Somebody on the committee is going to ask, "Why not just use Squarespace?" It's a fair question. Here's the honest answer — what a hosted platform gives your church, what it keeps, and what changes when the website is actually yours.
Both put a church website on the internet. Only one of them is something your church has when the subscription ends, the vendor pivots, or the volunteer who set it up moves away.
The editor, the design, the hosting and the data all live with the provider. Easy to start — and that's the point. But the site only exists while you pay, and it can't leave.
FaithKit is one folder of plain files — no database to install or manage. Put it on any ordinary hosting — or let MattCreates run it for you — and it's still yours the morning after. No meter, no lock, nobody watching.
Compared on the things that matter for a church over ten years — not on how many templates are in the gallery.
| Question | Hosted platform | FaithKit |
|---|---|---|
| Who owns the website? | You own the words and pictures you upload. The site itself — design, editor, hosting — stays with the provider. | Your church. The whole thing: code, design, content — one folder. Free and open-source under AGPL v3. |
| What does it cost? | A monthly or yearly plan, per site, for as long as it exists. Prices change on their schedule — check their sites for today's number. | Free to download. Ordinary web hosting if you run it yourself. Or MattCreates sets it up and cares for it at a flat $300/hr — no plan, no meter. |
| Can we leave and take it with us? | Partly. You can usually export some content (posts, images). The design and structure don't come with you — you rebuild elsewhere. | Yes, all of it. It's one folder of plain files. Copy it to new hosting and it looks and works exactly the same. |
| Who is watching our visitors? | The platform's own analytics and scripts run on every page. Your visitors' browsers talk to their servers, not just yours. | Nobody. Zero telemetry by design — no analytics beacons, no third-party fonts or scripts. Nothing leaves your server. |
| Where does our members' data live? | In the provider's cloud, under their terms and their privacy policy. | On your server, in plain files you can copy to a thumb drive on Sunday afternoon. |
| Sermons & radio? | Usually via a separate media platform or add-on, with its own plan. | Built in. Sermon library plus a homepage radio station that auto-slices your recordings into an always-on stream. |
| Who does the work? | You do, in their drag-and-drop editor. Genuinely easy for simple pages. | Your choice. DIY with a setup wizard and a plain admin your volunteers can run — or done-for-you by MattCreates. |
| What happens if the company changes? | Your site changes with it — new prices, retired features, new terms. You adapt or you leave. | Nothing. Your copy keeps running exactly as it is. There's no company between your church and its website. |
Hosted-platform descriptions cover the general subscription model shared by Wix, Squarespace, Subsplash and similar services; their plans and features change — always confirm on their own sites. Green = ownership stays with the church. Gold = it depends.
Every hosted platform in the table above is a fine building on someone else’s land. FaithKit puts the website on your own ground — your files, your domain, your people’s data — and hands you the key.
Nobody feels lock-in on the day they sign up. They feel it three years later, on a Tuesday.
A comparison that only lists the other side's weaknesses isn't a comparison. Here's where a hosted platform will genuinely serve some churches better — so you can decide with your eyes open.
If you want to lay out every page yourself, pixel by pixel, their editors are excellent at that. FaithKit gives you a finished, cohesive design with pages you fill in — on purpose, so it stays beautiful when a volunteer edits it.
Hundreds of plug-in widgets, from event ticketing to online stores. FaithKit ships the church essentials — pages, sermons, members, prayer, giving links, radio — and leaves the rest out on purpose.
A big platform has a support team on shift at 3 a.m. FaithKit is free software with plain documentation; the done-for-you option puts a real person (MattCreates) on your side, during real hours.
A church website is usually a handful of pages, service times, a staff list and some sermons. That's not a migration project. That's a Saturday.
Pull your text, photos and sermon files off the old platform while the account is still open. Save them to a folder.
Download FaithKit, upload it to ordinary hosting, and the first-run wizard names your church, sets service times and creates your two admin logins.
Paste your content into the plain admin. Drop in your own photos — the design treats them so they look like they belong.
Move your domain to the new hosting. Close the old subscription. The website is now something your church owns.
Would you rather not touch any of it? MattCreates does the whole move — export, install, photos, domain — at a flat $300/hr. It's still yours when we're done.
Cornerstone is a sample congregation running the real FaithKit — every page, the admin, the radio. Kick the tires, then join the early-access list or download it today.
Something in that table raise a question? Sixteen of them are answered plainly — read the straight answers.