Webflow has secured $76m in funding, are we going to see any improvements in your dev team?

Nailed it. This is exactly where it is coming from.

2 Likes

Grow up.

This is not what I want, this is what thousands of PAYING CUSTOMERS want. If youā€™re unfamiliar with how their wishlist works, Iā€™ll give you a quick rundown.

  1. people request features
  2. other people vote for these features
  3. webflow decides whether or not to implement them

The items I have referenced in my OP all have hundreds/thousands of votes.

4 Likes

Exactly. Obviously not attacking any individuals. Simply making a blanket statement that the company moves slow (or fails to provide updates to their paying customers on new features).

3 Likes

Iā€™d like to throw inā€¦ more support staff? I have a support thread open, and there hasnā€™t been a reply in over 2 weeks nowā€¦ AND it was started 2 months ago. Still need concrete answers to two specific questions (one even with code examples with numbers clearly shown), not fluffy generalities about how things may or may not work.

Iā€™m desperate now, and their Twitter doesnā€™t even acknowledge my problem after two tweets. These are critical issues that are preventing me from sending my portfolio site out for workā€¦ so that I can actually pay my bills! I was ready to go except for these 2 seemingly bugs to be fixed before the virus outbreak, and now what do I do?

Also, I agree with some of the above - the DAY TO DAY basics need to be improved. It often is the so called ā€œsmallā€ stuff; the asset manager is worse then basic FTP access to a directory. I get the sense they do no user observation at all, and no user testing. Clearly, from this thread thereā€™d be no shortage of volunteers.

IX 2.0 is done. Marketing is done (overdone? Iā€™d say it oversells the product, which is likely bad). Get more developers and get more support staff who can user test. Webflow wants to tell its investors they have more income and growth? Then, you want me to tell my clients this is the best platform out there - for them and for me!

Iā€™m not going to do that if I want to ram my fist through the screen when I have to manually one by one replace assets I canā€™t even find, or if existing features donā€™t work, or something else performs flawlessly in one browser, but crap in my clients browser. I want Webflow to succeedā€¦ otherwise, I canā€™t. Or, as humanā€™s do, Iā€™ll have to find another way.

3 Likes

I hate to be that guy continuing to pile onto this, but I have to agree here. Webflowā€™s marketing team is amazing. Seriously, the content they produce is incredible. They should win awards.

But the content of the videos Iā€™ve seen is a bit misleading. They sell a vision of a product that simply isnā€™t true. And the videos are so well produced that they get newcomers hook, line and sinker.

Iā€™ve noticed this from a lot of recent new business inquiries. People are totally sold on Webflow, then I have to let them down by explaining that Webflow doesnā€™t actually support what they want to doā€¦ and that the only way to make it happen is by writing a huge amount of custom code. I find myself repeating the same spiel about what Webflow and canā€™t do out of the box.

7 Likes

Totally totally totally agree with this. I was about to create a thread pointing out that mobile landscape styles are displaying on my iPad instead of tablet styles, with screenshots and the whole 9 yards, but I had no idea that was a common issue that had been going on for years. I assume I would not have gotten much feedback on that. Webflow DOES seem to have their priorities out of whack - animations are a total luxury, useless features if the software doesnā€™t sit on a solid foundation.

I am also experiencing an unstable designer, and just strange bug-like activity when designing. Inconsistent ā€œundoā€ feature, I never know if my next change will be able to be undone or not. Elements inheriting ā€œinvisibleā€ styles that have already been changed or updated, and have to recreate classes. Freezing, etc. Preview mode functions as designed, but real-life publishing is way off in certain instances. Generally speaking, I just donā€™t feel secure when Iā€™m in the designer.

Another interesting point. I came to webflow as a designer - I have no previous coding or development experience. Iā€™ve designed maybe 7-8 websites here. The marketing brought me here - it was speaking right to me as a designer. I did notice the functional limitations immediately, and had to assess which type of projects I would be able to take with this tool. The thing that keeps me here is that the design capabilities are great. That can only go so far, especially when the things mentioned previously are not 100%. All marketing is misleading to some extent, but there seems to be a lack of vision for what this thing is and who itā€™s for. My other feeling is that itā€™s pretty expensive for the lack of functionality, stability and support. Like someone else said previously, webflow is more like an investment right now than a tool. Because of the potential, Iā€™m investing in a few projects- for now. I just hope to see more clarity of priorities.

4 Likes

Dear Webflow, tell us what you do!! its impossible that your only working on 2 productsā€¦
That can not be the caseā€¦

4 Likes

Hell, I donā€™t even mind having to write a bunch of code. Webflow has been amazing for me since Iā€™m not that great of a designer. Itā€™s when I meet a stone wall of Webflowā€™s own making it gets frustrating.

2 Likes

Dude, take this in another thread. This thread is not for laying out specific needs or feature requests. Object-fit is already implemented too.

2 Likes

Object fit is an example (I know object-fit is available since 2019) and this is not feature req.

I only saying - The problem her related to mega features (Like Multilingual site) & micro-features (Like object-fit). What is more important? There really is no answer (depending on need).

One thing we can all tell from this thread is that everyone loves Webflow. Thereā€™s so much passion being expressed here itā€™s amazing :smiling_face_with_three_hearts:

But I have to join the crow expressing the frustration of hitting some product limits way too fast.

