From SquareSpace to WordPress

After  several years hosting my website on SquareSpace, I have finally decided to move to a different service. Don’t get me wrong, SquareSpace is an excellent service, but it offers far more than I need, and that comes at a price – currently $144 a year. Not expensive, but there are cheaper services that meet my requirements.

I heard about SquareSpace on a podcast (they were a sponsor) and it sounded like it would be so much easier to manage than the custom hosting I was doing on Hostpapa. Back then, I found their interface a little confusing, which I put down to its extreme customisability. Over the years, the experience improved, including support for mobile device screen formats (very important these days.)

My mind was finally made up today, when I discovered that tools such as Ulysses now natively support WordPress and Medium. SquareSpace have their own iOS applications, but they are not great. They also don’t offer HTTPS, and based on the feedback I received, don’t plan to. I think this is an oversight. These days, the whole web is moving to HTTPS. WordPress, for example, are already using the free Lets Encrypt service to automatically provision SSL certificates. It doesn’t work for custom domains yet, but it is on their roadmap and I shouldn’t be far away.

Although I don’t post very often, I’m going to give WordPress a try. I’ll start with their free service and then probably move to the $72 a year plan so I can use my custom domain. I’m not saving a huge amount, but a change is as good as a rest, as they say.

Update: Recently SquareSpace decided to introduce SSL using LetsEncrypt. It’s a shame they didn’t tell me that they were working on this capability before I decided to leave.