WordPress Vs Webflow: Ultimate Guide to Deciding a Winner

Websites today are an indispensable asset for a business. If you’re a marketer, or business owner, you probably already know that.

However, selecting a website that marks a memorable first impression, gives an unmatched performance, and brings ROI is difficult. And we get that -- with the options available today, it’s easy to get overwhelmed. 

That’s why we’ve compiled this comprehensive WordPress vs Webflow guide where you'll not just learn about the differences but also see which one is the best choice in 2021 and beyond. Finally, we’re not going to leave you hanging with an “it depends” answer, instead, we'll give you a clear winner at the end.

So let’s dive right into the guide and explore whether you should build your website on WordPress or Webflow.

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In case you’re in a rush and just want a gist of both the platforms, here’s the table for that!

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Now that we’ve got a gist of both the platforms let’s dive right in and explore what WordPress and Webflow have to offer.

Table of content

• WordPress vs Webflow: what’s the difference?
• Wordpress vs Webflow:
  - Domain & Hosting
  - Speed and Security
  - SEO
  - Design
  - Control & maintenance 
  - Animation and interaction
  - Plugins and integrations
  - Price

• FAQ
• The winner
• Final takeaways
• Ready to launch your website?

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Wordpress Vs Webflow: What’s the Difference?

WordPress and Webflow are both robust web-building platforms with competitive capabilities. However, let's learn what makes them unique.

WordPress

Born as a blogging platform, WordPress has matured as an open-source content management system (CMS) that can handle all sizes and shapes of business needs. Once you install it, you’ll need hosting and domain to get your space on the internet. 

While the platform itself is free to use, you’ll need hosting, domain, and additional plugins or themes to bring your imagination to life.

Webflow

On the other hand, Webflow is a SaaS application that homes everything from SEO to hosting to content management, offering its users a full in-built suite. This no-code drag-and-drop website builder impresses users with its animation, design, SEO, and performance capabilities. 

It brings the power of coding, without you having to write a line of code. 

This gives marketers and business owners complete control over their sites. 

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While WordPress seems to have dominated the space for quite some time now, Webflow gives tough competition with its remarkable features and ease of use. Webflow is easy to set up and maintenance takes little to no work.

Now that we’ve got a basic understanding of what these 2 platforms are, let’s delve in and compare each based on functionalities and find who’s our winner.

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So let’s get to the core of it! 

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#1 WordPress vs Webflow: Domain & Hosting

The first thing you’d need to possess your space on the internet is a domain and hosting.

Wordpress

Once installed, it’s in your hands to select the hosting and domain provider of your choice. Note that this is one of the most crucial decisions you’re going to make for the health of your website.

Here’s what you must look for in a reliable service provider:

• SSL Certificate
• Backup & Restore
• First time, upgrade and lifetime cost
• Availability & uptime
• And much more!

So if you’re to go with WordPress, you need to check all of the boxes.  

Disclaimer: It’s no easy task to select the domain or hosting provider. Regardless of the hyped ease of use of WordPress, it’s a hassle to narrow down on one of the service providers. How well your website handles traffic, protects user information and optimizes load speed - all depend on the provider.

Webflow 

While with Webflow, you can leave all the hassle of technical hosting providers behind. When you host your website on Webflow, it’ll be powered by Amazon Web Services & Fastly -- the best-in-class website and content hosting solutions. 

Finally, the HTTP/2 protocol ensures your website loads the fastest. This way, you don’t have to go out and look for service providers and be confused by all the technicalities and jargon. Instead, Webflow's got you covered!

Source 

Final call: hosting is the backbone of your website. It can make or break the impression of the visitors. Having an impressive uptime and fast-loading website is a non-negotiable factor for your website today. 

While this is a task with WordPress, Webflow can offer an unmatched hosting solution that’s reliable, scalable, and speedy.

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#2 WordPress vs Webflow: Speed and Security

While a couple of seconds might not sound too long, they certainly are a good time for your visitors to bounce off the website. However, while slow load time is a primary cause for bounce rates, here’s another concerning factor -- high load time can actually hurt your conversions.

A recent survey done by Unbounce shows that:

“Nearly 70% of consumers admit that page speed impacts their willingness to buy from an online retailer”

WordPress

Speed has always been a concern with WordPress websites. The primary reason for it is WordPress websites are built on themes and plugins. 

You need a page builder, theme, and a set of plugins at the most basic to get a functioning website. Although the range of plugins is wide, it brings a glaring concern - security threats. Moreover, installing a high number of plugins can seriously bloat your website and slow it down. Another consideration is external plugins that expose your website to threats and security breaches. So you’ve got to take some deliberate steps to ensure page speed is high with all the plugins and themes.

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Webflow

On the other hand, Webflow makes dealing with technicalities a breeze. With indigenous hosting solutions and integrations, you do not have to worry about making countless theme-related decisions. 

