The designer becomes so slow and laggy that it's unusable

I’ve been using Webflow for 5+ years. I’m currently really struggling with Designer performance and just wanted to voice this here.

I would love if Webflow could provide some insight into what the performance issues being worked on currently are. Even if we just know the team is hard at work on this issue, it’s better than knowing nothing.

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When Weblow is slow… IS SLOW .

Please take a look of this video: When Weblow is slow.... IS SLOW

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Hi, is it better now? I opened up your site and it was still slow but not terribly slow.

Hi @EGAFutura,

We are actively working on improving performance in the designer. We have made some changes recently and are currently working on more performance improvements. I looked at your preview link and it appears some of our changes have sped up the load time of your site.

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Thank you very much @huwyca for your follow-up! We use Webflow in a daily basis, and I will let you know how the platform is performing in the upcoming weeks.

Wouldn’t it be better to make Webflow native? I was just about to get into the platform but having found this thread, I’m now thinking I don’t want to waste my time on learning it if it’s this buggy.

I would say it depends what you’re planning on building with Webflow. For smallish marketing brochure style websites Webflow is an amazing tool IMO. I would still use it for those. But yes there is a limit where these designer buggyness do issues appear.

I have started to learn coding (frontend) and finding it quite difficult, I am more of a creative person so understanding code is not so easy for me. When I found Webflow I thought this is exactly what I needed :slight_smile: but now I see this thread and I am back to square one :frowning:

I don’t think you should not use Webflow because of this. As above, it doesn’t happen on smaller, simpler websites. It’s large CMS sites where this comes up usually.

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There really were advances in performance! Now the problems are not so frequent.

There is still room for improvement: Webflow - Software ERP en la Nube EGA Futura

https://preview.webflow.com/preview/takesidedevsite?utm_medium=preview_link&utm_source=designer&utm_content=takesidedevsite&preview=cb70c7c94313b28868889a1f8be1e8e5&mode=preview

I only have about 100 CMS items… This is unworkable. Any fixes?

Hey Benjamin! I didn’t notice any performance issues when loading a preview of your site in the Designer. In order for us to better understand what you’re experiencing, could you kindly do the following?

  1. Clear your browser’s cache and cookies or access the Webflow Designer from an incognito window
  2. Take a screen recording of the performance issues including steps to reproduce - you can use a free tool like Loom for the video

Thanks for reporting this so we can have a closer look!

Yes I removed all of my CMS items. I had 15 conditional visibility blocks each set for a different layout. I didn’t realize this meant it was creating 15 versions of each CMS item and then hiding 14 of them.

NOTE TO EVERYONE: CMS conditional visibility is still loaded by the browser on the public site. Essentially I made the site 15x heavier than it should have been by relying heavily on CMS conditional visibility.

@webflow, it would be nice to not render hidden blocks in conditional visibility. Because you need to publish the site before the CMS populates this may actually be feasible.

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Is everyone ready for an update? The past 24 hours have been the worst amateur-tier support I’ve seen in Webflow since I’ve had the misfortune of paying a cent for this platform.

Spoiler: the Designer is 100% inaccessible and has been for 20+ hours.

Legitimately, the Designer has died in a crash loop on multiple systems. It crashes upon opening our site in Designer: yes. We sent in ~20 crash reports (surely Webflow’s laughable support has received them by now) and in the famous priority support over 20 hours, nothing.

Find it hard to believe it could be this bloody terrible? So did we. Here’s our sure-to-be-requested-by-three-different-support-agents screen recording in Incognito mode. Read your bug reports, @parker, please.

Let’s watch Webflow crash like it’s an second-tier Adobe product with 19 years of zero competition

Because of a form file upload restriction, we were forced to upgrade to Webflow’s Business Tier: $432/year. A ridiculous mistake we will never repeat.

What we’ve tried:

  1. Clearing cache.
  2. Clearing cookies.
  3. Logging in and out.
  4. Trying a 2nd computer, different network.
  5. Trying a 3rd computer, different network.
  6. Trying a 4th computer, different network.
  7. Sent Webflow an email with the information we have, hoping to hear back a human in the next 24 to 72 hours.

Enough. These hollow promises are cheap: I’ve half a mind to ask for money back to reimburse our client. Please, fix your platform: I have second-hand embarrassment telling our clients we’re still using this crumbling platform, “Yes, we have crashed out of the Designer for 20 hours. Nope, they’re absolutely silent and have zero call / chat support; it’s a robot now. Maybe we should go public at this point.”

Your engineers (or perhaps your support team) should be ashamed these bugs still exist. Should we expect another apology? These problems need to be solved for everyone (God save anyone on the free tier), not simply Business customers, but I’m laughing out loud that we have “Priority” email support. How are you treating your other customers?

Unacceptable. @callmevlad, this is the primary reason it’s hard to take years of promises, quarterly updates, blog posts, apologies, and emails about another capital round. This is May 2021.

Not that it matters,

Google Chrome 90.0.4430.212 (Official Build) (64-bit)
Windows 10 Pro x64 (19042.965)
i5-8600K / 32 GB DDR4 / Z370 / 500 GB 970 EVO Plus SSD
100% Ethernet network: 200 Mbps / 20 Mbps via cable

Other systems we’ve tested, ALL have the exact same crash loop. Any browser. Any OS. Go figure: it has almost always and will almost always be PEBCAK at Webflow’s engineers HQ:

– an HP Spectre Ice Lake (Windows 10 Pro)
– a MacBook Pro (2018) late 2018.
– the desktop above
– an Acer Chromebook

What else can we do for you, Webflow?..

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Hi @TG2 thank you so much for following up, here! First off, this is a very frustrating and poor experience. I want to thank you personally for going above and beyond to contact our team and community to find a resolution, as well as for your candid message. We’re working towards a much better experience for reporting issues, staffing up our global support team for timely responses, and building a better product every day.

I do ask that you please ensure that your posts reflect our community guidelines. We’re here to help and want to ensure our conversations are respectful and civil.

Our team responded a few minutes ago with a solution via email to this crashing instance occurring on your site, can we please continue this conversation there? Thank you again for your kindness, patience and candor, we greatly appreciate your business and wish to find a speedy resolution.

TBH he just said what a lot of us think out loud… This is why I very rarely use Webflow anymore.

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Good lord. His post is about as civil as it’s possible to get it when you’re not delivering on what he’s literally paying for. What possible other avenue does he have when you’re not replying?

You’ve been talking about staffing up and improving support for like two years. People are trying to make a living off your platform, paying you for doing so, and it’s honestly completely baffling that this is still an issue in May 2021.

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By the way - while I’m not running into crashes while designing, on publish the entire designer now dies. But better yet, it kills all Webflow tabs I have up. I can’t even browse the forum (!!) while my computer tries to recover. I have to close all tabs, then wait a bit before opening the designer again.

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Thank you everyone so much for each of these reports. We’re incredibly grateful for your help in identifying a multitude of ways to improve the performance of Webflow as a product and within the Designer. Our team is working diligently to provide the best experience possible for everyone at scale.

Many of the cases are unique which we’ve received, usually pertaining to a specific project.

We want to help as quickly as possible to resolve each issue, and want to prevent issues from languishing or going missed in a conversation here.

Please contact our team directly if you’re experiencing latency or lag within the Designer.

Thank you all again for your help, kindness and patience. Were’ here to help!