When it comes to choosing the right tool and platform for brand new website design, things might seem confusing to you, especially if you are new to website designing.
You will find a myriad of technical information. Not all of them will be necessary. Also, depending on how you want your website to be, a lot of things will change.
There is not a shred of doubt that Webflow and WordPress are the two most preferred platforms for website building and designing. Both of the platforms come with their fair share of strengths and weaknesses.
If you can choose the right platform now, it will reduce a lot of problems in the future. Thus, in this blog, we shall present you all the details on Webflow and WordPress, and then you can decide for yourself.
SL NO. | | Webflow | WordPress |
| 1 | Founded in | 2012 | 2003 |
| 2 | Templates | Responsive templates available according to the industry (both paid and free) | A wide collection of paid and free themes available |
| 3 | Technical Support | Webflow University, email, live chat, video tutorials, forum | No official customer care support |
| 4 | Blogging options | Integrated blogging | Built-in blogging |
| 5 | Design Freedom | Start within an empty canvas and customize every element visually. | If you are not a coder, you shall need a visual design plugin or you will be restricted with available templates. |
| 6 | Code quality | Webflow brings code that is clean and semantic | Codes are bloated due to the reliance of plugins |
| 7 | SEO | Completely customizable SEO settings, easy to set up. Webflow sites are built for modern internet. | Easily to customize if you are using a plugin, also you have to know how to configure the plugin. |
| 8 | Website security | Free SSL on all sites along with consistent threat monitoring | Offers free SSL sites, but WordPress sites do have their fair share of vulnerabilities if not maintained properly. |
| 9 | User-friendliness | Very minimal on-page editing, convenient dashboard UI | Lots of irrelevant options on the dashboard and lacks on-page editing. |
| 10 | Collaboration | Easy to collaborate design and content, client billing is built right in | Good built-in editorial collaboration but doesn’t have native billing support. |
What is a Webflow website builder?
Webflow is a cloud-based website builder that will help anyone in building a nice website. For Webflow, we literally mean ANYONE! The best part is, you don’t need any coding skills at all.
Unlike any other website-building platforms, like Wix and Squarespace, Webflow is highly customizable and a robust tool. This is something you can only get by using Javascript and HTML CSS.
Since it is so customizable, Webflow has become very popular among web designers. Also, it is suitable for anyone and everyone who is looking to create a completely customizable website without any hassle of hiring designers or developers.
The key features of Webflow
- Drag & drop page builder
- Works directly with the CMS data
- Intuitive editor
- Webflow is extremely SEO friendly
- e-commerce site
- Works with reusable CSS classes
- Responsive page designs
- Works with Flexbox
- Option to publish to the website right away
- Define global color swatches
- SSL & ISO 27018
- Integrates marketing tools and data collecting
- Export code for download
- Creating scroll based animations
- Code editor for adding your own code if needed
- Zapier integrations
Webflow design tool features
- Webflow allows you to take complete control of the CSS3, HTML, and Javascript so that you can use the visual page builder for creating exactly that you need. When you have created your perfect website, you can publish it directly into the web. Or you can also download the code and then pass it to the developers.
- The page builder comes with a ‘drag & drop’ interface so that you will be able to start with a simple blank canvas. Drag & drop any elements that you want. These include videos, tabs, sliders, and images. Place them anywhere you want and view the page structure in the navigator. If you want you can restructure any element with a few clicks.
- All the pages and elements come with a responsive design. It is a very SEO friendly platform. You will be able to adjust and preview the layouts for any device. Thus, you will be sure that whoever is visiting your website is getting the best user experience, irrespective of the device that they are using.
- A great feature of Webflow is, you shall have complete control over the typography of your website. You will be able to use any font that you want and you can customize them completely, right from the line-height to the tracking.
- Webflow will also allow you to define the global color swatches. Thus, you can change every instance of the color on your website with just a click of a button. This is what ensures perfect consistency throughout all the pages.
Webflow interaction tools
- You can create customized interactions and animations throughout the site. Build complicated interactions and animations visually without a single line of code. Thus, the possibilities with Webflow are limitless.
- You can create scroll-based parallax animations. All the elements will be linked to the scroll progress. Thus, the progress bars or animations or anything else that you want can be revealed in the time with scroll progress.
- You will have options to create animations that build as a scroll. Thus, when the user is at the right point of the page, they can view the image in full. This is a task that a lot of people would find difficult, but Webflow makes things easy.
- There is a ‘reveal on click’ content feature with which you can offer a whole new level of interactivity to your site. Add rich hover animations to reveal new content when someone hovers the mouse on a specific area. This is a great feature to engage your audience.
- Webflow offers 20 in-built animations that you can add to your website with just a few clicks. Also, you can control the playback of after-effects and Lottie animations using the interaction triggers that saves you the time to write long lines of complicated javascript.
Webflow content management tools
- Webflow has got a content management system that works for everyone. Starting from professional designers, developers, or content managers to the beginners. You will find it easy to create a structured content template that covers everything that you want to include and then connect it to the site design.
- Also, you can design the right content on the page so that you can see how it looks when you build it. You will have the option to conditionally display the content by adding filters based on specific fields, for only the content that needed to be displayed.
- You can build up a search function right from the scratch so that it can display the content in the exact way you want your users to view it. Thus, offering complete visual control.
- With Webflow, you don’t need a dashboard anymore. You can edit the content right on the page and it is all live. When you publish it, the world can see. You can give anyone access to the site so that they can add content and make edits if needed. You can even collaborate with clients or team members in real-time.