Plus, you can enjoy security with speed on Webflow. With over 100 data centers spread across the globe, your visitors can enjoy fast-loading pages. Finally, the enterprise-grade website security ensures that it not just loads your website fast but also keeps it safe from hackers.

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Takeaway: WordPress can easily bloat your website and increase the page load time. Webflow on the other hand takes care from delivering content fast to keeping your site safe.

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#3 WordPress vs Webflow: SEO

Now that we’ve got the technicalities sorted out, let’s look at the most vital element of any website -- SEO. SEO (search engine optimization) is a non-negotiable factor when it comes to selecting a website platform. 

The search bots need to crawl your website and understand it to display it for the world. In other words, to please the search bots, you’ve got to have SEO done the right way.

WordPress

Wordpress has a long standing history of robust SEO functionalities. With plugin like Yoast SEO, you can unlock the full potential of SEO by working on the following parameters: 

• Meta description
• Customized URL
• Headings
• Canonical tags
• Page title

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Webflow

Everything-SEO is hosted on the Webflow platform which means you need not install anything! You can start writing your content, design your website and pull out the SEO setting to fill in the details. It’s that simple! 

With its innate SEO optimization options, you can modify elements like:

• Meta title and descriptions 
• Seamless 301 redirects
• Auto-generate sitemap and indexing
• Alt image text
• Add and edit schema markup

Takeaway: while you can do pretty much all the SEO manipulations in WordPress, you will need a plugin. While for Webflow, you’ve got an innate SEO editor, so you don’t have to depend on external plugins.

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#4 WordPress vs Webflow: Design

What's the first thing your website visitors notice on the page? It's the design.

Wordpress

How your website on WordPress turns out completely depends on the themes and page builders you use. Despite narrowing down to a perfect template, you may not get to do all the manipulations. 

Let’s say you’ve narrowed down on a template, and the only thing you don’t like about it is the way the footer is designed. When you proceed to edit it, you meet the unforeseen nightmare and realise you can't make any edits to it!

Guess what? Now you’ve to change the template and select the one that suits your needs.

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Webflow

You get a library of templates along with a blank canvas to bring your imagination to life (let’s forget the frustration of rigid templates?). 

Without even thinking about third-party integrations, you get the flexibility to create pages, CMS, build from template or from scratch, hassle-free. 

In Webflow, with visual canvas, see what you’re building and toggle between different screen sizes to bring responsive designs to life. Finally, get the power of HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript without ever writing a line of code.

Finally, the intuitive interface of Webflow makes web designing a breeze and makes it a good fit for business owners and marketers.

Drew E writes on G2 the review for Webflow and says that: 

“Webflow blows away WordPress on every single component that I can think of in my 15+ years of experience working on and managing websites. WordPress is enormously buggy and unreliable and prone to frequent hacks, and Webflow is the opposite in all of those areas.”

Source. 

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Takeaway: in WordPress, you mostly have to pray to Template Gods and hope to make the manipulations you need. Webflow, on the other hand, lets you do the most granular changes, including buttons, text, animation, and more.  

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#5 WordPress vs Webflow: Control & maintenance

WordPress 

It needs constant checks and updates with its plugins. Moreover, the amount of control you have over the designs is quite limited. 

With WordPress, you cannot commit the sin of installing the plugins once and forgetting about them. Once any one of the plugins gets outdated, your entire website performance can be hindered. 

Technically, your website is at the mercy of the plugin providers. 

Imagine investing time, money and efforts only to know it can crumble only because a plugin or theme got outdated. Finally, for every interaction, control, and manipulation, you are likely to have to install another set of plugins. 

Webflow

Luckily, with Webflow you can make granular changes to your website and manipulate every pixel of it. It gives you the freedom to create or edit anything visually. 

Once your website is built and launched, it’s easy to maintain, too. Hassle-free maintenance makes it an ideal choice for tech companies that aim to drive conversion and accommodate large traffic volume every day.

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Takeaway: WordPress does not provide the level of control and flexibility as Webflow. Finally, Webflow comes with hassle-free maintenance while WordPress requires constant upgrades.

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#6 WordPress vs Webflow: Animations and interactions

Now, this is where Webflow takes center stage and steals the show! 

Webflow

It’s by far the best web builder with indigenous animations and interactions features. 

Webflow offers endless opportunities in terms of animation and interactions. Some of its trigger-based interactions are:

• Scroll into view
• Mouse hover
• Scroll based animation 
• Build-as-you-scroll animation 
• And a lot more!

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Combining the power of Javascript and CSS, Webflow empowers you to bring your imagination to life with rich animations and a completely visual tool.

Additionally, importing After Effects is a breeze with its Lottie animations feature.

This means no going back and forth between windows, and crossing fingers praying your design comes as per your liking when it gets developed.

Additionally, you can build the website from scratch and take it to any level of your imagination—all of this without ever wanting the need to code. Webflow, without a doubt, offers tremendous design capabilities.

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WordPress

On the other hand, it is relatively rigid. You only get animation in a limited number of themes. 

