WordPress vs. Webflow Battle: Which Platform Is Best for Your Website?

While establishing your online presence with the help of CMS, you should make the right choice and utilize a solution perfectly suitable to your preferences. You might immediately think of WordPress as the most popular website-building engine in the world (today, 43.5% of all websites are based on it), but it may make sense also to consider its lesser-known alternative, Webflow. So, let's make a scrutiny assessment – which is better Webflow or WordPress?

Brief Overview: WordPress (WP) vs. Webflow (WF)

WP and WF are comprehensive solutions that allow building websites. Each platform has a large base of adherents; however, there are many variable parameters, like prices, security, customization, etc, that make them different from each other. Taking into account all of them will help you to select the most feasible option for your specific purpose.

Understanding WP

WP is a free, open-source platform that makes even the most complex things simple. Launched into public access back in 2003, this engine was originally conceived as a solution for creating blogs. In turn, today, thanks to an extensive library of plugins, many of which are free (there are more than 60,000 such plugins), ease of use, extensive customization options, as well as almost infinite scalability, WP is considered a one-size-fits-all option for almost any project.

Understanding WF

WF is considered to be probably the best alternative to WordPress. This engine was launched in 2012 and can be considered a new-generation website builder, that belongs to the no-code category. WF helps to create webpages (with and without custom code) but also covers hosting services as well (unlike its competitor). It currently supports about 240 integrations and offers add-ons in almost 30 categories, which makes it quite a versatile player as well.

WordPress vs. Webflow: Target Audience

Those people who prefer possessing more impact on the website's functionality and design will appreciate WP more. Still, dealing with this platform requires some basic knowledge of web development. If you don't possess the latter, WF can suit you more. The second platform is aimed at a simplified and smoother way of creating webpages by people who lack a tech background. Still, in the latter case, the functionality can suffer.

WordPress vs. Webflow: Pricing Comparison

Engines that assist with creating websites may declare they are free of charge or show the information not in full. Let's take a closer look at WordPress vs Webflow pricing options that exist now.

Actual Cost of WP

The case highlighted above is exactly related to WP. Formally, it states that the tools it provides are open and free. Still, there are many add-on costs, like hosting (WP doesn’t provide it), licenses on plugins, and membership fees. The prices vary depending on the preferred options. Minimally, you will have to pay around $5-9/month for web hosting and from $30 per theme. Overall, it is possible to manage and run a webpage spending approximately $40-60 per year. The higher cumulative cost reaches $300+.

WF Pricing Breakdown

WF is a more transparent option for sure. Still, it is less flexible. There are two basic plans we will cover precisely.

General Subscription Plans

First of all, you can have a free plan on WF, indeed. It will cost you nothing but provide a WF domain address and around 50 CMS items. Apart from this limited option, there are other variations of the general plan also:

• Basic – suits for a simple website. WF charges $14/mo for its domain and 500 form submissions monthly; unfortunately, this plan is not feasible for blogging at all.
• CMS – perfectly suits for blogging; for $23/mo, WF offers up to 2,000 CMS items plus several content editors.
• Business – WF charges for this option $39/mo and offers a domain, up to 10,000 CMS items, and 10 editors.
• Enterprise – this option is suitable for those who require a more extended plan compared to “Business”. For this purpose, you should contact the WF sales team directly.

All of these plans are billed annually but calculated per month.

E-Commerce Subscription Plans

Since e-trade has its specifics, WF addresses its needs under these plans:

• Standard – a balanced option, for $29/mo, from the point of price which offers up to 500 products for sales; most suitable for emerging businesses.
• Plus – an option with the increased volume of products to sell – up to 5,000; the cost per month is $74.
• Advanced – will suit a large-scale business selling up to 15,000 products – the charge for this option is $212/mo.

WordPress vs. Webflow: Security Features

Unfortunately, each engine is more or less vulnerable to cyber risks. The point is to opt for a platform that ensures the level of security that is most suitable for your purposes and standards.

Security in WP

Since WP is an open-source platform that does not provide any hosting options. Therefore, it can be vulnerable to external threats. Despite the fact that it uses SSL encryption by default, it’s better to add security plugins (like Wordfence, MalCare, and so on) as well, to make it possible to fix less obvious vulnerabilities early, before they cause harm to your business.

