Static site generator (SSG) alternative to Squarespace?

I'm a novice so I chose the most novice-friendly option I could find - Squarespace. But I've had lots of problems with them, and they keep raising their prices, and they hide features like javascript code behind even higher prices.

I learned about SSGs https://jamstack.org/generators, which create fast and secure sites that can be hosted for free on Netlify and other similar sites. The downside is they're limited to static content -- IE: you can't have a contact form without paying a 3rd party.

I found a novice-friendly SSG theme for wikis/documentation -- MKDocs Material -- but I haven't been able to find anything for a regular business site.

This seems to be one of the most popular Jekyll themes https://mmistakes.github.io/minimal-mistakes/about/ but it seems to be mainly for blogs and documentation, and doesn't seem to have all the design options that Squarespace does.

I read that healthcare.gov used Jekyll https://medium.com/devseed/new-healthcare-gov-is-open-cms-free-41c25249cf38 in conjunction with https://prose.io. So I looked it up and found this https://github.com/CMSgov/HealthCare.gov-Styleguide which actually seems pretty decent; but also not complete enough. Their newer version https://github.com/CMSgov/design-system seems more complete/extensive, but also quite technical. It looks like it requires too much coding for me.

Weebly seems to be a slightly cheaper alternative to Squarespace but it's missing some features and Square might end it in a few years.

I've never used Wordpress but now that I've hosted a few websites I'm thinking about purchasing Oxygen https://oxygenbuilder.com/ and hosting a Wordpress site myself. Oxygen is like a more advanced version of Squarespace with a 1-time payment equal to 1 year of Squarespace. Then you just have the monthly costs of hosting the server, which should be $5-10 (no idea how this scales with amount of traffic, do you?). There is a plugin/addon to export a static site, but it might not be worth the trouble.

According to https://servebolt.com/articles/calculate-how-many-simultaneous-website-visitors/ a 2-core server ($5) with a webpage that takes 300ms to load can serve:

400/minute
24,000/hr
288,000/12 hrs

A lot of people use Wordpress, but also seem unsatisfied with it https://jamstack.org/survey/2022/#content-management-systems.

The Gutenberg editor may be new since the last time I tried Wordpress https://www.hostinger.com/tutorials/gutenberg-wordpress, and it looks pretty similar to Squarespace. So maybe I don't even need Oxygen. I looked up "Gutenberg vs Oxygen" and people were saying to go with Gutenberg.

I've been considering Grav https://getgrav.org/ too, but similar to the SSGs, it doesn't seem to have all the design capabilities without coding them yourself.

I've seen people say you can get chat GPT to write HTML code for you but I've never used it and it seems like it would be difficult to design a website that way. I looked for a video but only found one covering writing content, not code.

I found out about Hostinger Website Builder https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUjjGIfjh-4 which uses AI and looks very similar to Squarespace's builder. But there's no demo so I can't see exactly what it can do. But Hostinger is much cheaper than Squarespace, and you can choose to use Wordpress with it instead of the Hostinger builder.

I checked GreenGeeks and they say "We offer drag and drop website builders like Weebly and SitePad". Sitepad is $12/yr and makes static sites, but it looks like you need one of the popular GUI web panels to use it https://sitepad.com/docs/admin/supported-control-panels/. Similar to Weebly, it's also a bit more limited -- IE: you can't open a contact form in a lightbox from a button https://sitepad.com/docs/enduser/contact-form.

A benefit of using Hostinger or GreenGeeks is probably that I don't have to worry about a surge in traffic causing my site to go down. That's why I'm thinking they're a better option vs self-hosting on a VPS.

I found this video that seems quite good and covers more options I didn't know about: Ultimate Website Builder Comparison 2024 | Find the BEST One for You + Why I Hated Squarespace

Anyone know of better places/forums to discuss this type of thing? There seems to be hundreds of thousands of people using the jamstack SSGs but I haven't found a place where people discuss them. I've tried:

15 comments

Static typically refers to static pages. Which can have dynamic elements, but no backend.
IE: you can’t have a contact form without paying a 3rd party.
Unless you open an email client or other url to forward the contracting I don't consider that (purely) static anymore.
Given that, I'm not sure what you even want "static gen" for? You may be looking for the wrong thing.
- I’m not sure what you even want “static gen” for?
  Speed, security, free hosting.
  
  If that's your hope for static generating, "contact form with backend" goes against those goals. It's an important requirement shifting the entire viability and weighing of platforms and hosters.

