Before Taking the Plunge

I found Webflow a few days ago, and I like what I see just as much as I dislike wordpress. Anyway, I am considering taking a plunge. Only one, but very important, consideration is holding me back. Just in case, for whatever reason in the future I’d like to switch to another platform, would it be possible?

Thanks

Why you would switch to another platorm when you discovered Webflow :wink:

Weblow is making an export api, so in the future you can export the data.
You can also export the html, if you are planning to go 100% php or so.

Welcome to the club!

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Not sure what “export api” means. I can export a site, but what platform would be able to import my export? Would I be able to import it into, let’s say, wordpress.

Exporting to another platform may be possible sometime in the future but it may be a very long time and may never come to fruition.

Sucks. I’ve been that road more than once, and not going again.

Thanks all for the input.

I apologize if that has swayed you away from webflow. Webflow has changed my life as a designer. It is build to provide a way for visual designers to build awesome websites, something that was impossible before. I have researched every other option in the same arena as webflow and webflow blows all the others out of the water many times over. They are getting steady traction and their user base is increasing so it is unlikely that the company will dissolve. I know that an api is in the works, but I am not sure if exporting to wordpress will be possible. I can tell you, however that working and designing in webflow is far and beyond a much better experience than working in wordpress. Additionally, many of the slow loading issues, compatibility, updates and all the other awful crap that comes along with wordpress is not an issue with webflow. It is much more solid of a platform. If you are a designer and not simply looking for a cms and want complete control over your design, webflow is the only option out there with complete freedom to design what you want.

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If you design a website without the CMS features you can always export at any time. It´s not possible at the moment to export a site built with the CMS. It has been promised a two way API. That means that you can have your data elsewhere and have it shown in webflow or the opposite the data you have in webflow shown elsewhere.

When the CMS was launched the Webflow website was updated and if you look down at the button(almost) of this page you see they talking about api and e-commerce :grinning:

Please, excuse my ignorance. Right now I need to design a responsive website with multiple pages. No e-commerce and I can get by without a blog too. Is it CMS or not?

No need for the CMS!! Design your site and export. If you need to change something go back to webflow design and export again.

Hi @gm10,

“switch to another platform, would it be possible?”

I think your question might have been a bit too vague to answer…

Just as there is nothing automated about switching from Wordpress to another platform such as Joomla! or Drupal without a lot of work, there is no “migration path” from Webflow to another platform.

So, when you say that you’ve “been down this road before…” It isn’t a surprise because there really aren’t many CMS platforms that allow “switching” to another platform without some planning and rework. Sorry.

I think you will be pleased with Webflow as a platform to build responsive websites though! I think you should take another look!

Jeff

Jorn, great news! Appreciated.

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It was vague indeed. I’d love to move one last time and stay. There are much better things to do with life than exporting/importing sites with no value added in between. The question was survival of webflow in the long run. It appears they are doing right things - besides good software they created good help sections on the site. It does create a loyal following. Even if webflow doesn’t grow huge, they have a good chance to survive. IMHO

I will give webflow a good try. Currently I have my site on wordpress and hate it. :frowning:

Thanks everybody for the input.

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Hi @gm10

I understand your reluctancy, I had (and partly have) the same experience and feelings.

I’m with Webflow for a good half year now. Had to take a really deep plunge into it, before I actually started to get a grip on css, because that’s what Webflow actually is: it builds upon common html and css knowledge. To be able to build something that diverges from the standard, you’ll have to become familiar with how css works. But you’ll learn, just don’t give up.

I host elsewhere, and just export everything I make and upload it to my (or my customer’s) host. In case Webflow would end its business (which to me seems very unlikely in the nearby future), that exported html and css is still on your host’s server. In such case, you could (and I have tested this) use an external app like Pinegrow (which by itself is much less easy to grasp than Webflow!) to adapt everything to your wishes.

Hope this helps!

greets Tom

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Another thing that is kind of worrisome: ‘Support Hours & Info: Monday - Friday 9:00am - 6:00pm PST and ONLY BY EMAIL’ . If the site crashes on Friday night, don’t bother until 12PM EST Monday. And no guarantee of the response time. Whenever. Doesn’t look like a mature company. Maybe I am looking at a wrong page.

Hey @gm10 if you scroll down the pricing page you’ll see that Webflow sites have 99.99% guaranteed up-time: Plans & pricing | Webflow . And the community is active pretty much 24/7 to help answer questions :).

:slight_smile: there’s also a great list by Webflow community member @dapitts08 listed here of why they choose Webflow over other platforms:

CMS Marketing Brochure / Info?:

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