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Comparing WordPress vs Webflow is like comparing apples and candy apples — one is always going to be sweeter. In this Halloween-themed post, we dive into the three scariest aspects of WordPress and why Webflow is our platform of choice at Edgar Allan.
1. Too many plug-ins turn your site into Frankenstein’s monster
When building a site on WordPress, you are often left with little choice but to add a plug-in or two to manage everything from security to contact forms, a byproduct of the tool’s beginnings as a blog-hosting platform. To be honest, if you’re looking to get even more function out of your site, one or two plug-ins can quickly turn into a dozen or more, so it’s a bit of a slippery slope.
Since running a site on WordPres is so plug-in heavy, things often end up as a sort of a Frankenstein’s monster – pieces and parts tacked on all over the place. Not only is this difficult from a management perspective, but if (and when) something breaks, you’re forced to go through every single plug-in to figure out which one is broken and how to get your site back up and running. Not exactly efficient.
But let us calm your fears: Webflow offers a solution. Instead of having to cobble together a site made of plug-in after plug-in, with Webflow, the tools are all built in, since the platform was purpose-built for professional, full-fledged sites. SEO, contact forms, security — it all comes with the platform. Webflow makes a clean HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, which keeps code uncluttered, unhindered, and utterly un-monstrous.
As the most common CMS on the internet, WordPress powers almost half of all websites. But simply because it’s the most popular CMS, it’s also a huge target for hackers. This is a combination of the platform having somewhat lax security and it being a giant bullseye for hackers, since when they find their way into one site, they can reach that many more with the same attack.
Webflow on the other hand, offers built-in security features, including SSL encryption for all pages. Plus, because it’s an overall less popular platform (at least for now), so not as many hacks are built to target it. This difference between Webflow and WordPress is akin to the difference between Mac and PC — it’s just not that PCs are less secure overall, it’s that there are so many more people with PCs than Macs that it’s to hackers’ advantage to target them.
When building a site in WordPress, you have two options — either build from a premade template or code your site from scratch. If you can’t code or can’t afford to hire a developer, that leaves you searching for a template that meets your needs exactly. WordPress has a ton of templates to choose from (over 31,000), but if you have specific needs for your site or have a design in mind, it can be very limiting to have to pick from a list of templates.
If you decide to go the route of coding your site (or hiring someone to do it for you), you’re forced to deal with the classic development process of translating designs to code… and all of the back and forth that often ensues when the site doesn’t quite match the designs. This forced decision between building from a template or coding-from-scratch is one of the reasons that our clients often cite when they tell us they’re looking to migrate from WordPress to Webflow: they find it too constraining, and they want more freedom and flexibility, an area in which Webflow excels.
On Webflow, there are still lots of templates to choose from, but there’s also a much lower barrier to building a site without a template. Because Webflow is a no- to low-code platform, the visual designer offers the opportunity to view edits to the design as you make them. Plus, Webflow features live, in-page editing once you launch your site, meaning if you want to tweak a headline or change up some formatting, you don’t have to deal with switching back and forth between the CMS and the live site to see what you’re doing.
If you can’t tell, at Edgar Allan, we are absolutely bewitched by Webflow. As a Webflow agency, we choose to exclusively build with the platform, and use it as a springboard to create more complex web applications and functionality when needed. To learn more about Webflow, as well as our approach to branding, content, and design, check out the rest of our blog.
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