When it comes to website building and hosting, a lot of people have a dilemma about which web services to choose.
Both Webflow and WordPress have many users that take advantage of both platforms’ good performance. Let’s put Webflow vs WordPress side by side and see their pros and cons.
To help you decide which one to choose, we’ve compared them based on ease of use, templates and user interface, CMS functionality, eCommerce, costs, and support.
WordPress vs Webflow Features
Webflow and WordPress have the same purpose, but their technologies differ in their approach to website building. In this section, we will cover some of the general features the two web services offer.
What is Webflow?
Webflow is SaaS (Software as a Service) that lets you build and host your website. Let’s glance through some of Webflow’s key features to get an idea of what it offers:
- Webflow Designer – creative control and flexibility without code
- Webflow CMS – flexible content management system
- Ecommerce – manage your online store
- Interactions – create immersive animations
- Webflow Editor – easily edit content right on your page
- SEO optimisation – fine level control over SEO, without plugins
- Security – ISO 27001 and the CIS Critical Security Controls
- Webflow Hosting – fast and reliable hosting provided by AWS
What is WordPress?
Unlike Webflow, WordPress is an open-source CMS (Content Management System) that features plugins and a template system to help you with website building. Here’s what you can do:
- Design – choose among hundreds of layouts and edit your content on the go
- Plugins – thousands of easy-to-install add-ons
- Ecommerce – set up an online business
- Built-in marketing – SEO tools, Mailchimp, Google Analytics integrations…
- Mobile apps – take control of your website from your phone
- Domains – find your own domain
- Personalised email address – to help you build your online presence
- Security – the best WordPress hosting environment
As can be seen, in terms of features, both platforms allow you to freely and easily set up your website or blog in minutes, the main difference being that you’ll install WordPress on your own hosting server, and the Webflow application will handle everything for you.
Webflow vs WordPress: Ease of Use
You don’t need to understand coding to create your website. Webflow and WordPress are both platforms that can be used by beginners and non-developers, and for both, you will need a short period to master their tools.
A few things that will definitely help you with website building in Webflow are the fundamentals, like the box model, and how to build using their Designer.
With WordPress though, you might want to learn the basics of HTML and CSS and how to navigate through their themes and plugins.
Although ease of use is almost the same and both require a similar learning process, Webflow is considered somewhat easier to use for website building.
Templates and User Interface
Webflow offers free templates for business, blog, portfolio, as well as over 500 Webflow premium templates you can choose from. Once you have chosen the desired template, you can customise it with their available design tools.
With Webflow themes, you will have the flexibility to let your imagination fly and use the Webflow Designer to create something close to your likings.
The number of themes in WordPress has reached around 10,000. All of the themes are specially designed for a specific purpose and target group – you can endlessly explore them until you choose the perfect one for you.
WordPress offers APIs and user interface components that you can use to create blocks, which will speed up the development process. The interface is accessible and very user-friendly.
Considering themes/templates, WordPress might be a better choice simply because of its vast number of themes, as well as more plugins and tools to add to your website and make it more interactive. On the other hand, Webflow Designer appears to be more detailed and easier to navigate.
CMS Functionality
Webflow has a high-functional CMS that will give you control of content structure throughout the whole process of website building with the powerful field types. Webflow CMS and the Application Programming Interface will help you add, update, and delete from the Collections with ease.
WordPress CMS functionality is also high-level, as it provides you with easy site management and creation of new pages, minimal server requirements, module designs and really fast features turning on or turning off. With WordPress, you won’t have to worry about key area updates because they happen automatically.
Although both options have excellent CMS functionality, some prefer Webflow CMS as it allows you to make edits directly on the page.
Support
WordPress offers different sections of support and a WordPress community supports blogs and forums on a variety of topics. The paying customers (Premium, Business and Ecommerce) will have email and live chat support. The ones who are using the free and the Personal WordPress plan, as well as anyone else in need of information, can look for answers in the support documentation and forums.
Is Webflow better than WordPress in this segment? We have to say Webflow’s support takes a slight edge since everything can be communicated through email. Webflow’s support team works Monday-Friday and you can expect them to respond to your requests within 24-48 business hours.
They also have a special library called ‘Webflow University’ where you can find answers provided by experts and users of the platform through educational videos. You can also get help with a wide range of tutorials, how-to guides, and step-by-step articles.
Cost
Both Webflow and WordPress have monthly and yearly billing plans with different features you can choose from; let’s take a closer look at the annually billed plans:
Webflow
Webflow prices range from free to US$36 a month, billed yearly.
With the free version, you can design, learn how to work with Webflow, and publish your site to webflow.io.
Webflow plans vary in the number of CMS items, amount of CDN bandwidth, and the number of guest editors.
WordPress
With WordPress, you’ll choose between five plans: Free, Personal, Premium, Business, and eCommerce.
Premium is the most popular choice because of its option to remove ads, payment collections, live chat support, access to premium themes, and much more, at just US$8 a month.
Without a doubt, WordPress is a more cost-worthy option.
Ecommerce
Both Webflow and WordPress offer special eCommerce plans for growing your business on the online market.
Webflow provides responsive eCommerce templates which you can customise before you have the final product and launch your online store.
Webflow’s basic eCommerce plan is US$42, with 500 items, 2% transaction fees, and all CMS plans features.
While WordPress was not specifically made for eCommerce, it has separate eCommerce plans you can purchase from US$8 to US$45.
Our recommendation while building your store is to use a plugin for good quality eCommerce and the most used is WooCommerce. If you want to use WordPress for this purpose, be careful because some of the plugins don’t function well together.
Verdict: Webflow or WordPress?
It all depends on your preferences – Webflow will give you total design freedom, but on the other hand, WordPress boasts an awesome choice of templates and an endless amount of plugins to play with.
Having all that said, you certainly won’t make a mistake choosing either one. Hopefully, this detailed Webflow vs WordPress comparison will help you make the best choice.
FAQs:
1. Can Webflow be used with WordPress?
Thanks to Webflow plugins, you can build your pages or even the whole website with Webflow and then simply distribute your visual creation to the WordPress site. The few steps to do this are:
- Download and activate the plugin Webflow Pages
- Paste your Webflow creation’s API key into the plugin settings
- Define which Webflow pages you want to serve on your WordPress pages
2. Is Webflow bad for SEO?
Webflow is not bad for SEO, quite the opposite. Because of its clean code usage, the search engine will rank the content higher as it will be easier to understand. Like any other, Webflow also lets you impact SEO in your own way by using the content and words you write. By using the metadata updates, automated sitemaps, alt tags, and other add-ons, you can achieve even better SEO.
3. Is Webflow better than WordPress?
With such different approaches to website building technologies, it’s difficult to say which of the two platforms is better. If we were to choose between Webflow vs WordPress, we’d pick the latter, simply because of its greater number of design options, as well as the price.