It doesn’t sound like you want a static site generator. You want a Squarespace alternative. One option I use is Ghost. You can host it yourself for free. But it’s not a static site. Static site means static. That means no backend, no forms, none of that. You won’t get a CMS, you won’t get drag and drop components. That’s not what static site generators do.

I don’t know what you’re doing and what you’re really asking.
You want a static site? Hugo or jekyll.
You can host them with git hub/lab pages for free.
There are options for contact forms but it will require additional setup. Searching for what you want + platform + tutorial should help point you in the right direction. (Eg https://discourse.gohugo.io/t/is-it-possible-to-add-a-contact-form-to-a-site/1550/3)
- I don’t know what you’re doing and what you’re really asking.
  It doesn't sound like you read the OP.
  You want a static site? Hugo or jekyll.
  As I said, I was unable to find a theme that has all the design features of a builder like Squarespace. So to make a professional website with an SSG seems to require coding knowledge.
  There are options for contact forms but it will require additional setup.
  Yes, I mentioned that. Many of them are limited or costly:
  Some of them use Netlify forms https://www.netlify.com/platform/core/forms/ - 100 submissions per site /month ($19+ when exceeded). https://docs.netlify.com/accounts-and-billing/billing-faq/
  Hugo's Piko theme uses FormSubmit.io (free) or Fabform.io ($5/mo). But I haven't tested that to understand how well it works and why/how it's free.
  Hugo's Tella theme uses getform.io -- https://github.com/opera7133/tella/issues/63 (50/mo).
  250/mo for free and $8/mo for unlimited with https://web3forms.com/ is the best I've seen so far (besides the completely free one which I'm not sure about).
  I haven't seen any of them mention using an SMTP.
  
  I did. It’s rambling and unclear. I was trying to help the best I could. Good luck.

Oxygen builder is weird as fuck, especially on top of WordPress' already weird data structure.
If you were considering WordPress I would just stick with Elementor because it's the most popular builder. You can also use https://proelements.org/ to try out the pro version without having to subscribe.
- Hmm, I watched the Oxygen video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7yae8GvpPVo where they build a webpage and it doesn't seem weird to me. As a Squarespace user, it seems more familiar to me than the Gutenberg editor. For example, setting the spacing of two side-by-side elements with Gutenberg seemed really strange. They were spaced really far apart without an obvious way to reduce the spacing.
  proelements
  Interesting! That looks like a completely free version of Elementor Pro. It looks like it's not on the official Wordpress plugins site https://wordpress.org/plugins/search/PRO+Elements/ though. I read that makes it more risky.
  
  By "weird as fuck" I mean in the context of WordPress and how its templating system works, not in the context of UI/UX.
  No, the pro elements plugin not available through the WP.org repo and is only available via GitHub.

I would 100% use Wordpress. It's far and away the most mature option with the most diverse ecosystem of plugins. That survey you linked to is hardly a controlled study. I bet a lot of the folks using Wordpress would have low satisfaction with other CMSes.
Also, part of the problem there is that that Wordpress ecosystem is highly enshittified and monetized (probably contributing to dissatisfaction, especially with people who were messing with Wordpress ten years ago and remember what it was like when there were a million cool Open Source plugins that did what ever you wanted for free). But there is still a lot you can do for free if you know your way around it.
You can get ChatGPT to write code for you, and it does some things very well, but don't use it if you don't know how to code yourself. It's asking for trouble of both the "security vulnerability" kind and the "I don't know how to put all these pieces together" kind. The best advice is not to deploy any AI written code that you don't understand. AIs confidently make mistakes and get stuff wrong all the time.
One thing that ChatGPT IS good at is pointing you at Open Source plugins.
There IS a big security concern with self hosting Wordpress, but wordpress.com's hosting is pretty affordable.
Given your use case and the fact you seem willing to spend a little money, I think Wordpress with Divi is a solid choice. There are lots of good Divi tutorials on Youtube.
- Thanks for your input.
  wordpress.com’s hosting is pretty affordable.
  It's more expensive than Squarespace which is a main reason I chose Squarespace in the first place. I created a test site today to experiment with Wordpress and it seems that Wordpress has as much or more functionality than Squarespace, but much of it is hidden behind 3rd party addons, which may or may not be free. And you basically have to look up articles for "how to do x on Wordpress", whereas with Squarespace it's build-in and easier to accomplish.
  So I think for people starting out, Wordpress is harder to use since you don't even know what it's capable of.
  Divi is more expensive than Oxygen, so if I use something other than Gutenberg it will probably be Oxygen.
  
  WordPress.com is horrendous and extremely expensive, and their practices are scummy. Divi is also fucking garbage. That other user has no idea what they are talking about.

15 comments