Yes, Webflow is really good, especially for business owners looking to establish a unique value proposition and lay the foundation for long-term growth.
From our first-hand experience, we can confidently say that Webflow's intuitive visual editor is what sets this website builder apart from its competitors.
In this pros and cons of Webflow overview, we'll give our opinion from the developers' perspective and help you better understand its capabilities.
Before we dive into details, here is a quick overview.
Is Webflow Really that Good?
Webflow is a cloud-based design tool that features a high degree of customization. This makes it a great choice for novice users and web developers.
It is a popular drag-and-drop builder among web development agencies, freelancers, in-house teams, and businesses of various sizes.
Let's first see what makes this website builder so popular.
The Advantages of Using Webflow
Besides all the benefits of Webflow’s features, the platform also offers two types of subscription pricing plans that are suitable for novice users, startups, businesses, agencies, in-house teams and/or freelancers.
Below are some of the most potential advantages of using the Webflow platform.
1. Webflow Makes Website Development a Breeze
Besides being popular as a no-code tool, Webflow supports custom code.
This makes the overall full-stack development process smooth. It streamlines the website creation process, featuring highly intuitive Webflow Designer and Editor.
Webflow ensures quick code changes, leading to effective workloads and backend operations.
It also decreases complex errors in the codebase since it features an intuitive and flexible system.
Here is how Webflow works.
You simply drag-and-drop the elements and Webflow writes code itself.
The other case is working with custom code and implementing it in Webflow.
Simple as well.
2. Webflow Offers a High Degree of Control Over the Actual Code
Featuring a high degree of control over the actual code means that Weblow provides the power of HTML and CSS visually. In other words, users can build completely custom designs.
Webflow brings the power of code into a visual canvas — which means if you can design it, you can build it.
Webflow Team
So, for building more robust websites, it's essential to know scripting and programming languages in front-end development, such as:
- HTML (HyperText Markup Language)
- CSS (Cascading Style Sheets)
- JS (JavaScript)
Read our full Webflow review 2024 to learn more about the use of programming languages.
3. Webflow is Great for Technical SEO
Due to Webflow's intuitive page elements, file sizes, and code efficiency, it automatically impacts page speed.
Its ability and flexibility to generate clean code, along with the automatic creation of a sitemap, makes it an excellent website builder for SEO.
The bottom line is that Webflow features fast page speeds, so it can directly affect your visitors’ decision to engage longer on your website and potentially convert.
A few extra seconds may not seem like a big deal, but statistics show that every second goes by, the potential for losing customers grows.
HubSpot
This is especially important when it comes to login and checkout pages.
4. Webflow Integration & Plugin Library is Extensive
The Webflow library contains 240+ integrations.
If you're wondering about the benefits of using integrations, they include increased productivity, enhanced marketing analysis, and boosted sales.
So, what does Webflow integrate with?
From calendars and scheduling tools to app integration and task automation, these integration types let you collect information, payments, booking experiences, and manage clients all in one place.
You can check all the integration types here.
And what about plugins?
For simple sites, there is no need for extra plugins to expand the functionality of your Webflow website since it’s fully customizable.
Note: For more complex websites, Webflow boasts an expansive plugin library, which is a nice touch.
So, you might use a website plugin to display social elements, change visual elements, add extra information or content, improve website traffic with SEO, and more.
However, constant updates and micromanagement are required due to these advanced functionalities offered by plugins.
The bottom line is that a simple website without plugins makes your website load fast.
To understand the differences between confusing terms such as plugins, integrations, add-ons, etc., read our comprehensive overview of the best Webflow plugins.
5. Webflow Provides Unlimited Backups
As a way to protect against data loss, data backup is essential for both personal and business needs.
Webflow takes your data seriously, safeguarding your business from data loss due to external attacks, human error, and hardware failures.
Its automatic and unlimited backup provides robust security by backing up all pages, styles, and elements.
This prevents individuals, businesses, and organizations from losing time in data management during restoration.
6. Webflow is a Great Tool for Web Development Agencies
Webflow is a great tool for creating, testing, optimizing and maintaining websites for businesses of all sizes.
As business owners, marketing teams, and managers often lack the time to build, manage, or even test their websites, they rely on website development agencies.
Webflow agencies offer a range of services tailored to elevate businesses and empower clients for long-term success.
From web strategy, brand identity, UX/UI design, GSAP animation, SaaS development, Webflow development, migration, and maintenance — Webflow agencies are excellent for those looking to build a complex website at lightning speed.
If you are ready to boost your online presence with web strategy, top-tier design, and lightning-fast development, make sure to contact us.
What is the Downside of Webflow?
Like any website building tool, Website has its downsides too.
Check them out.
1. Webflow is Not the Best for E-commerce Businesses
There are better choices than Webflow for e-commerce websites. Even though it features an editor that supports CSS, JavaScript, and HTML, and it's compatible with third-party analytic tools, it still needs improvement for e-commerce use.
It allows you to accept limited credit card payments using Stripe, Apple Pay and PayPal, so it doesn't handle any means of electronic payments.
