Webflow does not make the classic promise of other online editors — it does not promise you that creating a website is easy or that it only takes a few hours. Indeed, with Webflow that is not possible — it is far too complete and complex. If you think a website does not need a long creation time, look elsewhere! But then what does this CMS offer compared to its competitors? Webflow does not need to boast about it: it is honestly and by far the best solution on the market for creating a site with advanced, animated and interactive design — capable of creating the most beautiful websites in the world without touching a single line of code. This is what is called a no-code or low-code tool. What about the rest? It holds up perfectly on other aspects — whether backend or SEO. One wonders why it is not the #1 solution in comparison sites…
What is Webflow?
Webflow is an online CMS — it allows you to modify every aspect of your site (front/back) using your mouse without touching code, more commonly called “drag-and-drop”. The first version appeared in late 2013, created by two brothers and an associate. Today the platform has several million users and is also used by large companies such as Dell and Rakuten.
Webflow is a SaaS tool — meaning it has its own hosting and your site does not truly belong to you, unlike an Open Source CMS like WordPress. There is a wide variety of plans although the tool is free by default. It is therefore entirely possible to create a website for free and try it as much as you wish. Note however that the tool is only available in English, as are their help forums and support.
The tool markets itself as dedicated to web design professionals — and you quickly understand why when you see what it can do. In terms of mastery, web designer or not, you will need to learn and master the software like everyone else to take full advantage of its power. Moreover, you will need no particular skills — only passion.
What types of sites can be created with Webflow?
Can Webflow create the site you need beyond design and animation? In truth, it is possible to create almost any type of site with Webflow. In any case, here is a list, though non-exhaustive:
- Showcase site
- E-commerce site / online shop
- Blog
Obviously, it goes without saying that creating a showcase site will inevitably be incredible with Webflow — but what about e-commerce and blog? If you are used to WooCommerce, the plugin for creating an online shop on WordPress, expect roughly the same number of possibilities (at least those we commonly use). It is possible to add products with their category (name, description, photos, etc.), set up discount coupons, manage orders, and a very good cart page much better than WooCommerce’s default one…
As for the blog, it has absolutely nothing to envy WordPress’s either. Moreover, Webflow has set up free courses for learning to use their content system (blog), which they call “CMS & dynamic content”.
Editor usability
Does this scare you? Usability and ease of creating a website with Webflow is one of its weaknesses. You will need significantly more time than any other CMS to learn to master it, and you will constantly make new discoveries as you use it. One thing is certain: after taming it, you will probably never be able to touch any other editor. To be clear, the CMS is very complex because it is complete like no other. Moreover, its user experience is better than any other CMS — solely due to the fact that it is once again very comprehensive.
Let us also not forget that Webflow offers free courses for learning to master every part of its editor — from a simple image grid to complex and interactive animation. They even go so far as to teach you how to create a 3D visual in Cinema 4D, then import it into your Webflow site and make it interactive based on your mouse position on the site. That says something! To be clear: just take your time, have passion, and you will have no problem creating your site — your “site”, I should say. Some animations would take entire weeks to write in code and would require years of experience as a specialised front-end developer. Here, 2 to 3 weeks without any knowledge is sufficient to achieve the same type of complex animations. You cannot have everything — even if Webflow comes very close.
The design: a Photoshop but for creating a website
We talk about design here, animations there — but let us look concretely at what can be done in this regard with this breathtaking editor. To start, here is a view of the editor:
Yes, it looks daunting — there is a lot going on, and this article is a presentation of Webflow, not a course. So let us quickly look at the design features.
By selecting our H1 heading, we have an entire section acting on the visual aspect of the selected text:
Not all windows are open as that would take too long, but you can see that you can do absolutely anything you want. Change the font, colour, alignment, style, cursor, position, spacing, border, opacity, filter, box shadow, transform in 2D & 3D and much more.
Then you have the settings section, allowing you to change its type:
Another section allowing you to change style based on several elements to create groups of the same style. But I will not go into further detail here.
Finally, the last tab allows you to create interactions and animations. Here is an example:
We then selected “mouse hover” in our example — Webflow proposed several animation types and once clicked there were yet more additional settings based on previous choices (animation delay, etc.) along with a setting for “after”. And much more…
Moreover, from the start we chose “element trigger” and not “page trigger” — which would have proposed other types of interactivity:
then…
Here is one last example: Webflow offers the integration of pre-made modules via simple drag-and-drop. Here they are:
Nobody is knowledgeable enough to understand any of this if they are not in the field — and even if they were, it would not make much difference. So do not worry, that is normal. If you want to learn how the editor works, courses are available on Webflow University! Nothing stops you from learning by yourself if you prefer — clicking everywhere and observing is also very educational.
Obviously, everything we saw in this short moment is just a drop in the ocean — but I wanted to point that out.
Note: You can also export your Webflow creation as code (ZIP of all your HTML, CSS, JavaScript, images and other files).
Webflow templates
If you want support and a starting point that looks like something, you can download free or paid templates or clone showcase sites. By taking a template, you could then study their interactions and understand how each part works. You can also call on us to carry out your Webflow project if you wish — because ultimately, whatever technology you end up choosing, the best approach is to call on an expert, for many reasons you may not be aware of.
Is Webflow SEO Friendly?
