Is Webflow right for me? Looking for your opinion

Hello!
So I came across Webflow just recently and it certainly caught my interest. However, before I jump into it, I need your take on if Webflow is suitable for me. I’m a beginner into design and development, I’m eager to pursue it, especially on the design side of things. Ideally I’d like to work in this area as a freelancer or for an agency eventually.

A couple months ago I decided to try learning online courses from a programme called Teamtreehouse, going through a front-end development learning track. It was a bit over my head, but I can at least say that I got a grasp of the basics to HTML, CSS and familiar with how JS at least looks like… Currently, I was just about to start a Wordpress Development course followed by basic web design course to top it off. Now that I came across Webflow, I’m reconsidering what I should be focusing my time on.

Additionally, awhile ago I had created a site in Weebly (I know not a great idea) for a family member who runs a cleaning business. Her site is OK and I’ve managed to get her good search rankings in Google. Now, I’m feeling that Weebly is quite limited and I’d like to improve it with much better design, other features, maybe move it over to Wordpress or perhaps Webflow.

So my questions in a nutshell are:

  1. Is Webflow suitable for me as a beginner?
  2. Should I focus my time on learning Wordpress In-depth or focus on Webflow?
  3. Should I move a business site from Weebly to Webflow and have it fully hosted?
  4. I don’t know photoshop well, should I know this well before I use Webflow? Any alternatives to learning it if so?

Looking forward to your help :slight_smile:

Welcome.

  1. Big yes. Not easy like WIX (Webflow use flex-grid, clean code and other edge ideas of building sites), But the UI is very intuitive . Not need to be frond-end expert (by the way - “web design track” is for beginners on treehouse).
    The best way is start free account (than create or/and play with templates) + follow this channel: Free web design courses and tutorials | Webflow University

  2. No answer. WP is PHP - if you love PHP and to code - why not. Its not WP or Webflow. If you only design (drag-and-drop) with some builder (avada, X and so on) - i think webflow in long term will give you better results and control with faster learning curve (But if you ask the Q on WP forum the answer will be WP).

  3. Again :slight_smile: depend. I think if you learn webflow (+ amazing CMS) - it should be easy to convert your old site to webflow. But This is very general Q.

  4. No. Photoshop is great tool for web design & UI (or sketch) - if you not a Designer - use GIMP or minimal software for Crop images. color fix. and so on. Anyway you dont need PS for webflow or any other site-builder/CMS. t
    On webflow its very easy to design with webflow-editor (without extra-step of -
    Photoshop) - read her about some benefits:
    Web Designing in the Browser vs Photoshop: What the Future Holds

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You do not need any knowlede of coding to build a site just like you want it in Webflow. That said, you need to understand how to structure the elements like you would do in coding, you just don’t have to write the actual code. There is some limitations, and I think the wishlist is a good summary of this.

Wordpress is great, but in my opinion the technical parts of building a site in Wordpress takes up too much time. Time that in Webflow can be used to make better content. Sure, Webflow is a closed environment, but for me, it’s great that Webflow can handle all the technical stuff (and does it great) and let me focus on building content. That’s the point of a website today anyway.

At some point you have to decide if your going to become a code developer or a designer/content developer. It’s hard to be skilled at both. In my opinion Wordpress is a relic from the past that is going to disappear (or evolve) as tools like Webflow (and others) is getting better and more known.

I’m a designer with very little knowledge of coding, except some “copy-past-coding” and I can build a site in Webflow with all the features the client need, looking exactly as I want it without having to make tons of compromises like you often do with a template system like Squarespace, Wix and others. Template systems is great if you have no knowledge of coding AND design.

Use Photoshop to edit images. Use Sketch or Illustrator to design a website. When you get more skilled its acually easier to do the design directly in Webflow. This way you can test responsiveness as you design and build the site.

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Hellow and a big welcome to Webflow community, my thoughts and opinoins are:

1. BIG YES!
I would agree with the previous comment. The learning curve is not that intuitive for a complete beginner with no fundemental knowledge of HTML and CSS. Your natural intuition, and what was mine when I very first tried Webflow, was to add items and to drag them them around, but that is not how Webflow works at all.

Having said that, Webflow is by far the best adn easiest way to visually learn HTML and CSS. If you are combining webflow with free resources from YouTube or the Webflow university, you can quickly learn how to use Webflow, as well as HTML and CSS, because the code Webflow produces is beautiful!

2. Dependas on your goals
If you want to be a Wordpress developer, i.e. a PHP developer as the previous poster correctly pointed out, then concentrate on Wordpress. There are many agencies out there that specialise in this and there are many businesse out there that need Wordpress developers.