This can negatively affect your revenue and overall business success.
However, Webflow gives you much more design flexibility than its competitor, Shopify. And Shopify has a full capture-to-shipping tracking system built in.
That's particularly handy if you want, for example, a logistics company or drop shipping company to handle fulfillment.
Webflow doesn't really offer dropshipping options, nor does it support external logins for logistics companies.
Webflow is not as scalable as dedicated e-commerce platforms, especially for businesses with high transaction volumes or complex product catalogs.
Moreover, Webflow simplifies taxes by automatically calculating VAT and sales tax by integrating shipping and sales tax functionalities. The EU, the USA, Canada, and Australia fall into this category.
In addition to offering discounted shipping rates, Shopify can automatically calculate taxes on customer payments and shipping rates in your eCommerce business's country of operation.
However, Webflow offers automatic tax calculation and a customizable checkout process. It is excellent for a small, e-commerce platform that doesn't require extensive customization or extra features.
2. There is No Way to Switch Webflow Templates
You’d like to switch templates but don’t understand the process.
It’s because it’s not possible.
Unlike a classic CMS, Webflow doesn't allow you to switch templates, but it lets you design more efficiently.
Unfortunately, once you’ve created and started working on a site, you can’t go back and change the Template.
You can restore the original template from the Backup tab in Site settings.
At this point, you can’t go and get a new template to apply to it; you have to design it. So, instead of changing the template, you will have to start from scratch and create a new site.
This comes with additional challenges. In other words, you’ll need to have expertise in low-coding.
The problem is that you’ve already paid for CMS hosting on your custom template version. So, in order to do a new version with a template, you will need to pay for another CMS hosting.
Yes, the pain is real.
But the bright side is that Webflow is bringing so much more than what it takes from the ease you’re used to, swapping templates with a classic CMS. And that comes, for the moment, at the cost that a template is not swappable but more like a starter design.
Community Resources
The bottom line is that if you decide to invest smartly in custom design, you’ll avoid the challenges of creating a website and switching templates.
That’s when web design services come in handy.
3. Webflow’s Pricing Structure is Confusing
Whether you want to choose site or workspace plans, you'll find yourself stuck in the process.
There are so many plans available.
What's more, once you've finally decided which plan is best for you, other surprising issues arise.
For example, imagine you've subscribed to an Agency plan.
As the owner of the agency workspace, you have access to the client's account, while other members in the agency workspace do not. Unless you've purchased the additional freelancer workspace plan.
Moreover, Webflow's e-commerce plans are more expensive than those of other providers that are far superior (e.g., Shopify).
Remember: You can send your pre-sales questions anytime to info@webflow.com.
For more information, read our Webflow pricing overview.
Conclusion: Is Webflow Good or Bad?
Webflow is great if you want to quickly build a site with little effort. It features easy-to-use, drag-and-drop interface with no or low-coding required, and comes included with hosting.
Even though it doesn't let you switch templates and it features only a few e-commerce features, it has more customizable options than competing website builders.
The bottom line is that Webflow is rich with customizable features and strong tools, so it offers nearly everything you need to build and host a fully-featured website for personal and professional use.
We hope you better understand the pros and cons of using Webflow now.
However, you'll truly appreciate Weblow benefits when you partner with a trusted Webflow agency that will craft a website that resonates with your audience.
And all Webflow cons will eventually pass into oblivion.
You ask. We answer.
When not to use Webflow?
Do not use Webflow if you want to build a robust e-commerce online presence that requires extra features and capabilities.
Also, if you doubt your design skills and might want to change templates at some point, opt for a website builder that will let you switch templates easily without rebuilding your site. For example, Strikingly website builder allows you to to switch templates while designing.
So, you can preview your site and quickly make changes without adding extra workload.
What are pros and cons of hosting on Webflow?
Webflow offers over 99.99% uptime and a high level of security with its free SSL certificate, and it complies with HTTP/2 and HTTP/3 standards. Moreover, Webflow’s globally distributed AWS-powered hosting stack ensures your site runs smoothly.
Webflow uses two CDNs. The first CDN, Fastly, delivers your HTML documents. Speed is critical since it tells the browser which image, CSS, and JavaScript files it needs next, which is why a second CDN is used.
The second CDN refers to Amazon Web Services (a cloud computing platform). Your site's assets can be delivered from even more locations (or, "PoPs"). Consequently, videos and images will also load extremely quickly.
Is Webflow a good host?
What makes Webflow a good host is the fact that it uses two CDNs for better security and scalability. Based on the parameters we compared, Amazon AWS is a great solution since it includes built-in features to protect your site.
On the other hand, Fastly is fully programmable, meaning that your websites, applications, and services can scale as your users demand.
But the question still remains: Which servers does Webflow use? The specific physical servers used by Webflow for hosting websites are not publicly disclosed.
Rea is a versatile SEO writer with over 3 years of experience. At Nube, she devotes a high degree of attention to content focused on Webflow and design to establish topical authority in this field.
