Webflow Website Builder Review

Webflow is an advanced landing page builder that combines tools for building page structure, working on design, and professional layout. To draw an analogy, it’s like Photoshop for web development: you create the visual design and immediately see how it will look on the actual website.

The way Webflow works is similar to building with blocks: all the basic elements are already prepared, and all you have to do is combine them. For example, if you want to add a feedback form, simply drag and drop the desired block onto the page and customize it to your liking. No manual coding, no complicated technical manipulations.

It is precisely this ability to save hours (and sometimes days) of work that makes the service popular not only among beginners but also among experienced developers. When you need to quickly assemble a prototype or launch a sales page, Webflow does an excellent job.

In this article, we will review the Webflow website builder from all angles — we will discuss its advantages and limitations so that you can make an informed decision before purchasing a paid subscription.

What is Webflow?

Webflow is a cloud-based website builder that combines a visual editor with full-featured development capabilities. The service was launched in 2013 in San Francisco, and in just a few years, it has won the trust of the professional community thanks to its convenience and well-thought-out logic.

In fact, Webflow has filled a niche previously occupied by desktop visual layout programs such as Adobe Muse (Adobe has discontinued support for it, switching to XD). But unlike its predecessors, the platform does not limit you to ready-made templates: here you can create responsive layouts of almost any complexity — from minimalist landing pages to multi-page portals with non-standard animation.

What tasks does the service solve in practice? Here are a few typical scenarios:

• A business card website for a private webmaster or small company — with contact details, a description of services, and an application form.
• Portfolio for creative professionals: photographers, illustrators, UX designers.
• A corporate website with a complex structure, blog, and CRM integration.
• An online resume that will make you stand out among other applicants for a position at a digital agency.
• Promotional page for launching a new product, seasonal sale, or event.

A separate advantage is the built-in CMS. Imagine: you have designed a landing page for a customer, connected a content management module, and now the customer can change texts, upload photos, and add news themselves—without your involvement and without the risk of breaking the layout.

Who is this platform suitable for? First and foremost, designers who want to bring complex ideas to life without constant help from programmers. The service will also be useful for novice layout designers—it clearly shows how CSS properties affect elements and speeds up the learning process. For developers who fulfill orders on a regular basis, Webflow saves hours of routine work. The only caveat is that the subscription is quite expensive, so it only makes sense to sign up if you really plan to use the platform regularly.

Overview of the advantages of the Webflow platform

1. Default SSL certificate. Every website on Webflow automatically runs over a secure connection. All information—from passwords to credit card details—is encrypted during transmission, preventing third parties from intercepting it. An added bonus: search engines rank resources with SSL higher, and visitors are more likely to trust such pages. If you purchase a certificate yourself, you will have to pay about a hundred dollars annually — here, it is included in the price.
2. Reliable hosting based on AWS. The platform’s infrastructure is built on Amazon Web Services servers, one of the world’s leading cloud providers. The distributed network ensures fast loading and virtually eliminates downtime. Imagine: you’ve launched targeted advertising, and traffic has skyrocketed fivefold — the site will continue to work without “freezes” or errors.
3. Multiple projects in one account. A convenient solution for studios, agencies, and independent specialists. Let’s say you have ten clients — all their resources are stored in a single personal account, but remain completely independent: each has its own domain settings, analytics, and access levels for the customer.
4. Convenient teamwork. The account owner invites colleagues and assigns them roles. One employee can only open design layouts, while another can publish articles. The system keeps a log of changes: if an intern accidentally deletes the website header, you will see who did it and restore the block in a couple of clicks.
5. Designer marketplace. Need help with layout or animation? Take a look at the catalog of specialists built into the Webflow website builder. Filters will help you find a contractor based on your budget, language, and skills. And if you provide services yourself, create a profile with a portfolio — it’s an additional source of customers without unnecessary advertising costs.
6. Global content delivery network (CDN). Images, scripts, and styles are cached on servers around the world. A visitor from Seoul will receive static content from the nearest node, rather than from a central data center on the other side of the world. As a result, pages load significantly faster, especially for audiences in remote regions.
7. Free plan to get started. A great way to get acquainted with the platform without any financial obligations. It includes a visual editor, basic layout tools, and integrations. Create a test landing page, evaluate the interface logic, and only then decide whether to upgrade to a paid plan.
8. Automatic backups. Webflow automatically saves backup copies of projects. The free plan stores the last two snapshots, which is enough to undo an unsuccessful edit. Paid plans remove the limits: you get a complete history of changes and can roll back to any point.
9. Adaptive layout in real time. The editor allows you to switch between viewing modes — desktop, tablet, smartphone — and see the result immediately. No need to guess how the menu will look on an iPhone 15 screen: just select the desired control point and adjust the layout on the spot.
10. Built-in multilingualism. The platform supports localization “out of the box.” Language versions are placed in subdirectories (for example, /en/ for English), which is convenient for both visitors and search engines during indexing.