Personally I can not really disagree with anyone here, most of the points expressed are somehow valid (I didnā€™t everything so canā€™t say ā€œallā€) :

  • There is a lot of dev work and releases being done on Webflow and we love them
  • However some essential features updates are not being addressed (Designer reliability, or even mobile breakpoints for example)
  • Small features that are basic with other CMS canā€™t be done without custom code or done at all (CMS live filter for example)
  • The frequency of major releases is too slow (3 years since the last one if Iā€™m not mistaken)

Finally, the lack of transparency regarding the Dev pipeline is adding A LOT to that frustration. Only 2 elements from the Wishlist being marked as ā€œin devā€ is a jokeā€¦
Itā€™s great to have regular updates from Vlad and @PixelGeek is doing a decent job communicating but the reality is we donā€™t know whatā€™s happening when and canā€™t tell our customers about it, which has a business impact as well. @vincent did a nice timeline showing the passed releases but Webflow should really put one together showing whatā€™s to come and when.

5 Likes

I get itā€¦ I do, but please remember it takes a LOT of research & development to push new features! More than you actually may think. The platform is so massive with a ton of complications that so many areas need to be extremely well thought out for new features and updates to be reliable and function properly when it gets to your hands. 3 years does seem long but again the company is so young.

Not only are they constantly developing new features but they have to maintain ones that already exist! Also, the funding just happened some months ago. So, things just take some time. Plus, imagine the hiring process after you just raised that new funding. Thatā€™s a whole process itself, finding new great developers. Onboarding them and all that goes with it. All these mini steps take weeks, months, years. A lot of great things are coming so be a little more patient & also try to understand the complexity from a realistic pov :slight_smile:

8 Likes

This is delusional, this doesnā€™t take 2 minutes at all. A decision needs to be taken to say things like ā€œUnfortunately we are working on some other features at the moment, and this request will be backlogged for at least 18-24 monthsā€ and keeping that promise is hardly doable. What are the users going to say after a promise isnā€™t kept? What tone are you going to employ then if youā€™re already communicating like this? Developing features and especially those who overlap everything, like localization, is hard, planning is hard. But itā€™s easy to understand that itā€™s hard.

Again, show us a comparable company that is disclosing their roadmap with dates, and keep them.

The whishlist is a great tool to retrieve infos from users, itā€™s not a vote-for-the-next-feature thing, itā€™s never been. I am the first one to regularly ask about those essential requests, and to document as much as I can the ideas in the wishlists or the posts in the forum. Iā€™m okay with that. But being so adamant that you deserve it, that youā€™re entitled to it, and using that toneā€¦ Thatā€™s why I react like this. I canā€™t let that pass sorry.

9 Likes

While I donā€™t agree with the OPā€™s writing style, the bewilderment conveyed of seeing cumulative years of delay pile up on popular wishlist items is understandable

If the wishlist is just a placebo for Webflow dev progress then thatā€™s new to me. If that is the case then I can see it causing some confusion and Iā€™d wager this thread may not exist if not for the wishlist giving the impression of progress milestones / production queue.

Though, now that we know the wishlist is useless, and a roadmap might mean broken promises, then perhaps a monthly dev updates where Webflow keeps it real with pro users by keeping it tentative might help?

4 Likes

I donā€™t understand why the OP is asking for improvements on Webflowā€™s development team based on the wishlist. The wishlist is not a coming soon feature, plus there are current workarounds for a lot of the items on that list. Not everything has to be webflow native, and if it does, maybe webflow is not for you.

1 Like

Sure, and I donā€™t think anyone actually thinks thereā€™s an automatic threshold where a feature will be made. But paying customers are being directed to the wishlist to make people vote for requested features. Thatā€™s literally what Webflow uses the wishlist for. And itā€™s really, really weird to have a wishlist with voting if theyā€™re not going to actually fulfill the most sought after wishes, or if they arenā€™t even going to update features theyā€™re actually working on there when itā€™s made for them to do just that.

Itā€™s not surprising that people are finally taking issue with this when comparatively non-important features are being rolled out before 3+ year old requests from literally thousands of users are ignored or put in the backlog. There are so many examples of this now, and people are questioning it.

So can you please stop this ā€œusers donā€™t deserve anythingā€ and ā€œotherā€™s donā€™t do it, so Webflow doesnā€™t have to eitherā€ spiel? If you donā€™t have an issue with it, cool, but I think Webflow is perfectly capable of answering things themselves. We want Webflow to communicate more, and this is obviously an issue people have with Webflow.

7 Likes

Alright, but maybe Webflow should come out of hiding and actually state the meaning of the wishlist then. Or at least say anything. People are obviously taking an issue with the slow updates on feature requests?

2 Likes

No, never. Itā€™s not a game, they are arguments, and I never say anyone deserves nothing. The others donā€™t do it part should make you realize that thereā€™s a reason for it.

Hello @uzzer.

Because for a big number of people, I will say most of its users, it is a NO code tool.

If people laugh at webflow then donā€™t use it. There are countless examples of people using Webflow perfectly well with all its capabilities and all of its limitations. Webflow is not for everybody.

2 Likes

Hello @Fonsume,

I see your frustration but think about this, if webflow states the time line for a wishlist entry to be developed, then it becomes a feature request . They donā€™t want to have a feature request. The wishlists allows other people to come up with alternative solutions, look at Weglot or MemberStack.

1 Like