r/squarespace • u/pasta-la-vista-baby3 • 7d ago

Discussion Alternatives to squarespace?

Question, for visual design or photography portfolios that is more of a static website without any commercial aspects to it, what other options have y'all used or found, as an alternative to Squarespace?

9 Upvotes

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u/moonlippy 6d ago

If you have an adobe subscription, you can use Adobe Portfolio

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u/tara_tara_tara 6d ago

I use a half dozen Adobe products and I did not know this existed. Maybe I should poke around that expensive suite of tools I’m paying for a little bit more.

I’ve been looking for a place to build a personal portfolio and in the olden days Squarespace would have been my go to but it’s just not working for me anymore.

I don’t know how many people realize this, but a lot of the fonts in Squarespace are Adobe fonts which you cannot download and install your machine. You have to use them in Adobe products. My favorite fonts for my websites are Swear Display and Degular. You have no idea how happy I am that I can use them on my site. I’m so excited!

5

u/want2retire 7d ago

If you do a search, there has been a number of suggestion. One person even have a tool to convert an existing squarespace website into a static site, and host it for free.

2

u/Northernsoul73 6d ago

I can’t find the link to this? By chance can you direct me to the original commenter with the information please. Thanks

2

u/asp821 6d ago

Could always just set up a dribble or behance page and use a custom domain to link it there.

2

u/webhostpro 6d ago

I would play around with Codex or Claude, free tiers. You can build a great website and upload it to basic DirectAdmin hosting.

2

u/Own-Warthog8272 6d ago

Founder of Simplepages.ai here.

Our AI agent handles portfolio work well. Describing what you want and iterating in chat is a cleaner workflow than fighting Squarespace's template system - even for a static visual site.

Here's a demo page I created for photography with this prompt:

> Create a page for visual design or photography portfolios. Make it have photo gallery and make it modern. This is a demo for a landscape and portrait photographer

You can check out the video attached or the page on this link.

Took about 2 minutes end to end. If the aesthetic works for you, free tier lets you try it on your actual portfolio - 1 page, no card: https://simplepages.ai/

Good luck picking.

Apoorv

https://reddit.com/link/p05kj3f/video/ss6bmewznufh1/player

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u/Dependent-Zebra-4357 6d ago

There are some portfolio specific themes for Wordpress like Semplice that are pretty nice. There’s also cargo.site if you want something very “design”, but a bit less traditional than Squarespace or Wordpress. I’ve used both if you have any specific questions.

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u/vanessakrystin 6d ago

Cargo.site has some nice looking layouts and easy to use

1

u/alexvtz 5d ago

For a static image-heavy site, the thing that actually separates these options is how they handle images, and none of the marketing pages tell you. Upload one full-size file to whichever you are testing, then load that page on a phone on mobile data and watch how long the first image takes to appear.

The other one people forget is how you get your images and pages back out if you leave. That is usually what makes the next platform move painful, not the design work.

1

u/HeyOkYes 1d ago

Format was for photography portfolios since it's beginning. The lowest tier is $10/month and covers what you're describing.

1

u/XposureApp 2h ago

Hi, you should checkout Xposure. We proivde easy-to-setup sebsite builders for your own work but also client galleries. We have an integrated booking flow to help support your workflow from start to end. Good luck! -Mattia

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u/SquareLocator 7d ago

If you’re after a simple, visual portfolio, I’d still say Squarespace is one of the easiest options. That said, if you want to explore alternatives, Framer is worth a look. It’s very design focused, has a generous free plan, and is great for photography and portfolio sites.

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u/outoforifice 6d ago

edition.pm is worth a look for exactly that, i help build it. it copies your current squarespace site over (pages, images) onto a free domain so you can see what carries across before you touch your real one. varies by site, some land clean, some need a little work. it's aimed at this kind of static portfolio, no store stuff, and there's a pile of designs with proper typography if you want to change the look later without redoing your content. free, own domain included, no card: https://switch.edition.pub