Hey I’m Seth!

Founder, No Code MBA
Each week I share the latest No Code MBA tutorials, interviews, and tool recommendations with 20,000 subscribers.
I'd love for you to join as well.
2 min read only
Practical lessons
Free access to content
Thank you! Your submission has been received!
Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form...
00
D
00
H
00
M
00
S
SPRING SALE: SAVE 10% →

Retool vs Squarespace

An in-depth head to head comparison

In this article, read a side-by-side comparison between two no-code tools: Retool and Squarespace. We'll compare pricing, the benefits, the drawbacks, give examples of what you can and can't build, as well as our overall recommendation.

What is Retool?

Build internal tools, remarkably fast
Go to tool
No items found.

What is Squarespace?

Easily create a website or online store.
Go to tool
No items found.

Pricing

Retool pricing

  • Free plan with editor mode only and up to 5 modules
  • $10/month - $50/month per user enables user mode (people can use your app without the ability to edit your set up), version history, more modules, and more advanced features

Squarespace pricing

  • Free trial, but no free version
  • $12/month - $40/month for custom domains and additional features such as e-commerce and subscriptions

Benefits

Retool benefits

  • Build internal apps connected to your company's data
  • Supports data from just about every database and data source
  • Lots of templates and components
  • Display, filter, and edit your company's data directly from retool
  • Allows businesses to create custom dashboards without developer resources

Squarespace benefits

  • Easy to create beautiful designs
  • Can build multi-page websites
  • Responsive design
  • E-commerce functionality, but more limited than Shopify or Webflow
  • Lots of templates

Drawbacks

Retool drawbacks

  • Somewhat high learning curve

Squarespace drawbacks

  • Don’t have full control over design
  • No CMS, can’t automatically create pages or dynamically insert content the way that Webflow does.

What you can build

Retool use-cases

  • Internal dashboards
  • Internal apps for your business such as a refund management system, data visualization, inventory management, content scheduler, promo code manager and more

Squarespace use-cases

  • Business websites
  • Landing pages
  • Custom blogs
  • E-commerce sites

What you can't build

What you can't build with Retool

  • Customer-facing apps (Retool apps are meant to be used internally)

What you can't build with Squarespace

  • Websites with a CMS that dynamically creates pages (check out Webflow)
  • Websites with full control over the design (check out Webflow)
  • Web apps with complex logic (check out Glide or Bubble)

Overall Recommendation

Retool recommendation

Retool is a fantastic tool for building internal apps at your business.

Where Retool really shines is allowing non-technical people to build apps that interact with a live database without needing to use developers.

Retool is the best tool for this use-case.

Squarespace recommendation

Squarespace is a good option for simple business websites (imagine a 5 page website for a doctor's office). It's a nice sweet spot between easy to use and functional website.

For higher quality websites with more customization and a CMS, I'd go for Webflow. The benefit of Squarespace over Webflow is Squarespace is easier to use.

For simpler websites and landing pages I'd go with Umso or Carrd because they are even easier to use.

Access all of this with No-Code MBA Unlimited
Unlock premium step-by-step tutorials building real apps and websites
Easy to follow tutorials broken down into lessons between 2 to 20 minutes
Get access to the community to share what you're building, ask questions, and get support if you're stuck
Friendly Tip!
Companies often reimburse No Code MBA memberships. Here's an email template to send to your manager.

Bring Your Ideas to Life with AI and No Code

Unlock premium step-by-step tutorials building real apps and websites
Easy to follow tutorials broken down into lessons between 2 to 20 minutes
Get access to the community to share what you're building, ask questions, and get support if you're stuck
Access all of this with No-Code MBA Unlimited
Unlock premium step-by-step tutorials building real apps and websites
Easy to follow tutorials broken down into lessons between 2 to 20 minutes
Get access to the community to share what you're building, ask questions, and get support if you're stuck
Friendly Tip!
Companies often reimburse No Code MBA memberships. Here's an email template to send to your manager.

More tool comparisons