Основные недостатки сервиса Webflow

• High entry threshold. Webflow was created for professionals—web designers and developers who are well versed in the principles of layout. It will be difficult for beginners without basic knowledge of HTML and CSS: the interface is full of settings, and the logic of operation differs from familiar block builders such as Wix. Allow at least two to three weeks to watch tutorial videos and experiment with a test project. But after this stage, you will be able to assemble complex layouts faster than in most similar services.
• Limits on lower-priced plans. Budget plans set a cap on traffic, the number of entries in the CMS, and API calls. For example, you publish an article, it gets picked up by Telegram channels, daily traffic triples, and your site hits its limit. The result is that either part of your audience sees a placeholder, or you urgently switch to a more expensive plan. To avoid surprises, estimate the potential traffic in advance and factor in a possible upgrade in your project budget.
• Limited capabilities of the free version. The starter plan does not allow you to connect your own domain—the site will be hosted at an address like yourproject.webflow.io. This is acceptable for a personal portfolio, but it does not look professional for a commercial project. In addition, the number of pages is limited, and online store features are not available.
• A significant cost for content projects. If you run a news portal with hundreds of articles or launch a full-fledged online store, the rates can hit your wallet hard. Compare: on WordPress with inexpensive hosting, a similar site will cost several times less.
• Heavy export. Decided to transfer a ready-made template to another CMS? Webflow will upload several service scripts, each weighing about 300 KB. This is not noticeable on a desktop, but on a smartphone with mobile internet, the page will take longer to load — especially if it has a lot of animations and interactive elements.
• Inconvenient pagination. Navigation between pages is only possible using the “Back” and “Forward” buttons. There is no numerical breakdown allowing you to go directly to, say, the tenth page of the catalog. In addition, a maximum of one hundred items are displayed on a single pagination page, which can be a problem for large catalogs.
• A small library of plugins. Unlike WordPress with its tens of thousands of extensions, the ecosystem of add-ons is still modest. If you need specific functionality, you will most likely have to look for third-party services and connect them manually via code or integrations.

Overview of Webflow website builder features

For novice users, Webflow’s capabilities may seem limitless — there are indeed many features here, and it’s easy to get lost at first. But for experienced designers, the platform will be a powerful tool: you won’t just put together a layout for the customer, but you’ll also be able to export the finished code for transfer to any CMS. Next, we’ll take a closer look at the main components of the system.

Designer mode

This is the main workspace where all the “magic” happens—building the page structure and customizing its appearance. It also features a built-in content editor: you can add text to a ready-made block, replace an image, or edit a headline in just a couple of clicks, without switching between windows.

Under the hood, the platform runs on HTML and CSS. This means that if you understand the difference between margin and padding and how flex containers behave, you will get the hang of it much faster. For example, when assigning a class to a button, you can immediately see which CSS properties apply to it — this is more intuitive than digging through the code manually.

The developers position the service as a purely visual editor: theoretically, you don’t need to write code, although this option is available. In practice, you select ready-made elements from the library (sections, containers, buttons, forms), combine them in the desired order, and assign styles using the visual panel. Let’s say you need a product card with a shadow and rounded corners — just click on the block, set the border-radius and box-shadow in the side menu, and the result is displayed instantly.

However, be prepared: the designer mode takes time to master. Without basic training, beginners will find the interface overwhelming—too many tabs, settings, and nested menus. Professionals familiar with the principles of layout will feel at home after just a couple of hours of practice.

Exporting formatted templates

A paid subscription gives you access to export Webflow templates — you get an archive with all source files: HTML files, CSS style sheets, JavaScript scripts, and media content (images, icons, fonts).

