As of 2019, virtually all the small and medium business owners who needed websites for their businesses immediately thought of WordPress when the website conversation came up. Opting for Webflow as a designer at that point feltlike a crime because business owners felt that WordPress was the only reliable platform that could help them bring their website to life.
If this is your first-time hearing about Webflow, buckle up because we’d be running through the various ways that this website design platforms are similar but yet so different.
After reading this, you’d be able to identify the distinct features of Webflow and WordPress to seamlessly decide which platform best caters to your website needs. That being said, let’s dig in.
1. Security
WordPress has solid fundamental security that protects your website but that's as far as it goes. The security system is great but the fact that you have to work with multiple 3rd party platforms and tools, there might be a data breach somewhere which can compromise the security of your website.
The security levels are substantially greater for Webflow because it provides an internal hosting security toolset which encrypts the data from your website into a private code that can only be deciphered by the recipient of the code. This makes it virtually impossible for there to be an interception of any kind.
Also, the minimal reliant on external plugins to make some features work, alienates the possibility of security breach.
2. Hosting
WordPress is free for users to create their own website using all of there sources it provides but the only limitation is that you have to find a way to host the website yourself. The downside to this is that for every down time, security breach, integration issue experienced with the hosting platform, it affects your website.
Webflow on the other hand allows designers to create website and host it seamlessly. This is a greater advantage over WordPress because if you host the website away from the platform, there’s bound to be integration issues which can result in frequent website downtime or malfunction.
Webflow prevents you from experiencing any hosting issues you might have with WordPress and that in itself, makes your website reliable.
3. Website Building.
WordPress is a template-based platform. The only option to acquire the look you really want on WordPress is to either start building the site from scratch or purchase a theme/builder, which is frequently expensive and still imposes some time constraints, despite the fact that most of them are extremely adaptable.
To bring your website to life here, you’d need a devoted developer to put the website together which takes time and also attracts expensive costs. Why settle for that when you can have a seamless platform like Webflow that allows you use clean codes to build your website?
Webflow gives designers unrestricted access when it comes to designing a website from scratch. In terms of design, development, and interface implementation.
Any idea you have is surely achievable with Webflow. The best part about this is that Webflow still offers templates that could be used as inspiration for your own website. This gives you freedom to create your own website from scratch and also access to preexisting templates if you’d like to create from existing formats.
4. Need For Plugins
Although WordPress uses codes to get your website up and running, the moment you start adding all the necessary plugins for the added features you'd like your website to carry, there is a high tendency for the WordPress code to get distorted and a little messy. It’s like a game of Jenga where you keep piling plugins on plugins. The moment one malfunctions, the whole website comes crashing down.
WordPress primarily uses plugins to bring website features to life. If you’d like your website to have a google form the moment your visitors click on your about us page, you’d need a plugin for that. This sounds harmless until you realize all the plugins, you’d be needing to do literally everything on the website.
Simple features require plugins. Complex features also require plugins. If you simply need your website to display specific information about your business and not necessarily require your visitors to carry actions on the website like purchases, registrations, verification etc. then you have nothing to worry about. If that’s exactly what you need your website for, Webflow might be the better option for you.
The downside of having to rely on plugins is that it jeopardizes the strength and reliability of your website. If you need 25 plugins for your WordPress website, this implies that you’ve given 25 different 3rdparty platforms access to your website. These plugins are usually connected to one another so if there’s any malfunction with one plugin, it would disrupt the functionality of the website.
The reality is different for Webflow. Yes, Webflow requires some plugins for features not offered by Webflow, but it is not dependent on plugins to function. Plus, the reason Webflow is regarded as the superior web design tool over WordPress is the fact that Webflow is easily customizable via code. Features like membership forms, newsletter forms, captcha to filter bots and so many others can be done via the platform.
All you need to do is go to the Webflow dashboard, highlight the website to be edited and proceed to highlight where you need the form feature to sit on the website. This eliminates the need to integrate any 3rd party platform for the slightest features on your website.
5. Turn Around Time
WordPress is relatively quick if you’re using the preexisting template it offers. If you’re building from scratch, it takes longer and if at any point changes are to be made to the website, this has to be done from the backend.
For Webflow, it is far easier to effect changes. You can edit the website on display without have to navigate through codes. Also, Webflow’s visual editor though requires experience makes it faster to carryout changes and get your website up and running from scratch. This makes us able to offer cheaper options than the other website design agencies.
6. Maintenance
Once your WordPress website is live, you'll need to occasionally update it. If your website needs an update, you’d have to manually log into your website from the backend, see if there are updates available and them click update.
Sounds straightforward but it gets tricky. There is a possibility of losing the content on your website during the update, so you’d be required to enable keep data option. Delete the previous version, activate the new one, and install new version plugin.
Carrying out simple updates require time, and time equals money. In other words, your engineers would have to put everything on hold to concentrate solely on effecting the update correctly.
Webflow eliminates all the extra work. You may rapidly add, remove, or edit elements, update content, and more in all sections of the website. The website doesn’t have to be shut down or anything.
Gone are the days where we have to limit our functionality because of limited offerings by website design platforms. Webflow gives us access to all the tools we need to give our clients the best website they could ever get on the market.