Online presence is becoming more and more crucial for personal or professional usage for nearly every modern person. We communicate on the internet, receive education, even inquire about the current weather, not to mention running a business.
Joining the virtual world is impossible without creating a site. All sites are launched for different purposes. There are so many pieces of website software available that it is difficult to make up your mind which one to choose and not to get lost in this information flow. Some of them were designed with large projects in mind, others to administer smaller websites. A mistake in the choice, for instance Squarespace vs Joomla, can cause problems eventually.
In the following table 3 online store builders are compared in terms of e-commerce.
| GetSocio | Squarespace | Joomla | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Product review | Getsocio is a ready-made and hosted ecommerce platform that allows you to create an ecommerce storefront in a couple of minutes | A drag and drop website builder | Open source software that allows users to build a wide variety of websites |
| Pricing | Starts from $15/mo | Starts from $26/mo | Free of cost |
| Coding skills required | None | None | Even tech-savvy users get lots of problems in carrying out their task |
| SEO | Meta descriptions, keywords, URLs - everything necessary to get found in search engines | Editable | Editable |
| Changing themes without rebuilding the site | In one click you can switch between good-looking and professionally designed themes | In one click, but with slow loading times | There is a great risk that your site will be messed up after changing a template |
| Support | + | + | - |
| Hosting | Included into the plan | Included into the plan | - |
| E-commerce | + | + | Extensions required |
| Multilingual | + | Interface is English only, but the editor can support any language | + |
| Security | + | + | - |
| Best for | For a complete website newbie | For a beginner | For a user with coding skills |
This comparison is about choosing between hosted and open source solutions. They can hardly be called competitors. Creating an online storefront with shopping cart software like Getsocio or Squarespace is as easy as opening an account on Facebook. The main difference between Squarespace and Joomla is in access to its code. When the code of ecommerce software is closed it's safe from hackers' attempts to break the site. Hosting, security and all updates are provided by the vendor. Squarespace software is available in the U.S, the U.K, Ireland and Canada only. So if you are located in other countries and eager to sell online, Getsocio is an excellent alternative to Squarespace or Joomla.