Tissue vs Squarespace
These two are barely competitors, and the honest version of this page is short: if you are not writing the code, use Squarespace.
Squarespace designs and hosts websites for people who would rather not write software. Templates, a visual editor, a shop, email campaigns, appointment scheduling, domains. Tissue has none of that; there is no editor and no template, and the first thing it asks for is a JavaScript file.
There is one case where the answer flips: when the site has to do something. Squarespace runs no code on the server, has no database you can query, and has no scheduled jobs — its custom code is a block of client-side JavaScript or an iframe, on the middle tier and above. If your page has to read from a database, take a webhook or run at three in the morning, that lives somewhere else, and it may as well live with the site.
What each one is
Two sentences each, before any numbers.
- Squarespace
- A website builder. You choose a template, edit the pages in a browser, and it hosts the result, with a shop, email campaigns, appointment scheduling and a domain registrar attached. Custom code means client-side JavaScript and iframes; there is a CSS editor on every plan.
- Tissue
- One Cell — a JavaScript or WebAssembly function answering on a URL — with a SQL database, object storage, scheduled runs, sign-in and secrets attached to it by name in
ribo.toml.ribo deployputs the code, the static files and every attachment live in one step.
Side by side
Every figure below came off the other company’s own pages, on one day, and is dated underneath.
| Squarespace | Tissue | |
|---|---|---|
| Who it is for | Somebody who wants a website and is not writing code. | Somebody who is writing the code. |
| Free plan | None. Every site starts with a free trial of 14 days, with no card required. | Spore, $0 for as long as you like, no card. |
| Prices | Four plans, monthly or annual — pay annually to save up to 36%. The names and figures are not printed here: their pricing page and their own support documentation gave us two different sets of plan names on the same day, so read theirs. | Spore $0, Strand $5 a month, Colony $25. |
| Code on the server | None. Custom code is client-side JavaScript or an iframe, on the middle tier and above. | That is the whole product. |
| Database | None you can query. | c3, SQL, attached by name in the config file. |
| Scheduled jobs | None. | pulse, a cron line in the same file. |
| Selling things | Built in, with a transaction fee of 2% on the entry commerce plan falling to 0% higher up; digital content starts at 7%. | Not built in. You write the checkout against a payment provider, and we take no cut of it. |
| Design | Templates, a visual editor, type and colour systems, done for you. | You write the HTML and the CSS. |
| Email, scheduling, domains | All of it, in the same subscription. | None of it. |
Checked 16 September 2026 against Squarespace's own pricing page and support documentation. Both of us move; if a figure here has gone stale, tell us and we will correct it.
Where Squarespace is the better choice
This section is not decorative.
Most people reading this page should use Squarespace. If the site is a portfolio, a restaurant, a practice, or a shop with fifty products and a contact form, Squarespace does all of it in an afternoon without a line of code, and the result will look better than what most engineers produce by hand.
The parts that are actually hard are done, and done by people who do only that: responsive layout, image handling, accessible defaults, page metadata, checkout, tax, email.
It is the cheaper answer once your own time is in the sum. A monthly subscription against a weekend is not a close call.
And it keeps working without you. Nothing to update, nothing to redeploy, no dependency that goes stale while you are not looking.
Where tissue is the better choice
When the site has to run code. A booking page with real availability, a page that reads from a database, an endpoint that takes a webhook from a payment provider, a job that emails a summary at three in the morning: none of that is a Squarespace feature, and assembling it from embeds and third-party widgets is how a simple site turns into four subscriptions.
When you want it in one place. Tissue serves the pages out of public/ and runs the code behind them in the same deploy, with the database and the file storage attached.
When the design is the point. There is no template to fight, because there is no template.
When you would rather not pay a percentage of what you sell. We are not in the transaction, so there is nothing for us to take.
What moving looks like
The pages come across as the static files they already were, and the contact form — the part that had to be somebody else's widget — becomes a handler with a table behind it.
[cell] name = "studio" js = "./cell.js" [[bindings]] type = "files" binding = "FILES" dir = "public" [[bindings]] type = "c3" binding = "DB" database = "enquiries"
$ ribo deploy uploading cell.js publishing ./public attaching c3 live https://studio.quartz-4b.tissue.dev
The database and the bucket are created on that first deploy if they are not there yet. ribo deploy is the whole pipeline: there is no build step to configure and no second place to put the static files.
Spore is $0, takes no card, and allows commercial use. If tissue turns out to be the wrong shape for what you are building, you will know inside an afternoon.