However, if you actually want to become a front-end developer, then you should concentrate on Webflow, because it will teach you web fundementals such as HTML and CSS and the relationship between these. It’s also a good platform to begin JavaScript as again, you have a visual platform to see your code working.

3. Not untill you are completely comfrotbale with Webflow
This is a business website. There are consequences if you migrate this incorrectly. Learn Webflow first and then when you are confident, you can rebuild the site with Webflow and make the switch.

4. It’s not necessary
There’s no need to learn Photoshop to be good in Webflow. However, for an advanced workflow in terms of designing websites, all things being equal, its quicker to design and mockup website designs in Photoshop or Adobe XD or any wireframe/prototyping tool than it is in Webflow, becuase of the drag and drop nature of these programs. You can then use these designs to build sites extremely quickly in Webflow.

The above is how developed and built my first site in Webflow. I did many designs in Adobe Xd, eventually learning and building my very first site in Webflow in 8 months.

You can see what I built by following the link below. This took over 8 months in total to build and develop the skills necessary to build this site inside Webflow, but goes to show what is possible. I watched YouTube videos on coding and Webflow tutorials, as well as messing around building sites in Webflow 3-4x a week over that period.

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You have the best answer for this question. I am a graphic designer but don’t know any coding. I use Shopify and their template setup because I can’t find anything that allows you to build a website without code. Webflow is exactly what I need but I don’t know how to integrate web flow with a payment system to take payments. I have a web site where I sell my product and since I am my own graphic designer, I have pushed Shopify templates to the limit. I also know a little bit of animation too. There are a lot of questions unanswered about Webflow like who hosts the web site, how much does it cost, how do you integrate a payment system like PayPal, how do you add complex stuff like recently viewed products and product reviews from customers without code, how would you make a contact form or mail chimp form in this thing, and similar stuff thats already built in shopify. I can’t see a use for web flow apart from just making a visually impressive home page. It has no other use outside of that because beyond that, you have to pull out code to do anything else.

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Sites are backed up on Amazon Web Servers and served through the Fastly.com CDN . More info on this from our CTO’s blog post: What to look for in a web hosting service | Webflow Blog

All pricing information can be found here: Plans & pricing | Webflow

If you’re looking to add a PayPal button, just add it as an embed:

If you’re looking for a shopping cart solution that connects with your PayPal account @foxy Webflow | Foxy.io might be able to help you out.

You can’t do this in Webflow at this time but we are thinking about supporting features like this in the future.

You can make a custom form in Webflow and have Webflow save that form submitted data for you or you can send that data to your MailChimp account. Here are two articles that helps explains this:

At first glance, Webflow might just seem like a tool that you’re only able to build flashy marketing pages with, but it can go way beyond that.

Here is a webapp built by @SidneyOttelohe and hosted by Webflow:

The Webflow template marketplace was also built on Webflow:

There are also a couple of sites I’ve seen that are used as a Real Estate listing site and connects with IDX.

But I’m curious, what type of site are you looking to build? Maybe I could help you with more honest answers to see if Webflow is the tool that can help you with that project.

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@PixelGeek Thank you for the mention! :wink:

@pkaiken Please let us know if we can help with anything.

Thanks,
Josh

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waiting for ;
MULTI LANGUAGE SUPPORT,
ECOMMERCE
to completely finish using other platforms.

SO YES, You should use webflow for other projects. It is awesome mostly. I’m going to upgrade my plan but like I said I need a one last push (Multi language for starters)

Also waiting for Turkey support for Client Billing.

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OH-YEAH

Also, and that becomes to be urgent, INTERNATIONAL FORMAT for time and translatable days and months. The time format used by Webflow is the one that’s the less used in the whole world. All my projects have to resort to JS to format dates, and that’s quite dirty. The AM/PM system make longer times so it often break in the designer.

http://vincent.polenordstudio.fr/snap/3vtie.jpg

And being able to fully translate the Editor, for clients.

