for you?

When it comes to choosing a content management software, you have a lot of questions to ask yourself:

  • How much are you willing to spend? 
  • What tools/features do you need?
  • How important is customizability?
  • How much traffic does your website currently get?
  • How important are other marketing tools?
  • Is your website simply a digital brochure or a lead generation tool? 

Amongst many, many others. Let's check out a quick overview of each platform.

HIVE-HubSpotHubSpot CMS

The HubSpot CMS is more than just another CMS. It is a CMS that turns your website into a lead generation and marketing tool. With connection to the free HubSpot CRM, you get additional functionality and transparency that you simply can't get with any other CMS. Creating smart content (content personalized to each visitor) is extremely powerful and valuable when it comes to speaking to what your visitors care about and who they are. 

The pricing tiers are pretty dramatic (ranging from $25/month to $1,200/month), but that allows for a business of any size and budget to afford HubSpot CMS Hub. CMS Hub Starter is best for new businesses or very small businesses that don't need all the bells and whistles just yet. It is limited to 15 total pages, one blog (with unlimited blog posts), and one subdomain. 

For more robust needs, the pricing for CMS Pro and Enterprise, at the outset, looks high. We get the question all the time - "WordPress is free, why would I pay $400 or $1,200/month for HubSpot CMS?" Well it's just not that simple. Just because a tool is open source and free to start, doesn't mean it's "free." With the HubSpot CMS, you're also investing in security, management, optimization, additional tools, and peace of mind. You don't have to worry about keeping plugins up to date, updating your software versions, protecting against hacking, or about having a slow website. It's all done for you.

Top features

  • Fully customizable
  • Security
  • Performance
  • Managed software maintenance
  • Smart content
  • Marketing & sales tools
  • Tech support
  • Option for any size business

Issues

  • Monthly cost (Pro & Enterprise)

Overall evaluation

We absolutely love the HubSpot CMS. So much so that we took the plunge and moved our website (this website) to the HubSpot CMS in April 2020. We believe that the HubSpot CMS is more than a website platform - it's a marketing, sales, and user experience platform. It arms us with all the tools and processes we need in order to increase website traffic, convert more of that traffic into leads, and close more deals. While we have only had our website up on the HubSpot CMS for a relatively short time, we have already seen a substantial increase in traffic and leads. While the $400 or $1,200/month (we're on CMS Professional by the way) may seem high, it has really saved us time, money, and headaches not having to worry about keeping everything up-to-date and running smoothly. And with the roll out of HubSpot CMS Starter, now there is a HubSpot CMS option even for very small businesses. The platform is also extremely customizable. We have built out several custom modules and templates for our website (and client websites) and we were able to make them look, act, and function exactly how we envisioned without any limitations. We absolutely recommend the HubSpot CMS. 

With the addition of HubSpot CMS Starter, the biggest complaint about HubSpot CMS (price) has been eliminated altogether. Hosting and a CDN for a WordPress site alone will cost more than that.

HIVE-Wordpress-1WordPress

WordPress has two platforms - wordpress.org and wordpress.com. Wordpress.com is typically used more as a blogging platform (where WordPress originally started) and wordpress.org is the open source software that can be used to build your website. Having a free and open source tool is great, for the most part. It gives developers the ability to create new themes, plugins, extensions, widgets, etc. that can be used on any WordPress website. It gives those creative people the ability to create anything that their mind can dream up. On the flip side, it also creates an abundance of, well, crap. It's not uncommon to research, install, activate, and then deactivate and delete 2-4 plugins before finding the one that accomplishes what you're looking for.

Approximately 25% of all websites in the world are built on WordPress. It's by far the biggest player in this space because it is very flexible, there are millions of themes and plugins available (both free and paid), and you can get started very inexpensively. On the other hand - because it is the biggest player, it is far more susceptible to hacking. Hackers target WordPress websites because it is fairly easy to exploit plugins and themes that are not up-to-date and since all management of plugin and theme updates falls to you, it's easy to forget to update. Being diligent about keeping everything on your website up-to-date is vitally important.

We have been building websites on WordPress since we started our agency in 2014. We love WordPress and continue to build websites on WordPress. If you are looking for a customizable and fairly easy to use platform, WordPress can be a great option.

Top features

  • Fully customizable
  • Large developer community & marketplaces
  • Free software
  • Tons of documentation, training, and education available
  • Plugins to accomplish anything

Issues

  • Manual software maintenance
  • Security issues
  • Requires many plugins for full features
  • Typically heavier due to large number of plugins and themes

Overall Evaluation

WordPress is a fantastic tool and you can find a plugin to accomplish basically anything you can think of - checkout our 10 Must Have WordPress Plugins. It is very appealing to use because it is a free tool to get started. If you are going this route, however, don't expect it to stay free. If you are wanting to build a fairly custom website you'll likely end up needing a premium theme (average between $50 - $100) or fully custom theme, premium plugins (there is a wide range of costs here), advanced hosting, CDN, SSL certificate, and someone to continuously manage your website and keep things updated so that you can mitigate your hacking risk (budget for at least 3-5 hours per month). It is also important to note that while you can do anything with WordPress, the more plugins you add, the more likely that you will have compatibility issues that could take your website down or impact functionality. And the more plugins you have on your site, the more avenues there are for hackers to get in. We love WordPress because of the flexibility and the fact that we can really create anything that we can dream up. 

View more of our evaluation of the HubSpot CMS vs WordPress.

HIVE-SquarespaceSquarespace

Squarespace has grown up a lot over the last several years. It is still, however, a better option for very small businesses and startups rather than growing small, medium, or enterprise businesses. The costs are very low at under $50/month, but you are also missing a lot of the customizable tools and design elements as well as SEO and marketing tools that you have with HubSpot and WordPress. Squarespace does make getting started very easy though. They have a variety of templates to use and building a website on your own is easier with Squarespace than either HubSpot CMS or WordPress.

Top features

  • Inexpensive
  • Simple builder
  • Managed software maintenance
  • Native eCommerce in larger packages
  • Fast page load

Issues

  • Very limited customization
  • No marketing or sales tools
  • Limited integration capabilities
  • Big SEO limitations
  • Very limited control

Overall Evaluation

Squarespace should not really be viewed as a scalable option. It's not for growing businesses that are hoping to really treat their website as their best salesman. It is a great place to get started and get a website up quickly. It is important to keep in mind that if you go the Squarespace route, you will need to find other tools to satisfy your other marketing needs. Squarespace is our least favorite of these three CMS platforms because SEO is virtually non-existent, there are no additional marketing tools, and the platform is extremely inflexible.

Let's Get Started

Still have questions?

Have more questions about which CMS is right for your business or organization? Let's chat! 
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