My hosting plans for my 3 Webflow sites will be up for renewal next fall.
But I do not plan to renew them.
In fact, I may even migrate the sites well before then.
But Pete, Webflow is a premium website builder, and one you’ve championed in the past. Heck, you probably wouldn’t even be a developer right now if it weren’t for your use of Webflow early on in your career.
All of that is true.
The rarity of an ideal use case
You oughta know by now.
I think it’s been over 2 years since I’ve come across the proper use case for the platform in my own work.
There’s a lot to be said for what an amazing tool Webflow can be. Back in 2021, before I had much experience as a web developer, I had set out to design, build, publish, and share a professional looking web design/development portfolio in a weekend. (Thanks to some gentle encouragement from my sister!)
Well, using Webflow and a Finsweet client-first template (that I butchered…sorry Joe and Raymmar…) I was able to do it, and it caught the eye of my very good friend from college. This led to my first steady job as a developer, one that paid my bills for the next two years.
I think the quality of the site I came up with was higher, and making it was quicker and easier, than it could have been on any other other platform I can think of. The quality and rapid design/development speed seem like the two biggest things Webflow has going for it, and in the right use case (need an eye-popping website in a short amount of time, and you have a big dev budget?), it would be my first choice.
However, after that portfolio website and all that came from it was published, it turned out the platform was overkill for my projects.
Complicated page builder
He’s tradin’ in his Chevy for a Cadillac (ack, ack, ack, ack, ack)
Using the Designer, Webflow’s Photoshop-esque website building tool, feels like an unnecessary uphill battle to me in terms of learning curve.
As you can possibly tell from the title of the blog, I don’t exactly shy away from code. While I can appreciate the amazing piece of technology that is the Webflow Designer, allowing designers and developers to make absolutely gorgeous websites with truly #NoCode, I don’t think the tool is really for me. Why learn a complicated UI-based page builder when I already know how to do this by writing my own code that is equivalent to the code generated by the page builder?
That’s not a flex, but a genuine question about the use of precious time. Plus writing HTML, CSS, and JavaScript can be a lot of fun and the skills that get honed from this transfer to any tech stack. Vlad and the Webflow team did an impeccable job to make a no-code tool that is truly ‘visually coding’, and it’s true that every toggle, checkbox, radio button, and range slider in the designer UI corresponds to real and valid HTML and CSS. That’s truly something to celebrate. However, I don’t want to be the one to learn and use it myself. I’m good with my Chevy, thanks.
Unless I’ve got a constant influx of clients with big bucks, flashy design needs, low technical requirements for their websites, and tight deadlines. If that were the case, then I’d be all about the ins and outs of this Cadillac of a page builder.
Fewer features, higher costs
Who needs a house out in HackensackIs that what you get for your money?
Webflow removed key features only months after jacking up their prices.
Client billing.
Back in 2021, when I built a website for a client on Webflow, it’s part of what made me love the platform. I could show my client the quality and speed with which I could build a Webflow site, and then say: “This is the cost of the hosting. Webflow themselves will bill you each year.” It made it easy to sell, convenient, and kept my costs of doing business as a solo designer/developer down.
Then, out of nowhere and only a few months later, Webflow announced that they’re phasing out the native Client Billing feature and shoveling it to a third party service, Bonsai.
This really rubbed me the wrong way. It probably would have been fine to check out Bonsai and figure out how to continue the client billing service. However, I couldn’t help but feel a little bit betrayed.
I do not want to complain about trying to make a living as a developer. There’s a lot harder things I could be doing, but I will admit that it has its own challenges. It’s all relative, but there’s no denying that it’s not exactly a walk in the park trying to get clients, design and build projects, and make a living doing this work all by yourself. Then to have the platform you’re relying on remove key features, only months after raising all their prices significantly, it leaves me to wonder “what’s next?” for the tool.
I understand that Webflow needs to make money and grow their business, but it’s already much more expensive and far, far less flexible than something like building with WordPress. I don’t want to stake my web development business on a tool that is going to give me less value in the same fell swoop that they hike their prices.
Again, if there was constant client demand for projects where Webflow is the best tool, then it would probably be worth it.
No themes
It seems such a waste of timeIf that’s what it’s all about
There’s no theming system, so despite having CMS (but only at a certain price threshold!), there’s not enough separation between content and appearance. This makes redesigning a website an unnecessarily tedious and costly task.
One of the best things about using a CMS is that you can decouple the appearance of your data from the data itself, even in a monolithic web application (like a WordPress site). While there’s code that runs on the server in a Shopify or WordPress theme, all it takes to completely overhaul the site’s design is activate a different theme.
If you’re using a headless CMS like Sanity, Strapi, or Tina, then it’s a matter of connecting a new web app (like a Next app or a React SPA) to your data’s endpoints. Whichever way you prefer, the flexibility inherent in this decoupling is a big benefit to using any of these tools. It lets you redesign the website without migrating anything other than the website’s frontend.
Honestly, what then is the benefit of an expensive CMS feature like Webflow’s, if it doesn’t also have a theming system or robust APIs? (WordPress, a free technology, has both.) Having a dashboard and a data export feature isn’t enough for me if I then have to pay for a whole new website the next time I need to redesign it. Making it easier to migrate the data isn’t a salve from being forced to do so in the first place.
Once again, if I was lucky enough to have an influx of clients who were willing to invest so very much money into websites that can’t be redesigned without forcing a full migration, then this likely wouldn’t be a problem for me. Where are these clients exactly?
Embracing other tools
Mama Leone left a note on the doorShe said, “Sonny, move out to the country”
I’ve talked about WordPress in this article as a counterpoint to the use of Webflow. I’m sure it will always be part of my toolkit, and will often be considered the Right Tool for the Job. But I’m interested in other tools, too, like Kirby and Craft in the PHP world (maybe someday I will finally learn Drupal…) and Convex in the JavaScript ecosystem. All of these, of course, involve lots of code, so they’re not necessarily competitors to the Webflow niche. And I think what this post is really about, is that Webflow and I are just never going to see eye to eye at this point, and that’s okay.
It’s a fantastic tool, and one whose innovation and community I’ve benefitted from and I respect immensely. But my work and interests have simply taken me elsewhere. To whatever degree I fit the mold of “designer/developer”, I think I lean more heavily into the developer category. (Maybe you would take a look a look at this blog’s styling or lack thereof and say “you don’t say?”)
And I don’t think that’s who Webflow is best suited for.