In the first blog of our series comparing WordPress to other content management systems (CMSs), we covered WordPress vs. Prismic. Today, we’ll be taking a look at WordPress and Webflow to see how each platform measures up against critical B2B website design best practices.
At a Glance
Before we dig into the details, let’s cover a few basic facts about WordPress and Webflow. Both platforms tout their intuitive interfaces, customization support and libraries of pre-designed themes.
WordPress is more established in the market by far. It not only owns 62% of the CMS market, but also boasts the most extensive list of free plugins, integrations, and themes in the industry. Webflow is still a bit of the new kid on the block, but has been gaining popularity thanks to its low cost and low-to-no code visual design tools.
| WordPress | Webflow | |
| Year founded | 2003 | 2013 |
| CMS marketshare | 62.5% | 1% |
| Company size | 1500 | 600 |
| Number of users | 500 million+ | 3.5 million+ |
| Country of origin | USA | USA |
| Open source | Yes | No |
| Annual Cost | $2,000 for hosting and plugins for a website getting approximately 75,000 visitors per month. | $200-$2,000+ depending on the website type and number of pages needed. You’ll also need to purchase a workspace plan, which can cost up to $588 per year. |
| Hosting | Free to choose | Vertically Integrated |
| Free plugins | 60,000 | 200+ |
| Free themes | 13,000+ | 87+ |
| Customization | Yes | Yes |
| SEO capabilities | Yes, particularly with a plugin like Yoast SEO | Yes |
| Multilingual | Yes with a plugin like WPML | Yes |
| Scalable | Yes | Limited Scalability |
| Headless | Optional | No |
WordPress vs. Webflow Features
“No-Code”
No-code website platforms are built with non-developers like marketing teams and small business owners in mind. They often feature drag-and-drop functionality and content modules that can easily be filled with text, links, and media.
Webflow offers one such “no-code” option, with a visual canvas designer that looks similar to Adobe Photoshop. Unfortunately, users figured out the catch to this feature pretty quickly. You may not need to code a Webflow website by hand, but a working knowledge of CSS, HTML and even Javascript is still necessary to assign element classes correctly and maintain design best practices. Many users find Webflow to have a steep learning curve, and say it’s difficult for clients to make changes without a developer’s help.
In contrast, WordPress doesn’t try to be low- or no-code. It’s a website design platform that caters to professionals and benefits companies that lean on design and development expertise. That said, there are plenty of plugins and tools designed to help non-designers create beautiful blogs, build dynamic forms, and manage SEO. Plus, WordPress users have significantly more control over their website design and greater flexibility in customization.
SEO Tools
Known for plugins like Yoast SEO, Rank Math and All in One SEO, WordPress offers a variety of powerful tools to support search engine optimization. In addition to SEO basics like page titles and meta descriptions, WordPress automatically optimizes images for the web and enables complex post categorization and tagging for an enhanced user experience.
Webflow does offer a number of built-in SEO capabilities. Users can manage URL structure, page titles, meta descriptions, and create alternative text for images within the designer. You can also implement 301 redirects and edit schema markup, and all Webflow pages use responsive design elements.
While you can add internal links into Webflow pages, the software doesn’t offer internal linking suggestions like many WordPress plugins. Many Webflow themes are also code-heavy and feature large elements that may hinder page load speeds. To combat this, the platform includes options for lazy loading and code minification, but you’ll need to have a good knowledge of web development to implement these correctly.
Themes & Plugins
Both WordPress and Webflow offer a variety of free and paid website themes, which can be used as a customizable base for your own website’s design. However, where Webflow only offers about 87 free themes, WordPress offers over 13,000. WordPress’s website themes cover a broad range of styles and can be endlessly customized and optimized for different business purposes.
One downside to using Webflow themes is that once you select a theme, you’re locked into using it. To change themes, you have to create an entirely new Webflow project and export the data from your previous theme to the new one. What’s more, if you decide to move away from Webflow as your hosting platform, be warned that dynamic content like forms and CMS items cannot be exported.
WordPress is well known for its library of plugins that offer everything from SEO tools to security features to dynamic forms. Previously, Webflow prided itself on not requiring plugins to manage key website functions like SEO. However, the company now offers an “apps marketplace” which appears synonymous with WordPress’s plugin library (though much more limited).
Content Management System (CMS)
WordPress was purpose-built to support bloggers, publishers, and companies that produce ample content. It has been praised for its flexible architecture and scalable design that can handle significant amounts of traffic without sacrificing the user experience. Additional plugins can also help optimize performance for websites with a large number of pages, especially those that publish multiple pieces of content per day.
Webflow’s CMS is limited by comparison. The starter plan only includes two static pages and 50 CMS items such as blog posts in a CMS collection. The business plan includes 300 static pages and up to 20,000 CMS items. Anything more requires a custom enterprise plan.
The CMS collections offered by Webflow are also restricted. Each page can only have one nested collection, and you cannot create multiple collections with the same name, even if they live in different root folders. This can make it especially difficult to create URL hierarchies for multilingual websites.
Conclusion
Choosing the right CMS for your business can be daunting, especially if you don’t have a design background. If you’re working with a B2B web design agency, make sure to ask which platform they prefer and why.
At Bop Design, we’ve been using WordPress to create beautiful B2B websites for years. The platform’s customization opportunities, large developer support community, and array of integrations give our designers and developers the power to meet each client’s unique needs – all while adhering to web design and SEO best practices.