- Since Webflow integrates with Zapier, even if you are not a developer, you will be able to integrate with more than 750 apps without needing any codes.
E-commerce with Webflow
- When you are running an e-commerce business, Webflow makes it easy to design the website, sell products, and scale up your business because you will have complete control over everything. You can customize every single page, from the products page to the checkout page.
- Unlike any other website builders, the checkout page can match every element with the rest of your website, thus everything flows seamlessly.
- You will be able to customize the transactional emails sent to the customers for confirming the purchase. This will help in ensuring everything goes seamlessly on the brand image. You can even add custom animations and interactions for making your website stand out in the crowd.
- Customers can pay for the products with all sorts of online payment methods that include Apple Pay, Stripe, Google Pay, and PayPal. You can choose where you ship and how to ship the products complying with the shipping rules of different regions.
Webflow pricing
Webflow offers two types of plans. One is the ‘Site Plan’ and the other is the ‘Account Plan’. Within the Site Plan, there are different pricing packages for websites and e-commerce businesses.
For the Site Plans:
- The Basic Plan is $12/month. This is ideal for those who are looking to get a simple website without any CMS. There is hosting, an SSL certificate with the capability of monthly 25000 visits, and 500 submissions.
- The CMS Plan is perfect for blogging or content-driven sites. It costs $16/month and allows in having 1,00,000 monthly visits, 1000 submissions, 2000 CMS items, Limited CMS API, 3 content editors, and a site search feature.
- The Business Plan costs $36/month and it is the best option for the high-traffic sites. You will be able to accommodate 1,000,000 visitors every month along with unlimited form submissions, full CMS API, 10 content editors, site search, and form file uploads.
For the e-commerce plans:
- The Standard Plan comes at $29/month and it includes all the features from the CMS plan, advanced e-commerce features, 3 staff accounts and takes up $50K in yearly sales volume. However, it comes with 2% transaction fees.
- There is a Lite Plan that includes all the features of the Business Plan with zero transaction fees, and 10 staff accounts. It can take up to $200K in a year.
- The Advanced Plan includes everything from the Lite Plan along with 15 staff accounts and unlimited yearly sales.
WordPress as a website building tool
There is no doubt that at a certain point in time, WordPress was the most preferred way of building up a website. Since it was an open-source software it is free for anyone to use. You have to pay for hosting. You can use it to build up a blog, a website, an e-commerce store, or display your portfolio projects.
The key features of WordPress
- Offers customizable designs
- It is SEO friendly
- The sites are mobile-responsive
- It offers high performance
- Easy to create mobile apps for managing your site on the go
- Offers high security
- Offers strong media management
- It is easy and accessible
- There are more than 54,000 WordPress Plugins that allow in customizing the website
- A very strong community
Designing a Website using WordPress
- Easy to design a WordPress website by using any one of the paid themes available. WordPress comes with its own theme directory that includes a lot of themes. You can also purchase themes.
- Once the theme is installed, you can customize different elements like colors, font, images, sizes, and more. You can use plugins for adding any functional features that are not included in the theme.
- If you are planning to completely customize the website, then you have to take the help of a developer if you don’t know how to do it yourself.
Content Management using WordPress
- With WordPress, it is easy to create and publish different content online. There is no need for knowing any code for basic publishing. Also, you can manage everything from the WordPress dashboard.
- WordPress offers flexibility to add numerous pages to the site as much as you like. Thus, you can build anything, from a simple two-page site to a more complicated site with hundreds of pages.
- WordPress offers ease of use. You can set up a great looking website and add content by yourself without knowing any code. The website and its contents will be accessible to anyone.
- If you want to add other users to the WordPress site, then that is not a problem at all because WordPress comes with multi-user capabilities. You can add new users with the option of assigning six different roles like Author, Editor, Admin, Contributor, and Subscriber.
- It is a great platform for small and medium businesses to run their websites because it is easy to grow as your business grows. You can install the software in a few minutes, add a template, add some content and you are ready to go live.
E-Commerce with WordPress
- Using WordPress, it is easy to set up an online store. You can simply install the free WooCommerce plugin or any other e-commerce plugin of your preference.
- You can use different templates from the WooCommerce plugin to have a custom design if you want.
- There are numerous paid extensions for WooCommerce. Thus, you can install anything and everything that you need for fulfilling the needs, right from shipping, and fulfillment to payment processing, even social media.
WordPress Pricing
The actual service of WordPress is free but you will have to pay to make your site live. This is for hosting and it is just a few dollars per month. Thus, WordPress is a very affordable form of building a website.
Also, you have to pay for a premium theme for your website but this is a one-off payment. You can get a lot of themes between $30-$100 according to the requirements.
Conclusion
In conclusion, it can be said that both platforms are brilliant options for anyone to build a website. However, Webflow should be declared as a winner because a wide array of people feels that Webflow is better than WordPress.
As it is indicated in the picture below that in the last five years, more people are inclined to use Webflow instead of using WordPress. Thus, it clearly states that Webflow is the preferred website building tool.
Webflow is open-source, completely customizable, and allows anyone to build a website in a very short time by spending a few dollars a month for hosting.
Some of the users have felt that Webflow is a bit more expensive than WordPress, especially when you have to run an e-commerce website. However, given the number of benefits and features that Webflow offers, it should be fine and it is visible because people prefer Webflow more than WordPress.
