Amy Porter was struggling with her website. Her startup business was growing and demanding a web presence encompassing the entire Washington State area.
However, her struggle was with web development technology because her coworker Micah suggested choosing webflow, a low-code platform for website development.
She was familiar with WordPress as everybody goes for it. However, Micah doesn’t want to leave the project at the mercy of a web developer. Instead, he wished to participate in the entire designing and development process as a client-side team, and it was possible only with Webflow.
Amy has taken a wise step and consulted RP UXCollab for her website development project and placed her dilemma of selection between Webflow and WordPress. RP UXCollab seasoned web developers have used a comparison of Webflow vs. WordPress in the following manner.
Before diving into it, let’s take an overview of both platforms.
Overview:
What is WordPress?
WordPress empowers 42% of websites on the web. It means it is a highly popular open-source platform with distinct advantages. You can download the source code of WordPress from wordpress.org. If you want to install WordPress directly on their hosting, you should go to wordpress.com.
WordPress began as a blogging platform, but it has evolved to accommodate any type of website you can envision. Its strengths lie in themes and plugins. Themes provide customizable ready-to-use templates that can be tailored to your needs, while plugins extend the capabilities and functionality of your website to meet your specific requirements.
A notable aspect of WordPress is the necessity for developers when creating highly customized solutions and deploying them on a web hosting server. This process encompasses everything from preliminary research to design, coding, and testing. Since it involves technical work, hiring a web developer is essential.
What is Webflow?
Webflow is a SaaS platform equipped with a drag-n-drop user interface to build a website or web application. It is a low-code platform, so it demands almost no code to create a standard website without going to dirty your hands with coding and related processes.
Webflow lets you quickly create dynamic websites, ecommerce sites, CMS-based sites, and much more. It supports standard website technologies for coding, such as HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.
| Features | Webflow | WordPress |
| Themes/templates | Yes | Yes |
| Drag-n-drop interface | Yes | No |
| CMS | Yes | Yes |
| Static HTML site | Yes | No |
| Blogging | Yes | Yes |
| Ecommerce | Yes | No |
| Code access | Yes | Yes |
| SEO-friendly UI elements | Yes | No |
| SSL Certificate | Yes | Yes |
| Performance optimization | Yes | Yes |
Webflow vs. WordPress – Ease of Use
If your selected platform is not easy to use, none will like it. So let’s see how both platforms offer ease of use.
| Webflow | WordPress |
| To get started with Webflow, you need an account.Once you sign up, they provide a complete guideline to learn key design concepts. You will have a visual editor to design the website with drag-n-drop user flow to save you from coding. The platform will take care of security and maintenance, which is a big plus. The most amazing thing is that Webflow offers granular control over each element and style, making jobs easy for non-developer users. | WordPress is open-source and needs to download the source code from the platform. It has themes as a great option for power users to get going creating a website. Theme customization is easy for tech-savvy users. But, of course, you need a WordPress developer to create a website from scratch. WordPress gives a block-based content editor for content management that lets you do styling. |
You need to take care of the security and maintenance of the website, as the platform never will remain responsible for the same.
Webflow vs. WordPress – Themes or Templates
If you wish to create a great-looking website, both platforms offer themes. WordPress calls it theme while Webflow calls it template.
| Webflow | WordPress |
| The platform has 45+ free templates and 500+ premium templates. | The platform has 4,200+ free themes and 10,000+ premium templates. |
Webflow vs. WordPress – Plugins or Extensions
Plugins or extensions extend the features and functionality of the website beyond its core.
| Webflow | WordPress |
| Webflow has nothing like extensions, but it offers integration of third-party code snippets for their services, which extend the website’s functionality. | The platform has a rich marketplace for free and premium plugins. It has 59,000+ free plugins and 5,000+ premium plugins. |
Webflow vs. WordPress – Third-party Integration
| Webflow | WordPress |
| Webflow is not stronger than other platforms in terms of integration. It would be best if you relied on code embed and separate interfaces in many instances. | WordPress offers tons of plugins, and third-party software and services integration is easy using APIs. Thus, users feel seamless experiences. |
Webflow vs. WordPress – Ecommerce
The demands of ecommerce websites are great. Therefore, both platforms support ecommerce development.
| Webflow | WordPress |
| Webflow has an ecommerce plan and built-in tools to create a full-fledged ecommerce storefront. | WordPress has a dedicated set of ecommerce plugins called WooCommerce to create functional ecommerce solutions. |
Webflow vs. WordPress – Pricing
| Webflow | WordPress |
| You need to create an account and pay to publish a website using the Webflow platform.There are two types of plans: site plan and account plan.With a site plan, you will pay for each site.You can create more than two websites and export their code for third-party hosting with an account plan.A simple static website needs $144 per year, while a more complex site requires at least $240-450 for dynamic content and a premium template. | Source code is totally free.For a low budget website, you need to pay $5-10 per month for hosting.You need to pay $20+ per month for hosting a high-budget website.If your site needs a premium theme, you must pay $50-60.If your site needs a premium plugin, the cost will range from $10-100 per plugin.If you are not doing self-maintenance, you should pay maintenance charges. |
Webflow vs. WordPress – Pros & Cons
| Webflow | WordPress | |
| Pros | Powerful visual editorIt gives you everything you need to build a static site.It offers direct support.It provides performance optimization tools. | It is free and open-source.Easy to learn and full of resources.Tons of plugins to add or modify features without tweaking core code.Offers integration of third-party tools.It’s cheaper. |
| Cons | The visual editor is overwhelming if you are unfamiliar with HTML & CSS.It doesn’t have a huge plugin library. So, things remain simpler.It doesn’t integrate third-party software easily.It was expensive. | You will be responsible for hosting and maintenance.It remains more complicated as you should rely on plugins.It lacks direct customer support, and you must depend on the developer community. |
At the End of the Day:
Ultimately, we determined that Webflow and WordPress serve well in their respective contexts and needs. Amy now recognizes the value of Webflow, with its visual editor and the advantages of a proprietary platform.
She has signed a website development contract with RP UXCollab using Webflow technology. It has made Micah a lot happy!