The code generated by the platform is quite neat: no bulky identifiers or unnecessary attributes. This greatly simplifies the transfer of the layout to third-party management systems. Let’s say you’ve designed a landing page in Webflow, but the customer wants to run a blog on WordPress — you export the template, adapt it to the theme structure, and launch it without any lengthy reworking. Similarly, you can prepare a base for Joomla!, OpenCart, or any other CMS.

Another advantage is the performance of finished pages. If you approach layout correctly (optimize images, don’t overload the page with animations, use semantic markup), the results in Google PageSpeed Insights will pleasantly surprise you. According to user reviews, Webflow sites often score 95–100 points on desktop and 75–90 on mobile devices. High scores have a positive effect on search engine rankings and make the site more user-friendly.

Visual editor

In addition to the designer mode, the platform features a WYSIWYG visual editor — “what you see is what you get.” It is designed for quick content editing: correcting a title, updating a product description, replacing a photo in a card. All changes can be immediately checked in preview mode without publishing the page.

This tool is handy when you need to make minor edits. Imagine: a client has sent you a new price list, and all you need to do is open the editor, update the numbers, and click “Save” — no complicated manipulations required. However, the functionality here is limited: you won’t be able to add a new block, change the grid, or rebuild a section. For structural changes, you will still have to switch to designer mode.

There is one more thing to keep in mind: the full-featured visual editor only works on a desktop. Only basic operations are available on a smartphone, such as correcting typos in the text. Therefore, the tool is more suitable for a website administrator who regularly updates content than for a developer who builds a layout from scratch.

Design themes

Webflow has a large collection of ready-made templates from professional designers. Each template is not just a sketch, but a full-fledged layout with a well-thought-out structure: harmonious colors, matching fonts, a structured hierarchy of blocks, and clear navigation.

The main advantage is that you save dozens of hours of work. Instead of creating a layout from scratch, you take a ready-made base and adapt it to your tasks. Want to replace the colors with your corporate colors? A couple of clicks in the style panel. Need to add a field to the feedback form or stretch the banner across the entire width of the screen? Everything is done visually, without code. Prices for paid themes start at $25 and go up to $150, while the quality remains consistently high.

The catalog contains solutions for various tasks:

• business card websites and portfolios;
• multi-page corporate resources;
• landing pages for product launches and promotions;
• online stores with product catalogs;
• blogs and content projects.

For those who are not yet ready to invest, there are about forty free options. In terms of detail and convenience, they are almost identical to the paid ones — a great way to get acquainted with the platform and put together your first project without unnecessary costs.

Connecting an online store

An online store on Webflow can be activated with just one click—simply enable the corresponding module in the side menu. After that, all you have to do is fill the catalog with products and customize the appearance: choose a ready-made store template or create a unique card design yourself.

Please note that the number of products is limited by the pricing plan. A similar limit applies to blog posts. Therefore, the service is not suitable for a large marketplace with thousands of items, but it is perfectly fine for a small store selling designer jewelry or handmade dolls.

There are two ways to add products. The first is bulk uploading via an XML file using a pre-prepared template. This option saves hours of work if you already have a database in another CMS or accounting system. The second is manual creation of cards directly in the interface. Upload the main image and photos from different angles, specify the cost taking into account promotions and taxes, indicate the currency of calculation, assign a category, select available delivery methods, and fill in the technical specifications.

The set of fields in the card is fully customizable. Let’s say you sell clothes — add the fields “Size,” “Color,” and “Fabric composition.” If you sell electronics, remove the unnecessary fields and leave “Warranty,” “Country of manufacture,” and “Components.” This allows you to adapt your store to any niche.

After activating the eCommerce module in Webflow, the system automatically adds basic templates to the pages section: product catalog, category pages, shopping cart, and order form. Each of these elements can be modified in the visual editor, just like regular website pages.

