We recently were brought on board to fix up a website that was having performance issues and was difficult to update for our client. Their original website was built on the Webflow platform. We tried to make the changes that were needed, but we quickly hit roadblocks working in Webflow. That’s why we ultimately decided to migrate from Webflow to WordPress.
Here are a few of the challenges we encountered:
- If we needed to change CSS that affected the header, where should we adjust that? A custom HTML block in the header module? This seemed hacky, but could work.
- Why is Google Analytics included twice? Where is that set in the theme files?
- How do theme files get updated?
- What is this large render blocking webflow.js file doing?
Since we are WordPress experts and don’t have quite the same level of experience in Webflow, initially we thought simple things we couldn’t figure out were due to our own lack of experience. But, our perceived inexperience soon turned to skepticism as we discovered that documentation was hard to find. Simple things like viewing theme files left us stumped and we couldn’t find any documentation on the standard practice for updating them.
We knew that Webflow, commonly referred to as a “no-code” solution, is primarily geared towards consumers who want to create websites. It’s not the best solution for teams like ours or teams of marketers and developers who are looking to iterate fast and create clean templates.
Challenges Our Clients Encounter with Webflow
Problems we found with WebFlow we often see with other platforms such as Drupal, Craft, and others. They can have a very beautiful frontend design, but are challenging to update for our clients on the backend.
The original template files on our client’s website were essentially uneditable. WebFlow has some neat tools to adjust layouts for different responsive breakpoints. By having all of these heights/padding/offset values controlled block-by-block in the backend, it got to a point somewhere in between hard and impossible to keep track of the hundreds of blocks on dozens of pages across an ever changing landscape of device screen sizes.
True responsive design starts by allowing flexibility in the content any given block can have. We use CSS rules to ensure that content will automatically resize appropriately no matter the device and independent of the content in and around the block. We want our clients who are editing their websites to focus on the content, not the design. They should not have to worry about things like mobile spacing.
The Decision To Migrate from Webflow to WordPress
After encountering these challenges and others, we ended up recommending that the client migrate from Webflow to WordPress. Here’s how the Webflow to WordPress migration project turned out.
A website that simply looks good is not enough. Having the ability to quickly add pages that look beautiful, have mature tools to manage SEO meta data, and be able to redirect pages that have new URLs are defining features of a good website. Plus, as teams grow, a WordPress website will be much easier for other developers to jump in and work on than finding someone who specializes in Webflow.