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Hi @MATTR

I came across Webflow about 2 years ago. Before that, I didn’t have any knowledge about coding, or anything that has to do with building a website. I did try out Wordpress once, thinking that would be a good way to learn how to build a website. But to be honest, I felt Wordpress was way too complicated… it wasn’t intuitive enough for me. But when I found Webflow, I kind of felt like playing around is something familiar…I know a little Photoshop from before, and it reminded me of Photoshop. Then I looked at Webflow’s ‘How to make a blog in 30 min’, followed their tutorial…and then I started to make my own projects. After 2 project of my own (just to play around and to get some practice) I got my first client. It all works as a charm.
Also…if you need help, Webflow got a GREAt team to help you out, and not to forget all the people here on the Forum… they are all so helpful if you get stuck on anything. There are always someone who will help you out.
Webflow is a great way to learn and to get creative. And if you need some coding…You’ll learn from these guys. They are amazing!
Would not trade Webflow for anything else in the world. Even ecommerce is doable on Webflow, even if you don’t have a clue on how to do it in the first place. With Webflow and some help from Foxycart (@foxy) , you’re good to go before you know it.
Look through Webflow’s tutorials and courses… best way to start. I bet you’ll get hooked on Webflow too.

Good luck!
Cheers,
Sven-Erik

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Thanks @Sven_Erik_Slattedale

@MATTR We’re here to help if you need anything at all.

Josh

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actually, I do not understand why this language support wasn’t available at the launch of the webflow. Obviously, there were difficulties at the time but now it is one of the major part of every CMS and there isnt even mention of this as a feature because nobody imagine a system without it.

in my first post, I forgot the mention why I love WEBFLOW other than super easy designing of cool website.

IF you do not know how to design website back/or front end, webflow is really a university. I should say that I had some knowledge of coding(I’m a low level computer engineer :frowning: ) I tried to learn web developing for a time. with no luck. After several months of webflow, everything is now making sense.

If I were in some position to teach people, this place will definitely be the place to start. After you make sense of webflow, there is not much left to learn.

That is why I love here.

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If you talk about multilanguage, it’s not that easy. And it’s not natively magically supported by major CMSs. For Wordpress you’ll still rely on plugins like WPML, that you pay and are far from offering a simple workflow.

It’s complicated and making it good in a visual designer / editor like Webflow must not be easy.

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This is very complicated to solve (On WP you dont edit the site inline) - Only by plugin “builder” you can drag-&-drop elements to the page - so you need endless time to go back to the dashboard - translate - than go to the page (ping-pong). See example her. This is work better from webflow for big-sites (Beacuse the view and data are seperated - but again not so easy - in small site with a lot of single-pages

Single-pages:: Homepage, about, services, you need anyway to translate one time (manually - not so complicated task). Collections - I belive in the future WEBFLOW will support multi-language for CMS items (So it will be easy to manage 100 posts of blog and so on). Example:
https://wishlist.webflow.com/ideas/WEBFLOW-I-58

Also if you could copy-paste items on webflow - it could be easy to translate site (when you change the design in EN than want the same idea on ES). Cross site copy/paste | Webflow Wishlist

I am not sure how you would define magically but CraftCMS and Statamic does multilingual without headache. I agree WP is bad for multilingual but newer CMSs have a much better implementation

That’s very good to hear :slight_smile:

Personnaly, so far I have never worked with a multilanguage system that’s easy and well integrated. WPML and popular modules for Drupal are fine as long as all your nodes are translated. But down the road, there are always the following situations happening, and dealing with them is tedious:

  • one node exist only for certain langages
  • one node only exist for languages that aren’t the default
  • clicking on a language flag or link doesn’t always keep you on the current node
  • some nodes need to have a different content depending on the language
  • different nodes need to be considered as one multilingual node (an article for en and an event for fr, for example)
  • being able to have published, unpublished, drafted nodes for all languages at the same time
  • having different dates of publish and expiration for different versions of one node
  • being able to schedule posts with a precise date AND time (addressing timezones)
  • dealing with in-sync localized post and others with the sync broken (in WPML you see one node as long as the content stays the same, edit the content in one of the localized posts and the node is splitted into many posts
  • having dates and time format set for each language

etc. the list is long, localization is a wide topic and it’s not only about translation

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I think all this is doable in Craft and Statamic. WPML is awful. I use multisite for multilingual in WP. That gives me complete control but its a lot of work compared to for example Craft.

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Thanks for the help. I’m going through all the tutorials on the “University” section each day. I am so ready to learn how to make my own custom web site. I’ve wanted to do this for decades but could never find a way to do this without code. I plan to make a web site with a lot of training manuals that have interactive elements.

Instead of paying 10s of $10,000s on a small team to build this from scratch, I can use my own skills and Webflow to build this now.

I will be purchasing the full Webflow and then the Foxy plugin when I actually build my web site.

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Hey @pkaiken.
That’s great news! Keep in mind the Foxy is 100% free while you’re building and testing your store. Let us know if we can jump in and help with anything.

Thanks,
Josh