In addition, the following features are available for online stores on the platform:

• Selling physical and digital goods. You can sell clothing and accessories, while also selling PDF guides, templates, or access to video courses.
• Customize product cards. Add your own fields — for example, “Ingredients” for cosmetics or “File format” for digital products.
• Promotional product collections. Group items into themed collections—the system will automatically calculate the total discount or add free shipping to the order. These collections are especially helpful during major sales seasons: Black Friday, New Year’s promotions, and summer clearance sales.
• Built-in payment solutions. Stripe and PayPal are available immediately after registration — simply log in to the desired service, and your store is ready to accept payments from customers.
• Integration with external services. Using an API or Zapier connector, you can connect your store to any business tools: CRM for customer database management, delivery services for automatic order transfer, warehouse software for stock synchronization. All of this can be configured without the help of a programmer.
• Manage orders within the editor. A small store can do without an external CRM—all orders are visible directly in the Webflow panel.
• Separate landing pages for specific items. Launching an ad for a new product? Create a separate landing page with a unique design for it.
• Automatic email notifications. Set up email templates for order confirmation, tracking number delivery, or abandoned cart reminders. You can use the built-in mailing system or connect Mailchimp, Klaviyo, and other services.
• Importing ready-made themes. ThemeForest offers templates that are compatible with Webflow, expanding the range of available design options.
• SEO automation. The platform can generate titles and descriptions based on specified templates, saving time when working with large catalogs.
• Personalized offers. Send individual coupons to regular customers or those who haven’t made a purchase in a while.

Dashboard

The Webflow Dashboard is a central panel that brings together all the tools you need to work on your projects. Here you can create new websites, edit existing ones, add favicons, connect analytics counters, and set SEO settings for each page.

Here, you can organize websites into thematic folders, duplicate them with a single click, or import them from external sources. For example, if a client sends you a backup from their old hosting provider, you can upload it to the dashboard and continue working.

The control panel functions not only as a workspace, but also as a social platform. You can explore other designers’ projects, follow those whose style you like, and post your own work. For example, if you’ve created a stylish one-page website for a coffee shop, post it in the public showcase. Cafe and restaurant owners will notice your project and contact you directly, without going through freelance exchanges.

Each profile displays public statistics: the number of followers, likes, and published works. This data is useful in two situations:

• When you select a specialist, you can immediately see how popular and active the author is.
• When developing your personal brand on a platform, monitor your metrics and change your approach to promotion if the numbers are not growing.

This section also contains a knowledge base: articles, video tutorials, and answers to frequently asked questions. One caveat—all materials are in English, so without a basic level of language skills or a browser translator, you will have to spend more time studying.

Integrations with third-party services

The platform’s built-in features are sufficient for most tasks, but sometimes businesses need something specific. There is an important caveat here: Webflow does not have its own extension marketplace, unlike WordPress or Shopify. External services are connected by inserting code into the page or calling the API.

Sounds complicated? In practice, it’s much simpler thanks to automation platforms. They act as intermediaries between different applications and do not require programming skills.

Let’s look at a specific example. Suppose your website has an order form. You want the following to happen with each new request: customer data is sent to Google Sheets, the manager receives a notification in Telegram, and the buyer receives a confirmation email. With Zapier, you can set up this scenario in fifteen minutes without writing a single line of code. Make (formerly Integromat) and n8n can handle similar tasks.

Technical Support

Let’s be honest: this is not Webflow’s strongest point. The only way to reach the specialists is to write an email. There is no chat on the website or hotline, and this applies to all plans, including premium ones.

The response time also leaves something to be desired. Users write in reviews that responses take up to two days. In practice, this means the following: you encounter a bug on Friday evening, write to support, and by Monday you have already found a solution yourself on the forum or through trial and error. When the email from technical support finally arrives, it is already useless.

However, there is some good news. The official website features an impressive library of training materials: videos, text guides with step-by-step screenshots, and comprehensive courses for different levels of training. The content is kept up to date, so the instructions do not become obsolete after the next interface update. If you are willing to spend time studying on your own, your dependence on slow support is minimized.

Website promotion opportunities on the Webflow platform

Every website owner wants to see their project at the top of search results and receive a steady stream of visitors. The Webflow platform offers all the necessary tools for this, from a built-in blog to fine-tuning SEO parameters. Let’s take a closer look at each of them.

Creating and maintaining a blog

Webflow allows you to launch a full-fledged blog from scratch or add an articles section to an existing website, whether it’s a one-page site, a corporate portal, or an online store. Technically, the blog is built on the CMS Collections system, which is a template builder that adapts to any publication format.

The principle is quite simple. First, you create a collection and set a set of fields that will be included in each entry. The standard set includes the title of the material, text, cover image, release date, and category. But you can expand it to suit your needs. For example, if you run a food blog, add the fields “cooking time” and “ingredient list.” For a travel blog, “country,” “travel budget,” and “best season to visit” would be useful.

