I’ve been experimenting with Webflow for quite some time now but I’m strugglling with clients who want a CMS system on their site.
So that’s why I created this topic in order to learn more from other users.
Which CMS do you use for your webflow designed themes. How easy is it to go from Webflow to your CMS.
And what about the design? Does the CMS affect your design in any way?
I have been using Concrete5 but the more i try using it, the more problems I face regarding the design getting affected by the CMS.
I really don’t mind new topics starting because it can lead to new thoughts and insights.
I’ve been around this forum for a while and this is really a hot topic
Some of us also waiting for a solution from Webflow we know they are working hard on.
I also been experimenting with different solutions and it often comes down to what the client needs are. And also what you as a designer/developer are capable of. Many here seems to go with Wordpress and they also using different methods making a WP theme with/from WF code.
Some of the cms I tried and find quite easy to understand is Perch(paid), Pulsecms(paid), Get-simple(open-source). I also like Statamic(paid) but for me the learning curve was little to high. Also look at Cloudcannon and Surreal.
I’ve been hearing some good things about Perch and Pulsecms but the price keeps me from trying it at the moment. I’m using Concrete5 because it allows on page editing (which was a must for a customer a year ago and I got stuck with it). But I do notice that Concrete5 likes to add p-tags in its code and since almost every site I create has a custom p-tag style my design get’s a bit messed up in Concrete 5.
Also Concrete5 is just adding a header code, footer code and then the code to make a certain area editable. So your html is more or less the same except instead of the text between tags you set the editable area code in it, give it a name and edit it on the site.
I can’t say enough good things about Webhook. I enjoy it’s simplicity and speed (it’s a static site generator.) They have a cheap hosting plan @ US $9/mth., which is sufficient for most cases.
Since the exported Webflow code is so clean, it’s just that initial effort of chopping up your consistent partials (headers, footers, content “meat”) and then sprinkling some Swig templating code for the defined content types.
If you change some classes, just copy over your project-name-webflow.css. If you change your layout at all, it’s a little more effort, but still relatively painless.
Webhook looked a bit too complicated for me. Also, I don’t consider $9 a site per month a very affordable solution if we also have to pay for webflow. Cloud Cannon also charges that price and for that reason alone I’m not going to use them.
Well, the way I look at it, is that as a designer/developer/agency/etc. you pay for your tools, such as Creative Cloud, Webflow, etc. as a cost of doing business.
The client, on the other hand, should be paying for hosting. If they can’t afford a small hosting fee per month in order to gain access to CMS or other benefits of the platform, which is what the OP was asking about, then in my opinion, they can stick to DIY solutions and muddle through it.
Are you familiar with Light CMS or Duda? I was going to use one of those platforms but IMO they have high startup and yeay fees for designers. Light charges $499 a year and Duda charges $250. And the hosting is expensive with Duda and starts at $13 a month per site as a reseller. I don’t know how others feel but I think that is too much. Weebly offers similar tools with NO fees for designers. These platforms are making lots of money off of the business we bring them and the yearly fees turn me off.
My workflow requires clean and portable code for integration into external CMS platforms. Webflow is great for this. It produces consistent markup and CSS, and the JavaScript is well thought out and easy to follow. In Webflow, once you get used to work-arounds for creating and using utility classes (a page full of empty <div>'s anyone???), and the hacky workflow to maintain an exemplar site for easy duplication into new projects, it’s a no-brainer for design/wireframing/prototyping/etc., IMO.
I do know of Light CMS and Duda, but I haven’t given them much thought since they are all-in-one platforms and as you pointed out, costly. In my experience, all-in-one platforms are typically (1) overpriced and (2) not as feature rich as you can get with a solution segregating design, coding and CMS, relying on products that excel at each.
Webhook is still my current CMS platform of choice (but I have also integrated into my agency’s legacy CMS.) But I’m sure you are right – it may seem complicated to some since Webhook’s roots are in command-line tools (FYI - they do have a desktop-based app that hides all of that now.)
Fingers-crossed for the Webflow team regarding “cracking the nut” for integrating a CMS with their awesome design product. From what I read, it’s been on the roadmap for a while, so who knows where that stands. Now, If it were up to me, I’d laser focus on the primary design product – putting more engineering effort into widgets, better developer support and open-sourcing the core aspects of the platform, especially the export side. For example, if there was an API for the export process, then anyone could work on writing adapters to pipe/stream the Webflow output to anything.
Cloudcannon includes hosting so one less thing. If you want hosting you have to pay more so you are basically paying $5 for the CMS functionality if you were otherwise going to integrate with webflow.
Yeah I wasn’t thinking. Yes, hosting is included. so, for $42 a month for webflow, plus $9 a site at Cloud Cannon, most likely we are going to be in the hole until we acquire several clients.
I would say Perch or for pure bare bones simplicity “Surreal”. The only problem with surreal and probably other visual editors is that if you have any js animations etc it can be very difficult to edit. I do like cloud cannon but only to show a client a live testing version of their site ( You can do that for free). My big problem with cloud cannon is sometimes when you upload you site it completely breaks it becomes some styles won’t load or it won’t sync etc. At the end of the day, I will always say, Perch. I’m working on my third site with perch and once you get a hang of it the results are almost limitless. Plus the backend looks great and professional. Just my 2cents I’m also more than will to help anyone wrap their brains around perch.
I’m playing around with Pinegrow WordPress builder at the moment. Creating a website in Webflow and importing in Pinegrow and converting to a theme is very easy. Well atleast to display it on WordPress but I’m having difficulties making it editable and dynamic, I’ve never worked with WP before so perhaps someone who knows WP can get it to work but so far not me.
Has anyone had any luck with CloudCannon agency pricing? I would obviously need it for multiple sites for clients, but $9 per month per website seems a bit high, at least compared to other CMS companies like SurrealCMS.
I’m glad someone else thinks Cloud Cannon is overly priced. I tried Surreal and it’s much more fair in pricing (although PageLime is even cheaper). Surreal is pretty good but I had some issues that I couldn’t get ironed out. However, it may come easier for others. I’m not that advanced with stuff like that. I favor things that are dead simple to use so I can focus on my business and not waste time on issues that come up.