Yes. Yes, and that is what makes it even more attractive. It is suited to quality SEO just like WordPress. Granted, for now no one manages to perform as well as WordPress among all other CMSs from an SEO perspective, but Webflow is probably better than other competitors. There is nothing specific that WordPress does that Webflow cannot do — and in fact Webflow is more complete than the latter without plugins. The only thing is that there are no plugins for everything, such as a plugin for creating a semantic cocoon (very advanced SEO). However, all the title tags, meta titles, Open Graph, sitemaps, robots.txt, 301 redirects, alt tags, page URLs (Slug), structured data (schema), 404 page, SSL certificate and very fast hosting — everything is good regarding SEO. In other words, no other CMS can be more complete in terms of SEO. And if you happen to want to create a semantic cocoon for your next site, it is entirely possible to do it manually.
Webflow — hosting unlike any other
All SaaS-type CMSs include hosting with their site creation software. Webflow’s is unquestionably the most powerful on the market, powered by Amazon’s Cloud servers and Fastly (CDN integrated into your hosting…).
If you did not know, Amazon has a powerful hosting service very often compared to that of Google Cloud. The CDN reduces response time regardless of geographic location while further securing your site.
Therefore, Webflow promises quality service for its hosting with response times below 100ms. That is not all — they also promise to perfectly handle traffic spikes (scaling): “Instant scaling; your site will be dynamic for the first or the millionth simultaneous visitor. Do not worry about becoming popular overnight.”
Note: Do you remember OVH? Their system performs automatic backups.
Hosting matters
According to Google, sites with an appearance time of more than three seconds lose on average 40% of their traffic, and 79% of visitors never return to slow e-commerce sites. Another statistic? Reducing load time by 0.1 seconds can lead to an 8% increase in conversion rates. A fast site is important!
In terms of SEO, for several years Google has ranked faster mobile sites higher, and since 2021 new ranking factors have been added — still related to speed — influencing how pages rank in search results (Core Web Vitals).
As for Webflow’s price including hosting but also its software, it is truly not expensive. Comparing its hosting quality against other high-performance hosts — such as managed hosting powered by Google Cloud or Amazon Cloud and including CDNs — they are relatively more expensive and do not include a Photoshop for sites.
Plugins on Webflow
There are no plugins on Webflow per se. There are however what they call “integrations”. You simply click on what you want to integrate into your site and ready-made instructions are provided — it is relatively simple. This does not match the whole host of WordPress plugins, but Webflow holds its own. It is entirely possible to integrate Newsletters with MailChimp integration just to name one, but it is also possible to integrate Shopify on Webflow to multiply the power of each, or integrate Weglot to transform your site into a multilingual one…
Support provided by Webflow
If you feel overwhelmed, do not worry — there are a multitude of resources to help you create your site of the future. The only downside is that everything is only available in English on their site. However, by searching you can find many French blogs helping you create your Webflow site from a community of enthusiasts.
As for the help that comes from Webflow, you have access to free online training (https://university.webflow.com/) on their website guiding you step by step:
Including chapter-by-chapter YouTube courses, but also a resource centre for each section — this time in text format:
As well as a forum where you can ask all your questions to the community:
Finally, you will be able to contact a dedicated customer service if you cannot achieve what you want. Support is relatively active and responds within 24 to 48 hours maximum. If you provide enough details and screenshots — aided by Google Translate if you are not familiar with English — you have nothing to worry about: the support is excellent.
Webflow pricing
Webflow plans can be split into 2 parts. The 1st is what they call “Sites plans” — a formula we can call classic, including hosting, your domain name and the Webflow editor. You will have the choice between 2 tabs in site plans: the 1st for showcase/blog sites, the 2nd for e-commerce type sites.
The “basic” plan does not offer what they call “CMS” — so you will not have access to blogging features. Subsequent plans are distinguished by their more powerful capabilities such as the number of monthly visits.
Then comes the “account plan”:
These offers do not include hosting but are rather reserved for professionals, allowing them to manage multiple Webflow sites at once under a white label. This is also where you can sign up to try the Webflow interface for free. If you choose the free plan, you can publish your site with a free domain name and hosting — however, the domain name will not be fully customisable and the hosting capacity will be limited.
Overall, Webflow’s pricing is very similar to other SaaS CMSs and therefore offers an undoubtedly very good value for money.
Some websites created with Webflow:
You are probably curious to see what a website created with Webflow can look like — so here, for your amazed eyes, are some examples of websites:
- https://createur2site.fr/introduction-createur2site/ — Presentation of createur2site using Webflow
- https://www.mikelmurphy.com/ — Showcase site of a specialist in film creation
- https://airpods-pro.webflow.io/ — Rebuild of the AirPods landing page using Webflow
- https://reflex-template.webflow.io/ — A template available on Webflow for photographers
- https://www.deplacemaison.com/ — E-commerce site using Webflow
- https://webflow.com/web-design-art-history – A page created by Webflow themselves using their tools, tracing the history of web design.
In conclusion, is Webflow THE CMS?
Webflow is unquestionably the best CMS on the market alongside WordPress. No site creation is as quick as Wix claims. A quickly made site shows — and does not work. So Webflow gives you every possible tool to create a website that will convert through a truly modern design, while giving you the opportunity to be indexed (visible) on Google. Do not be afraid of the online editor and the different features I have shown. In reality, any screenshot of settings — whether WordPress ones or those inside WordPress themes — could make a vampire pale. So do not hold onto that. What you should remember is that if you want to, you can do whatever you want — unlike any other CMS or theme. Webflow is comprehensive enough to do anything on the design and animation side. As for the rest — site type, SEO — it handles itself marvellously well. You can still write lines of code using any programming language if you wish — whether for the visual side or backend functionality. Finally, whether for optimising your blog, creating an e-commerce site or learning to master the editor, there are countless resources, videos and even dedicated support available if needed.
There is no doubt that Webflow is now an essential CMS, revolutionising the way websites are created.
Need help? Contact us!