How to choose the right Webflow Alternative for your project

Although Webflow has massive popularity in the no-code world, although countless Webflow alternatives successfully eliminate Webflow's shortcomings, many questions remain, how to choose an adequate replacement?

I will not focus this article on the different needs of companies and individuals who want to build a website. Instead, I will focus on the shortcomings of Webflow that are forcing existing users to consider moving to another platform. This may also be true of those who want to start a brand-new project and aren't sure if they can use Webflow's capabilities to build it.

Webflow is a powerful website-building tool, but it isn't for everyone. There are more than 2 million Webflow users worldwide, making it one of the most popular no-code builders on the market. Its easy visual interface makes it possible to create a professional website without coding experience in no time. Alternatives to Webflow might be more affordable if you're on a tight budget, for instance.

Webflow has a learning curve, and users who lack time to learn might prefer an alternative with a more intuitive interface. In the table below, you will find Webflow's pros & cons that will help you figure out why you doubt Webflow can be your ultimate solution.

Webflow's limitations can significantly complicate work on a project or affect website performance. Webflow uses a unique visual coding language that can be difficult to learn, making finding a solution even more challenging. (So, in the end, this implies that it is still necessary to have coding knowledge to maintain Webflow workflow.) Unless you're familiar with coding, it will take time to get the hang of it all.

Webflow offers a CMS plan that can help manage dynamic content. Using Webflow's CMS, you can create structured content, design around it, and update it all - without writing a line of code yourself.

Webflow CMS allows you to structure your content by creating collections (where every "collection" can represent different content types).

Building a Collection list or page allows you to add dynamic content to your project once you have a "Collection" structure in place.

Although Webflow CMS can help with content structuring, you may come across things that can be very challenging when it comes to content management and building pages. As time goes on, the Webflow wishlist becomes longer and longer, with many limitations and difficulties.

Here are the current Webflow CMS limitations:

Webflow plans have limitations on collections.

This sounds like it would be a tedious process. This makes it impossible to build large websites or work on complex projects without splitting them into separate projects. Even with splitting one big project into a couple of different ones, the same page limitations will wait for you. So, in the end, you are at the beginning.

When you use Webflow on a large scale, you may run into some scalability problems. The inability to scale Webflow makes it difficult to add or customize permissions as your team grows. So as your project grows, you will have more troubles to handle.

Custom code allows you to customize your site further. Your Webflow site must have a paid pricing plan to use custom code. Moreover, custom code in Webflow is limited to HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. All these limitations result in limited customization options for content.

Changing an individual page in Webflow requires publishing the whole site first. It's fine for small sites, but as a company grows, this becomes a huge problem.

Optimizing WordPress for unexpected traffic spikes is easy, and the software can handle high traffic volumes right out of the box. Success may fail if the server cannot handle the traffic or load, whether a temporary surge or a gradual increase. Besides WordPress's flexible architecture, a wide variety of performance-enhancing plugins make it scalable.

Speaking of plugins, WordPress offers a high level of customization through a large number of plugins you can add.

Furthermore, WordPress plugins can be customized, so you don't have to write your solutions from scratch. This way, you can customize their core functionality to meet your needs. With Webflow, this is not the case.

However, a wide range of plugins can bring some new challenges, such as:

Headless BCMS is an alternative to Webflow that allows companies to separate the CMS platform from the content being published, with enhanced security and scalability.

BCMS is designed to offer scalability to users as well as the flexibility to meet dynamic content demands.

WebFlow's scalability problems are usually related to adding and customizing permissions as your team grows, and it also lacks the workflow tools companies need to approve content.

Another challenge BCMS solves better than Webflow or WordPress is delivering content to multiple channels.

Webflow is not a Headless CMS, and it's not made for delivering content to multiple channels. On the other hand, with its plugins, WordPress cannot offer efficient scalability. With BCMS, you get a headless CMS solution with no plugin issues, fully scalable and customizable with features like:

With BCMS, you can leverage the benefits of the cloud and omnichannel distribution however you see fit.

Webflow is a closed-source platform that, because of its nature, comes with limitations and restrictions that can jeopardize your website's performance.

Users of closed-source software are prohibited from modifying or editing the application's source code. This leads to no possibility to tailor code and features to your needs and less flexibility and agility.

CSS, such as Webflow, comes with huge disadvantages such as:

Being open-source means being open to changes and able to adapt to users' needs. It is a vice-versa approach where the software needs to adjust itself to build highly custom websites and apps with unique and quality user experiences.

Open-source headless BCMS or Strapi can be a better solution for your project since they are offering:

Typically, open source provides multiple ways to solve problems, enabling technology agility. Using open source prevents your company or project from getting blocked by a lack of vendor capabilities. Instead of relying on the vendor's delivery, you can build it yourself.

By using open-source pre-built infrastructure, you can avoid the lengthy sales cycle associated with proprietary products and build upon existing frameworks rather than starting from scratch. Since open-source projects give you full access to the code base, you can frequently code your solutions and directly document your issues. You can start quickly and inexpensively, mature into a large-scale, fully supported, enterprise-grade implementation, and avoid the hassles of proprietary licensing.

Integrations are key to maximizing your website, and Webflow doesn't have quite as many as other tools when it comes to integrations. You can connect your Webflow site to other devices, but you won't get nearly as many native integrations. You'll need to rely on code embedding and separate interfaces in many situations.

For example, if you want to embed BCMS Programmatic SEO features into Webflow, you'd have to build everything in BCMS. Then, you'd need to add it to Webflow using the embed code from BCMS. This kind of integration process is inevitable in most cases regarding Webflow.

Unlike Webflow, WordPress offers official plugins, which means you can add extensions that work directly in the WordPress interface. Countless WordPress plugin collections can help you upscale your website.

WordPress makes the integration process possible and less time-consuming, thanks to such an enormous plugin collection.

Unlike Webflow, headless BCMS is able to provide 3d party integrations out-of-the-box. Unlike WordPress, BCMS doesn't need plugins to provide 3d party integrations out-of-the-box.

How is that possible?

Thanks to BCMS's API-first approach.

The API-first approach allows BCMS to act as a multi-channel content delivery CMS, meaning: BCMS can use a single content source and adapt automatically to its publishing environment to present itself optimally.

This approach greatly facilitates the entire integration process and makes connecting the website with a 3d party more intuitive, solving all possible Weblow API limitations.

Building a website with Webflow can be a worthwhile solution. Which tool to choose depends on what needs and requirements you have from your website builder.

Webflow may be a good solution for small projects, but if you decide to go with one of the Webflow alternatives, you will get the following:

platform with no API limitations and the ability to integrate with third parties out of the box, publishing your content on multiple platforms more effortlessly and intuitively.

If, after reading everything, you are still not sure which one you want to use for your next project, Webflow or Headless CMS, then read my article about Top 10 Webflow Alternatives. This will help you see the bigger picture.

If you are looking for a platform for developing large projects without any limitations, check out the BCMS features page and prepare yourself with the most suitable tool for your next successful project.