A good website is the result of using the right and powerful website design tools. WordPress and Webflow are two popular and famous tools among website designers. But the question that arises is what is the best option for designing an attractive website?
In this article, we compare and review WordPress and Webflow tools.
Table of Contents
What is WordPress?
WordPress is a very popular content management system (CMS). One of the most important reasons for the popularity of WordPress is that it does not require high technical and programming knowledge to design a website with this tool. Using WordPress is the easiest and cheapest way to design and build a website. Maybe that’s why more than 43% of websites in the world are built with WordPress.
WordPress was first introduced as a blogging platform. But gradually it became a full-service CMS that can be used to manage any website, from corporate websites to portfolios, online stores, etc.
One of the strengths of WordPress is that it is customizable. This customization is possible by installing themes and plugins. By installing the theme, the appearance of the website can be designed in the desired way. Plugins also add new features to the website.
What is Webflow?
Webflow is a SaaS platform. Webflow allows the website designer to design the website with Drag & Drop. Therefore, it is very suitable for designers who are looking for a tool that does not require high programming knowledge.
The main difference between Webflow and other website builders as a service (SaaS) like Squarespace and Wix is that Webflow gives the designer access to the website’s source code. In other words, Webflow helps the website designer generate the HTML, CSS, and JavaScript codes of the website by providing a visual environment.
Comparison of WordPress and Webflow
Now that you are familiar with WordPress and Webflow, it is time to compare them.
1. Capabilities
Both WordPress and Webflow provide everything you need to build and design a website.
2. Ease of use
With WordPress and Webflow, it is easy to build a website, even if the designer has no coding experience. However, WordPress has a relatively easier learning curve, especially if you know a little about HTML and CSS.
Webflow is an advanced website design tool that provides more features than WordPress to the site developer. With Webflow, it is possible to access the source code of the website. In other words, the site designer can directly control the HTML, CSS, and JavaScript codes of the website and make the necessary customizations to it. This allows professional developers and designers more power and flexibility to build websites.
3. The appearance of the website
The appearance of the website is one of the most important factors in its success. Both WordPress and Webflow allow the website designer to apply pre-made layouts to the website.
These pre-made designs are known as Themes in WordPress and Templates in Webflow.
In general, WordPress themes are more flexible than Webflow templates. As a result, when comparing WordPress and Webflow in terms of appearance, WordPress will win.
4. Plugins
Maybe in a project, the website needs to be enriched with more advanced features and capabilities. This is where extensions allow you to do just that.
These extensions are known as plugins in WordPress and extensions in Webflow.
The WordPress plugin provides a huge collection of plugins to the site designer. If you look at the official wordpress.org directory, you will see that WordPress has 59,000 free plugins. Many plugins provide the developer with more advanced features that are not free and the right to use them must be purchased.
On the other hand, the extensions provided by Webflow are different from WordPress. Webflow does not have official plugins like WordPress. In Webflow, adding new features to a website requires integrating code snippets from other services with the site code. For example, if you want to add live chat functionality to your Webflow website, you need to get the relevant code snippet from your live chat service and put it on your Webflow website.
You need to manually add custom code to your Webflow website to add certain features to your website that are not provided by default in Webflow. This code snippet integration requires more technical knowledge.
5. The possibility of integration with third-parties
To make the most of the website, the website needs to be integrated with other tools, such as a customer relationship management system (CRM), email marketing service provider, etc.
WordPress is very powerful in its ability to integrate and connect with other tools. Using various plugins, WordPress allows the website designer to easily integrate other services and tools with the website.
But Webflow is less powerful in terms of integration and connection with other tools. In many cases, the site designer must use separate code snippets and interfaces to make these connections.
6. Store website design
WordPress and Webflow both help in creating a store website.
In WordPress, the WooCommerce plugin is the most popular online store plugin. WooCommerce provides all the features that an online store needs. For this reason, it is the first option for designing and building a store website.
Webflow has embedded the features of a store website in its core. But to activate this feature on the website, you have to pay for it.
Advantages of WordPress
- WordPress is free and open source.
- WordPress is much easier to learn than Webflow. To learn Webflow, you need to be familiar with HTML and CSS markup languages first.
- WordPress learning resources are available on the internet.
- WordPress integrates well with third-party tools and services.
- In general, building a website with WordPress is cheaper than other methods of building a website.
Advantages of webflow
- The webflow page editor is very powerful. Therefore, designers enjoy working with it.
- Webflow provides you with everything you need to design and build a simple website. All features are available in the core of Webflow and there is no need to install any plugins.
- A website built with Webflow is better than WordPress in terms of performance. To improve the performance of the website in WordPress, it is necessary to adjust it manually.
Disadvantages of WordPress
- Since WordPress websites rely on plugins for more functionality, choosing the best plugin for your site out of thousands of plugins is a difficult task.
- Also, programming knowledge is required to customize WordPress websites. As a result, the WordPress site designer must have some programming knowledge. Otherwise, to customize the site, you should ask a programmer to do it.
Disadvantages of Webflow
- As mentioned, to work with Webflow, you need to know the basics of HTML and CSS.
- In Webflow, unlike WordPress, it is not possible to install different plugins on the site.
- Unlike WordPress, Webflow does not integrate with other website-related tools.
- In general, building a website with Webflow is more expensive than WordPress.