To avoid starting from scratch, take a look at the library of ready-made templates. There you will find templates for recipes, company directories, training guides, and other popular formats.

You can also configure:

• Rules for sorting and filtering publications.
• Password protection for private sections.
• SEO parameters for each entry.
• RSS feed and preview for social networks.

After filling the database, the system will automatically generate a feed of posts in chronological order. The appearance of the blog is entirely up to you: you can create a design from scratch or use one of the ready-made presets as a basis.

The only thing to keep in mind is that the number of entries is limited by the pricing plan. However, for most projects, the limits are more than sufficient. This solution is equally well suited for a personal traveler’s diary and for corporate media with regular publications.

SEO optimization

Webflow projects are search engine friendly right out of the box. The layout automatically adapts to the display of any device, from a pocket smartphone to a professional 4K monitor. The engine generates clean HTML without junk code, and pages load quickly. All of this has a positive effect on rankings in Google and other search engines.

However, the technical capabilities are not limited to this. The site owner gets access to a full set of tools for manual SEO optimization. These include:

• Editing Title and Description meta tags for each page individually.
• Creating readable URLs (SEO-friendly URLs) instead of obscure combinations — for example, “/portfolio/internet-magazin” instead of “/content?item=38291”.
• Manage the robots.txt file to control indexing — You decide which sections to show search engines and which to hide.
• Automatic generation of the sitemap.xml site map — the platform automatically detects new pages and updates the file without your involvement.
• Open Graph markup for social networks — when someone shares a link on Facebook or Telegram, the post looks neat: with a picture, title, and description.

The dynamic meta tags feature deserves special attention. Imagine: you have launched a store with a thousand products. Writing a title manually for each item would take several days. Instead, create a template: “Buy [product_name] in Kyiv — [price] UAH.” The platform will pull the data from the product cards and generate unique meta tags for the entire catalog in seconds.

Who is Webflow suitable for?

The Webflow website builder is designed primarily for professional web designers and web studios. It allows them to create web projects faster and cheaper thanks to a number of advantages:

• A unified working environment. You no longer need to draw layouts in Figma, agree on them with the client, and then send them to the layout designer. The entire cycle—from the first prototype to publication—takes place in a single browser window. In our experience, this reduces development time by two to three times.
• Automatic code generation. The platform itself converts visual designs into valid HTML and JavaScript. The quality is on par with manual coding by an experienced specialist.
• Real-time teamwork. CMS allows you to organize an effective workflow for a team of designers and developers working on a single online project at the same time. To do this, there are tools for version control, editing, and commenting on actions.
• Independence from programmers. You don’t need a team of developers to fully maintain your website. Everything you need is already in place. Even a single designer can work with the platform independently, without involving front-end and back-end programmers.
• Exporting the finished code. You can easily export the created website and use it on any CMS. This will be useful both for your own projects and when developing custom solutions for clients.

Webflow pricing plans

Webflow offers four main pricing plans for hosting websites:

1. Starter (Free). A free plan to get acquainted with the platform. You get access to AI features, but there are significant limitations: only 2 pages, 50 items in the CMS, and the site can only be published on a subdomain of the form name.webflow.io. Bandwidth is 1 GB of traffic per month, and you can send no more than 50 forms during your entire time using the service. This option is suitable for getting a feel for the interface and understanding how well the service suits your needs.
2. Basic ($14/month with annual payment). This plan is for landing pages, portfolios, and small promotional websites that do not require a CMS. You can connect your own domain and create up to 150 pages with content. Bandwidth is increased to 10 GB, you can create as many forms as you want, and protection against traffic spikes has been added. However, additional templates for creating catalogs with products or sections with articles are not available on this plan, so it is not suitable for blogs or catalogs.
3. CMS ($23/month with annual payment). The optimal choice for blogs, content projects, and websites optimized for SEO promotion. You get 150 pages, 20 custom templates, and up to 2,000 entries (blog posts or products). Bandwidth is 50 GB/month, there is a built-in site search, and you can connect up to 3 editors. If you plan to publish articles regularly or maintain a service catalog, this is the option for you.
4. Business ($39/month with annual payment). A plan for websites with high traffic and increased CMS functionality requirements. Limits are increased: 300 pages, 40 custom templates, 10,000 entries, and 100 GB of bandwidth. You can connect up to 10 editors, upload files via forms, and use advanced search. Suitable for web studios or internet agencies.