Webflow: What makes this CMS so unique?

Webflow vs WordPress vs Drupal

Webflow

Webflow is a website tool for creating modern, professional no-code websites. Designers, creative professionals and entrepreneurs with a basic background in coding can create a smart website with a beautiful and unique design. Using Webflow you can also quickly and efficiently create an MVP to gain insight into the chances of your product or service reaching your target audience. In addition, with Webflow you can quickly build a stable website without the use of external tools, making the performance and conversion of this CMS higher than ever. This also allows this tool to distinguish itself from other tools such as WordPress or Drupal. But we will come back to that later.

WordPress

The Content Management System WordPress started out as a simple blog system, but has now become the most widely used tool for building websites. WordPress has expanded to include a whole ecosystem of plug-ins and themes and runs on the PHP programming language.

Drupal

Drupal is an open source system, which means that anyone can use it for free and also contribute to making it even better. With more than 1 million developers, entrepreneurs and designers, we are talking about a very large and active community. In recent years, this once-successful CMS has experienced a slight decline, especially with the Drupal 9 version, which received some criticism.

Main components & differences

Design

Webflow offers its users full control over the design. You can start with an empty page and from there build the website that fits the values and strategy of your company and the goals you want to achieve. The page builder uses a drag and drop interface where you can easily drag blocks into the blank canvas such as: background, sliders, videos, animations and other elements. This allows each website to create its own unique identity.

This is different with WordPress, where you usually start with a free template and build from there. The unique design gets lost a bit here, because your competitors can choose from the same templates.

Just like WordPress, Drupal offers tens of thousands of free modules on its official website. In addition, almost three thousand free themes are available to customise the appearance of your website.

Price

At Webflow, you can choose from different types of pricing plans. This can vary from a basic plan to a business plan. The big advantage with a business plan, for example, is that you don't have to pay extra for extra features such as a CMS and an API. This is in contrast to WordPress, where you initially think that the tool is free, but you soon start paying extra for extra features. This means that the price can quickly become higher than for a Webflow website.

With WordPress there are also different subscriptions to choose from. The main difference with Webflow is that you can choose a free version, then you have the personal subscription ($4), the premium subscription ($8) which is often used by freelancers. Then you have the business subscription ($25) for small businesses and finally an e-commerce subscription ($45) for web shops. Most users choose the free version, but it is not completely free. Those who want extra features on their website will have to pay extra. This amount can be high, and many users pass it up.

You can build your website for free in Drupal. Just like WordPress, the software is free to use. But this is a fairly complex/accessible platform for which you will soon have to pay extra if you want extra support or options. Drupal is mainly aimed at larger organisations such as governments or universities. The market share there is considerably larger than for smaller companies, with the result that these large organisations quickly opt for an extensive website with a high price tag.

Code

As mentioned before, Webflow is a no-code platform, with a basic background in programming you can quickly create a unique and attractive website. You design your website without having to write code or use plug-ins. Thanks to the clean code, Webflow's websites have a significantly faster loading time. A lot of code affects the loading time of your website. Several search engines penalize websites for this by giving them a poorer ranking in searches. Webflow websites are therefore fast and are positively assessed by search engines.

To build a website with WordPress you need some basic knowledge of coding. Since WordPress relies on various plugins, there is a lot of code usage on your website. As mentioned before, using a lot of codes has a negative impact on the loading speed of your website and its ranking in the search engines.

In the beginning, Drupal was aimed at the general public, but in recent years the focus of Drupal has increasingly shifted to larger organisations that usually also have their own developers. Therefore, a basic knowledge of coding is also important here.

Hosting & maintenance

If you choose Webflow, it automatically includes Webflow hosting. The hosting runs on the server of Amazon Web Services & Fastly, because you use their global server you can enjoy optimal loading speeds. The technical maintenance of your Webflow website requires little time and attention. The updates happen automatically so you don't have to spend time on keeping your website up-to-date.

As already mentioned, you can use WordPress for free. But hosting and maintenance are not included, you have to pay extra for that. In addition, it is not always easy to maintain your website yourself. Because of the many different plug-ins you can get lost in all the options, making simple adjustments can be quite a job.

Hosting and maintenance of Drupal is also not free. Just like WordPress, you have to pay a fee if you want to use Drupal Hosting, management & maintenance. Because a Drupal installation can often be heavy, it is important that you choose quality hosting.

Brief summary

Now that we have listed some of the most important components, you may understand why we believe in the future of Webflow. They have experienced tremendous growth in recent years and are gaining enormous popularity. This is because more and more companies are realising the importance of having a conversion-oriented website. On the other hand, you have WordPress, 37% of all websites on the internet are still built with it. It is and remains a very popular content management system with thousands of free templates.

However, we believe that Webflow is a more efficient tool with very good professional support that can make your website stand out from the crowd in a unique way. Webflow is a very advanced tool that continues to develop and come up with new features on a regular basis. It is certainly an interesting option for the future.

If you have any questions or if you are convinced about Webflow and you want to get started, please contact us and we will be happy to help you!