Why Webflow is BETTER than Wordpress for freelancing

Are you looking to make the leap into the world of freelance web design? Here's my rundown of why I think Webflow is the better all-around tool of choice for starting a web design business.

Having switched from WordPress to Webflow four years ago, I found that Webflow was finally a tool that made sense for me. It's a tool to run those smaller projects with limited friction, improving your skills, preserving your sanity and guaranteeing your client's satisfaction.

It's worth noting that I'm not saying Webflow is a better solution for everyone. For developers deeply embedded in the WordPress ecosystem, it's probably more flexible and scalable than Webflow. However, if, like me, you're not a natural developer, WordPress can be littered with obstacles and headaches.

The landscape

To better understand the products, it's important to begin with their history and current position in the web development landscape. WordPress has been a major player since the 2000s with its free-to-use and open-source CMS that has been dominating the online scene for decades. In 2024, WordPress is currently used by over 810 million websites, which accounts for 43% of all websites on the internet. On the other hand, Webflow was created in 2013 and is currently used on only 0.7% of all websites (statistics provided by wpzoom).

Read on to see why I think Webflow has the potential to become a giant killer when it comes to freelance web design.

Set up, management, hosting and security

As a business owner, it's crucial to be time-efficient. In WordPress, setting up a project can be a daunting task. Everything falls on your shoulders, from organising hosting and installation to managing plugins and implementing website security. On the other hand, Webflow makes the process a lot easier. With just one click, you can create a new project and let Webflow handle the rest. They provide fast hosting, manage website security, and keep everything up-to-date.

The stand-out benefit of Wordpress over Webflow is pricing. Controlling everything manually in WordPress allows you to pass on the cost of hosting and management to the client, which can be an extra source of revenue for your business. In contrast, Webflow hosting can be expensive, so many freelancers transfer the project to their clients' Webflow accounts, allowing them to add on the hosting package themselves. Ultimately, it comes down to personal preference - whether you prioritise the simplicity of Webflow or charging for hosting. For me, simplicity wins every time. If I can have all my clients websites running without them needing to contact me for help, I'm always going to take that option over making a bit of extra cash from hosting.
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Painful plugins and ugly updates

There are certain features that are now so common place on modern websites that it would almost be a surprise not to see them. To my amazement, the most fundamental features, such as contact forms or pop-up models, although now standard, still require additional plugins to function in WordPress.

Setting up plugins is pretty simple but can still be painful. One of the main issues with them is the constant need for updates. As plugins are community-made on an open-source platform, they often require updating and could break frequently. This means that you have to manage them regularly. Suppose you leave a client's website for around a year without updating the plugins. In that case, it can be risky to come back and run updates because it can break the entire site or make it impossible to change.

In contrast, Webflow doesn't rely on external plugins for simple website functionality. Therefore, you don't have to worry about updates and can be confident that nothing on your website will suddenly stop working. The infrastructure of Webflow is designed to be robust and prevent breakdowns.
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Wait! Isn’t Webflow harder to learn?

You might have heard online that Webflow is hard to learn, but I disagree. I think when people say that, they actually mean that web development is hard to learn, and they're blaming it on Webflow.

The Webflow user interface is modern, sleek, and easy to understand. However, without a basic understanding of how a website is built, you can easily struggle with making Webflow perform the tasks you want it to do. Before diving into Webflow, it is crucial to have a thorough understanding of HTML and CSS fundamentals. Knowing how HTML is structured and how CSS properties should be used appropriately is essential to making Webflow an easy-to-learn tool. Once you have a solid grasp of the basics, you can leverage Webflow to the fullest. It was designed as a visual website builder tool, providing a canvas to help you visually code websites. It eliminates the barriers to learning the intricacies of coding and unleashes your creativity.

WordPress, on the other hand, is template-based. To build or customise the base templates, you must be a proficient web developer and understand PHP, the primary language in which Wordpress templates are coded. To build a completely custom design, you'd need to have a good grasp of the fundamentals of hand-coding HTML, CSS, PHP and some Javascript.

For that reason, many new Wordpress freelancers choose to use a page-builder tool such as Elementor or Bricks. I've found these tools to be good but limiting. They're more like drag-and-drop builders that can be quite restrictive if you've got specific design elements to build.

While learning Webflow over using a WordPress page builder might be trickier, the additional creative freedom and flexibility you'll get will undoubtedly be a better investment for your business potential.
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Cleaner code and high-performing websites

Clients today are often well-versed in the requirements of optimised websites, and they understand the importance of fast-loading websites. Not only will Google punish you for a slow-loading website, but visitors will also do the same and abandon a website.

Using PageSpeed Insights, the requirement is usually to achieve 90+ for performance, best practices and SEO. This is easily achievable with Webflow; it creates clean code, it's hosted with a CDN (so it's lightning-fast), and all your SEO settings can be controlled without needing a plugin.

Using a WordPress page builder like Elementor can be trickier, especially if you're trying to achieve this for mobile. You'll often have to use specific hosting with a CDN and particular plugins that need to be set up to enhance speed.

As more and more clients become aware of the need for speed in a website, this may be a factor worth considering.

Exceeding client expectations

It can't be overlooked how important it is to keep your clients happy. The Webflow CMS and Editor have always played a big role in helping me exceed client expectations.

I've worked with many clients who have historically had bad experiences with the outdated, clunky and confusing Wordpress interface. It's not set up for those who aren't technical to use it, and I still struggle on the odd occasion I have to return to Wordpress.

The Webflow CMS is fully customisable; you create your own collections and choose which items you'd like to be in that collection. For example, you might make an 'Our team' collection for employees at a company, and the collection items might be 'Name, Job title, Department, Headshot and Bio'. Customising these to your client's requirements couldn't be easier. If they're populating the content, you can add help text to each collection item to explain what they need to add.

As a Webflow developer, you work in an area of Webflow called 'The Designer'; your clients get their own area to work in called 'The Editor'; this is a much simpler, scaled-back area which focuses simply on updating content. In the editor, clients can make live text updates, swap out images, change links, update SEO settings, and manage all the CMS content. This mostly gives clients everything they require, and the simplicity, compared to clunkier tools like WordPress, always gives them so much satisfaction.
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An exciting future

To wrap this up, I hope I haven't upset any WordPress fans; I've just been talking about my own experiences with the platform and didn't mean to cause any offence.

As a takeaway, Webflow and its community are set up to help you improve and continuously learn. Your next project will always be better than your previous one, and as the platform evolves, you will. If that's something that excites you, then go with Webflow.

If you’ve got any questions about learning Webflow, I’d be happy to help. My email is matt@eightpixel.co.uk and I’m also going to be updating my website eightpixel.co.uk with useful Webflow development content in the near future.