Introduction into WordPress and Webflow
When creating a new website, in addition to the design, content and structure, there is also the technical question: Which content management system (CMS) should I choose? For years, WordPress was often considered the first choice and was particularly popular with hobby website operators. Over the last few years, however, the WordPress CMS has been repeatedly challenged by new providers. Webflow, which has been steadily gaining new users for more than 10 years now, has seen particularly strong growth. In this article, we explain which tool is the best choice for you and your specific website project.
How do we evaluate both CMS provider?
Every website is different and therefore has specific requirements. Accordingly, there is no "one-size-fits-all" solution. Nevertheless, to get a better understanding of both tools, we have evaluated them in 9 different categories:
- Usage and user-friendliness
- Flexibility in design and adjustments
- Responsiveness for mobile devices
- Page speed and performance
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
- Security and maintenance
- Need for plugins
- Running costs
- Innovation and special features
Usage and user-friendliness of Webflow vs. Wordpress
Webflow revolutionized the creation of websites in that it offers an intuitive, visual interface that makes changes to the website directly visible. This is not possible with WordPress without integrating external plugins. Webflow is also designed so that, as a rule, no HTML code needs to be written and custom code should only be used in exceptional cases. WordPress, on the other hand, works much more with the input of HTML code and makes it much more difficult to use the CMS, especially for non-developers.
Flexibility in design and adjustments of WordPress vs. Webflow
WordPress is strongly tied to the initially selected template when it comes to design-related customizations or is dependent on your own programming skills, with which you have to change page templates and CSS in the source code. Webflow offers significantly greater flexibility here, as almost any customizations can be made directly in the standard interface of the CMS without intervening in the source code. No programming knowledge or direct adaptation of the CSS stylesheet is required. Webflow makes these adjustments itself, based on the settings made via the interface. This means that small changes in particular can often be made directly without an external Webflow agency - even without programming knowledge
Responsiveness for mobile devices with Webflow vs. WordPress
In today's world, where a large proportion, if not the majority, of website visitors come from mobile devices, responsiveness (= the ability of the website to adapt to different screen sizes) is particularly important in order to avoid losing website visitors. Here too, WordPress requires a lot of manual adaptation in the source code in order to make templates or custom websites completely responsive. Webflow, on the other hand, offers the option of creating websites in different so-called break points, which makes it significantly easier to adapt the design to different screen sizes.
Page speed and performance of Webflow vs. WordPress
Webflow works with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to host the websites and offers dynamic adjustment of server capacities based on the number of website visitors. It also uses fastly as a CDN (Content Distribution Network) provider and thus reduces loading times to a minimum - no matter where in the world people visit your website. In theory, this is all possible with WordPress, but you are responsible for hosting the website yourself. This means that WordPress does not offer its own hosting per se and you have to choose an external provider such as Kinsta, Strato, df.eu or another provider and host the WordPress site via this provider. However, you then have to make the necessary settings yourself to ensure that the website can always be accessed quickly, which can make it difficult for inexperienced users in particular.
Search Engine Optimization of WordPress vs. Webflow
WordPress has a huge selection of third-party plugins, many of which focus on the topic of search engine optimization. A very well-known plugin for WordPress is yoast SEO, for example, which helps users to optimize the right content for each page and also provides tips and advice on how to best carry out search engine optimization. With the help of such plugins, search engine optimization is given with WordPress - however, it should be mentioned that such plugins incur additional running costs.
Webflow also offers all setting options in the normal user interface to maintain SEO-relevant properties per page such as page title, page description, open graph information and other content. However, there is no guidance like in the yoast SEO plugin, which usually makes no difference for advanced SEO managers, as they tend to rely on their own knowledge and optimizations anyway.
Security and maintenance of WordPress vs. Webflow
In the past, there have unfortunately always been serious security vulnerabilities in the WordPress CMS, which is mainly due to the widespread use of external plugins. It was only at the end of 2023 that there was another critical vulnerability in an external plugin that allowed attackers to execute malware via a form. A case in May 2023, which exposed 1.4 million websites to a significant security risk that confidential information could be stolen via an external plugin, also shows that these are not small gaps.
No security gaps of this magnitude are known about Webflow. This is probably mainly due to the fact that Webflow itself covers all the core functions of a CMS and does not rely on the installation of external plugins.
Need for plugins of WordPress vs. Webflow
As already described in the previous sections, the use of WordPress as a CMS is usually only possible with the help of external plugins. Whether these are plugins for multilingualism, for optimizing the website according to SEO aspects or for certain website designs, it is not uncommon for website operators to have more than a handful - often even considerably more - plugins installed with WordPress that are necessary for the operation of the website.
Webflow, on the other hand, works completely without the installation of external plugins. This not only increases user-friendliness, but also significantly improves security, as every external plugin is a potential point of attack. At the same time, it increases the reliability of Webflow as a CMS, as there is no guarantee that the provider company of the plugin will regularly maintain it and guarantee the functionality of the plugin in the future if external plugins are used.
Running costs of WordPress vs. Webflow
Webflow's running costs start at €12 per month and average €40-50 per month for an average website. Webflow also offers programs for large customers that offer even more functionality and a greater number of different users. These programs can also cost several hundred euros per month, but are usually only necessary for a small proportion of all customers. At our Webflow agency , these are usually customers who maintain several thousand subpages on their website and administer a large number of different users with different rights. WordPress, on the other hand, is free of charge. This is certainly the biggest advantage of the CMS. However, the addition of external plug-ins and a necessary hosting provider usually adds up to 20-30€ per month.
Innovation and special features
For decades, WordPress has offered a CMS that enabled beginners and hobby website operators to create their own websites without high costs. It was founded in 2003 and has made a significant contribution to the democratization of website creation. Unfortunately, the CMS is now showing its age. By opening up the CMS to external plugin providers, the complexity has increased significantly over the years and so today it is more important to "keep the CMS together" than to develop it further.
With its much younger age, Webflow has developed into one of the leading global CMS providers in just a few years. As of January 2024, Webflow employs over 1,000 people who are working on the further development of the tool and so Webflow is constantly shining with new functions that make websites always appear modern and innovative and improve efficiency even further. This not only makes it easier for Webflow agencies to use Webflow as the right choice for website projects, but also makes it easier for individual users to create impressive websites themselves.
Personal summary: For whom is WordPress or Webflow suited?
WordPress started out as an open (=free, freely available) CMS for blog operators and has been used more and more over the last few decades to create complex websites. However, it has accumulated more and more weaknesses and can only be used with great risk and effort, especially in professional applications. For private use - such as blogs or small personal websites - I still see a suitable use case for WordPress. Webflow, on the other hand, is currently establishing itself as the gold standard for creating modern and user-friendly websites. Especially if a website has a strong marketing purpose and is also to be used, maintained and further developed by a marketing team, Webflow offers a professional option that can now be used by both large and small companies. Whether Philips, the New York Times, pwc or Haufe Group - Webflow is a very good choice as a CMS for a large number of customers.
35 + Jahre
Growth Erfahrung
Sources:
1) https://webflow.com/hosting
2) https://yoast.com/wordpress/plugins/seo/
3) https://t3n.de/news/wordpress-websites-sicherheitsluecke-plugin-1594426/
4) https://industrie.de/it-sicherheit/gefaehrliche-sicherheitsluecke-in-wordpress-plugin-gefunden/
