Webflow Regular or Webflow CMS?

UI designer here. If I had a portfolio / domain from another site (Semplice) but I want to redesign it on Webflow, would regular free Webflow cut it? Or would I need to pay for Webflow CMS?

You need to determine which features you need. I can’t tell you that.

That’s not helpful.

It’s for a portfolio that will contain various client projects. I’ll need to be able to update it as I complete new projects in the future.

If you want to use a CMS collection then you need CMS hosting. You can build up to 100 pages (static) on a basic plan. Spend some time in the University and it will help you understand the features that exist and then you can choose.

Can I dynamically update pages in the static plan? Again, it’s a pretty straightforward concept…portfolio for client projects. Would I need the CMS for that?

What do you mean by dynamically? If you mean via the API then CMS only. If you just mean with the designer / editor then anything can be edited.

I mean create repeatable collections/lists of information that I can change or duplicate without having to manually do it from page to page.

There is a page in the Webflow University that I recommend you review if you haven’t.
It should help you resolve your issue.

What your describing is associated with a CMS, however since you’re not handing this off to a client you won’t have as much need to edit things from the front-end like they would. You have access to the designer, which gives you way more editing ability than the CMS could.

If you end up wanting to streamline adding projects, or start posting content within a blog, then you may want to look into the CMS plan. Again, you can add all of these pages as static pages, but you’ll only have a finite amount as @webdev mentioned and trying to manage all of that content without CMS features would be a pain.