Security in WF

WF is powered by AWS – this is a hosting service launched and maintained by Amazon. The latter emphasizes cyber security tremendously. In addition, WF also applies quite severe encryption measures. This touches primarily on handling securely customer and payment data. WF prevents any unauthorized access quite well. The platform has also done a great job of bolstering resilience over cyber attacks. What is important is that all of these features are already integrated into WF, so you won’t need to care about security at all. Still, applying any extra security measures is always welcomed.

WordPress vs. Webflow: Customization Capabilities

Even if a website creation appears to be smooth at first, practically, you may face numerous pitfalls. That's why customization matters a lot. Here is how WP and WF approach it.

Customization Options in WP

WP is focused mainly on users who possess basic tech skills. The latter ones will definitely allow you to create true miracles on WP by altering its themes. Therefore, you will obtain a fully personalized website as a result.

Customization Options in WF

WF is generally more straightforward if you limit your action to using the existing samples only. Still, if at some stage of your work, you realize that you would rather take another template, you have to create a new project. That is extremely inconvenient. In the rest of the terms, WF is quite adapted to the customer's needs and enables the creation of solutions similar to WordPress.

Webflow vs WordPress for SEO

As for Webflow vs WordPress for SEO, each of them provides workable options.

SEO in WP

If you use WP, you have to install a separate plugin for this purpose (like Yoast SEO, AI-driven Squirrly SEO, SmartCrawl, and others). What’s more, if you need to improve your SEO, you can use specialized tools, like Ahrefs and Semrush.

SEO in WF

Webflow has built-in SEO features that will take most of the SEO work out of your hands long before your website is launched. Of course, this does not mean that you do not need to understand even the basics of this discipline to work with this engine, but this knowledge you can easily get thanks to the comprehensive guide provided by the team of WF creators.

WordPress vs. Webflow: User-Friendliness

Usability is not the last point in the list when choosing a website builder. It is always worth to find a balance between the number of features and ease of interaction. Below, there are key highlights for WP and WF.

User Experience with WP

WP has proven to be a truly magnificent tool. Still, it may be a bit tough for beginners.  Probably, elaborating on simple patterns will take less time and will require less learning. But, if you want to get some more advanced outcomes, this requires more learning. Lots of YouTube tutorials may help in this, of course. Overall, WP is more aimed at ensuring high functionality rather than being user-friendly.

User Experience with WF

Is Webflow better than WordPress in terms of usability? It is 100% easier to use WF, even for a beginner. The developers of this platform have made the interface 100% user-friendly. Even if you lack any coding skills, you can build your website effectively by using a WF visual builder. Fairly to say that complex websites will still require some learning and patience.

WordPress vs. Webflow: Final Verdict

Both WP and WF have good functionality overall. These platforms steadily enhance their features and security. However, the choice of a specific platform in each case depends on the goals set.

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Flexibility is the major difference between Webflow and WordPress. The second one is tightened to ensure greater functionality. The first is more developer-oriented and has a user-friendly interface. However, if you need a more advanced website, WP is probably a better choice.

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In terms of pricing, WP is more convenient even if it doesn't disclose the entire range of prices. In its case, any exact estimates are meaningless since the users are free to use as many options as they think fit best. So, the final price is variable at all times. On the other side, WF is more predictable in terms of prices. However, any of the decent WF pricing plans may turn out to be more expensive compared to the price for the scope of WP features.

Getting Started with WordPress

WP is widely known as a reliable and multi-functional platform. Even if it takes more time to master, it is rewarding in the end. To start utilizing WP facilities for your benefit, draw attention to these core points:

1. Theme – there is a multiplicity of themes available on WP and the platform enables their customization to the user’s needs.
2. Security – it can be bolstered by the WP plugin at a moderate rate as well.
3. SEO – making your website align with the algorithms of search engines has never been so easy before thanks to WP plugins.
4. Backups – WP offers features that steadily make backups. Thus, even if your website crashes, you may simply access the latest copy of your data later.
5. Operation – it is realistic to accelerate the speed of loading with WP.