Webflow vs Wordpress | A Simple Guide

WEBFLOW WINS FOR...

Design Flexibility

The ability to customise within Webflow is amazing. What you can do with the platform easily beats the best Wordpress themes or theme builders out there. Not even close.

Security

If you design then host on Webflow (which most people do) then you stay within their product, which has great security.

Beginner SEO

From personal experience I've seen Webflow pages rank really highly and really easily on a consistent basis, all without intensive SEO work or an additional agency. If you've arrived here from a search engine I rest my case.

Basic Commerce

Simple and seamless is the best way to describe Webflow ecommerce at this point. Very fast to set up and very easy to create beautiful sales and product pages.

Lack Of Plugin Problems

Wordpress websites need constant maintenance to keep plugins working and in date, you just don't have that on Webflow. Don't get me wrong, there is an ecosystem of products and services you can bolt on to Webflow, it's just not as complicated to set-up or manage.

Animation

Webflow makes it easy to make everything from really simple animated touches to full-on 3D marvels.

Taking Care Of The Little Things

It's the small considerations on Webflow...SSL Certificates, really intuitive settings, great tutorial videos and making it really easy to set up a site. They work hard to make things easy.

The Future

Webflow is on the rise. Wordpress isn't under any threat because of that, but the next few years will see Webflow take a larger market share and become a really established name. People make bets about which way their product will go (app creation, platform extensions, IPO etc) and it's actually really exciting to see how they are growing.

WORDPRESS WINS FOR...

Cost Of Hosting

With Webflow you either pay for one of their hosting plans or build the site and then export the code to a host of your choice. With Wordpress you can shop around for a hosting deal (beware of rubbish hosts and slow page load times though) to end up with a lower monthly cost.

Familiarity

Wordpress is a known quantity. In fact, Webflow even designed a plugin so you can design in Webflow and still give people a Wordpress CMS to use for the day to day running and management of your site.

Working With An SEO Agency

From experience of working with clients, if they have an SEO Agency as part of their team, that agency has a bias towards Wordpress (see familiarity).

Complex Ecommerce

No doubt about it, at this point Wordpress can do much more when it comes to ecommerce. This is simply due to the vast array of plugins and products available.

Community Size

Working with Wordpress you will never be alone, it powers a third of the internet!

ASK YOURSELF THIS...

Are you OK with adjusting to a new platform?

If change is massively difficult for you and your organisation then give Webflow a miss. There is a small learning curve with Webflow and if you're not prepared to embrace that then stay with what is familiar.

How important is monthly hosting cost really?

From what I have seen, monthly hosting costs for a decent host on Wordpress are only about 5-15% cheaper than hosting with Webflow. It is cheaper, but that cost saving is not enough to make a tangible difference to most businesses or organisations.

How often will you want to refresh or update your site, brand and design system?

Webflow makes it easy to adapt and evolve the look and feel of your site, even including wholesale changes. Things that might require a theme change in Wordpress can be created on the fly in Webflow.

What is your annual web budget and where do you want it to go?

Websites require ongoing work. With Wordpress a percentage of your budget will go on maintenance tasks like plugin updates, with Webflow that money will be available for other things. With larger budgets, plugin updates will not be a problem, but if you can only afford a few days of your designer's time per year it's worth considering Webflow, where most of the maintenance tasks are not passed to the end consumer.

What team do you have around you?

There are plenty of amazing creative professionals making Webflow and Wordpress sites that look and perform brilliantly. It's really important to look at your people (in house and contractors) to work out what platform will bring out the best in them.

And there you have it.

Clearly there's more, but the above is enough to make a great decision. I hope your project goes well, if you want to ask any further questions then please fill out the form below and we'll give you an honest and jargon-free response that helps you move forward...whether you work with us or not.

A five minute read about websites

Webflow vs Wordpress, the simple (and impartial) guide