In 2021, I started working with a web development/marketing agency and they used mostly Wordpress and Webflow for their 30+ clients. There, I was able to use both platforms on a daily basis and compare what it’s like to use both environments for building and maintaining websites. During this time, I was still at the beginning stage of my web development career and was undecided on whether to specialize in Webflow or Wordpress.
After more than a year of working there, it became very clear and it was an easy choice that I should specialize in Webflow and here are 3 reasons why.
Websites built with Webflow require less maintenance.
To build anything complex or substantive with Wordpress, you must use plugins. Plugins are created by third party developers and usually break from time to time; which is why they need constant updates and maintenance. When a plugin breaks, you’re at the mercy of their developers and most plugins usually offer little to no customer support. Generally, your only recourse is to uninstall and install the plugin again. This is such a major pain point that someone actually created a plugin that helps detect when plugins need updates. Messy, messy stuff.
Furthermore, some plugins have extra features that you may not need but are stuck with, which makes your website code more bloated and this can slow down your page speed and performance.
On the other hand, Webflow has native tools that take the place of these plugins, so there’s significantly less things that can break on your website. And if something on the site does break, as long as you know HTML/CSS well enough, you should be able to troubleshoot and fix the issue yourself.
Wordpress page builders are a pain to work with, compared to Webflow.
While working at the agency, I used virtually every popular Wordpress page builder out there. From Divi, Elementor, WP Bakery, Gutenberg, Oxygen to Beaver Builder, but NONE of them can compare to Webflow’s native page builder.
In my opinion, there are many Wordpress page builders competing with one another because they are mostly mediocre and are missing crucial elements, so developers keep building new page builders to improve upon the previous one. Every few years, you can bet that there will be a new Wordpress page builder that’s supposed to be ‘better’ than the rest.
Webflow on the other hand, has only one state-of-the-art page builder that they constantly build upon and improve year after year. I’m seeing more and more new platforms like Framer and Wix Studio try to mimic Webflow’s page builder and I’m not surprised.
Wordpress is the oldest “no code” platform, but it’s no longer the best, in my opinion.
I’m aware that a large majority of websites today, (around 43% as of July 2024) are powered by WordPress but, that’s because it was the first open-source, "no code" CMS/website builder of its kind and it’s been around the longest. (WordPress was released on May 2003 and Webflow in August 2013) That’s a major reason why most websites still use WordPress, in my opinion. Non-technical business owners and marketing teams simply see what their peers use and (understandably) don’t know that there are far better platforms and tools out there today.
Of course, this depends a lot on the purpose of the website and the type of service or product the business offers. Some businesses may not value web design as much as others and their business will run just fine without a website; so a custom designed website for them is more of a "nice to have", instead of a necessity. In those cases, a simple template and a few plugins will suffice.
But for those who value design and a website is integral to their business model such as a SaaS or a digital product, where user/developer experience is carefully considered, I believe Webflow has nailed it, as far as UI/UX is concerned. With Webflow I have granular control over the layout and design of the site and I'm not confined to using rigid templates or themes.
Webflow was released around the time when mobile phone web browsers were becoming more widely used than desktop devices, so their native tools make it easy to build mobile or tablet friendly websites or webapps.