Despite that, you do not get the flexibility to create or modify things like Webflow. 

You can at best install WordPress themes and hope it can handle or offer animation features. If it doesn’t, you would have to get the developer to code it for you. 

WordPress comes with a set of in-built templates which are quite limited. For any additional designs, you either have to purchase the templates or code your way to perfection. There’s only so much you can do in WordPress in terms of animation and interactions. 

Takeaway: Webflow is hands down the best web design platform for custom interaction and animation. It not only is a treat for designers but offers complete flexibility to content managers, developers, and basically anyone!

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#7 WordPress vs Webflow: Plugins & integrations 

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WordPress 

It offers a world of plugins that can enable you to do anything you wish. But be aware, the more plugins you add, the more strain it puts on your website. Plus, you have to be very careful as you expose your website to third-party applications that invite threats and risks.

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Webflow

On the contrary, Webflow does not support plugins. If you want one, you will have to custom code it. However, what it does is integrate with over 750+ applications. Besides, it has pretty much everything in-built, so you won’t have to even think of anything else.

Takeaway: while no plugin flexibility may look like a downside at first, it eventually helps you to keep the code clean, your website light, and safeguard it.

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#8 WordPress vs Webflow: Price

There are constant debates that WordPress is cheaper than Webflow. However, the final cost comes down to the plan you choose, the hosting provider, etc. however one thing to note here is that when you’re having a website that’s generating revenue, bringing in leads, and is driving profits for your business, you simply cannot afford to have any chances of it getting downtime. 

With WordPress themes and plugins, we’ve seen it’s a hassle maintaining, getting all the right plugins. Plus the hosting is a real issue. On the other hand, Webflow has its own hosting provider, enabling you to build a visually appealing website that sets a memorable first impression and generates profit.

Takeaway: There’s always going to be a cheaper version of everything you do.

We would say if you’re an agency, eCommerce, or a tech company, treat Webflow like an investment in your assets that will give you incredible results.

Now that we’ve seen the capabilities of both the platforms, let’s take a look at the winner!

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The Winner: WordPress or Webflow

Webflow is insanely intuitive. Once you get the hang of it, work will not feel like work, it’ll be a breeze working around in Webflow.

So, in the battle of WordPress vs Webflow, our winner is clearly Webflow!

Webflow offers unparalleled performance and ease of use. One of the key highlights of Webflow is that it hosts everything under one platform. Wordpress not only makes it cumbersome to select from various plugins and themes but also slows down the website.

Be it animation, SEO, security or design, Webflow is the most effective, highly reliable and efficient website builder.

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FAQ: WordPress or Webflow

We get WordPress or Webflow questions constantly and here are some of the commonly asked ones.

Is Webflow better than WordPress?

Webflow is any day better than WordPress as it homes everything you need to build, launch and successfully run your website. Be it SEO, security, integrations, or design manipulation, Webflow is your go-to website builder.

Which is better for SEO WordPress or Webflow?

Without a doubt, both platforms offer competitive SEO capabilities; however, with WordPress, you’ll have to install plugins to optimise your pages. On the other hand, Webflow has innate SEO capabilities, and you don’t have to worry about indexing or optimizing your pages using third-party apps.

Can Webflow replace WordPress?

With the quality of features and ease of convenience Webflow offers, it's beating WordPress at every point! 

Is Webflow suitable for a business website?

Definitely! Businesses usually have a high traffic volume, and need an engaging website ready for conversions. Webflow is a great choice here as it offers unmatchable security, interagtion, animation and performance competencies.

Is Webflow worth it? 

After going through all the above-mentioned points, Webflow clearly has the edge over WordPress. Not only is designing a breeze but maintenance is hassle-free. Finally, the level of design manipulations is unmatched. 

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Key takeaways

To recap the article, here are our top takeaways:

• Websites in WordPress rely on plugins and themes. But more plugins mean more decisions to make, upgrades to do and more maintenance needed. In short, it bloats your website and slows it down. Webflow takes the hassle away with its in-built features.
• Webflow is an intuitive drag-and-drop web builder that brings the power of coding without the need to write the code.
• Webflow has hands down the best animation and design capabilities and beats WordPress out of the water.
• Everything on WordPress needs to be powered by plugins or themes. Webflow has got everything under one roof, enabling ease of use and maintenance.
• Wordpress interface could be inflexible while Webflow is intuitive.
• Security with Webflow is unparalleled while security hinges on the hosting provider with WordPress.

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Ready to Unlock the Full Potential of Webflow?

We’ve seen how Webflow proves to be a competent website builder for your business. If you still have any questions, we’re here for you! We’re a group of Webflow web design experts at Pixeto and we’re keen to know how we can bring your imagination to life!

Schedule a call and let’s discover how we can build and launch an interactive and robust and profitable website for you, as we have for our clients. If you’re not using Webflow already, don’t worry -- we provide WordPress to Webflow transition as well!

Get in touch now and let’s build you an impressive website!