Multi language any day soon?

Would it be possible to have an update from Webflow on when this feature can be expected ?

There are forum post asking for this since 2013… it’s been one of the main requested features on the Webflow Wishlist for 2.5 years (basically since the wishlist exists…). And its status has remained as “planned” for all that time…

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Hi @Pasint this was discussed in the last live Webflow Q&A with Vlad (the CEO), see here (starting at 19:28):

tldw: “We can’t say”.

@dram true but they do seem to be actively working on it, not just “in our to-do list”

Well, Vlad clearly dodged the question here…

It’s very frustrating that core functionalities like that take so much time to go out. It’s clear this is a big piece of work, but after 2.5 years (6 years if you consider the first forum requests), an answer like that is very unprofessional.

Webflow is a fantastic tool, I loved it from day one. But it’s also not that cheap and getting customers onboard at a premium price isn’t easy (and lowers our margin). Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind that premium because hosting is fantastic, CMS is super easy for customers, Designer is awesome, etc. But telling customers that at a premium price they can’t have core functionalities available elsewhere since 1999 - all while not being able to give an ETA as to when they arrive - is just a massive joke.

This lack of pace and transparency on futur releases is by far my biggest disappointment with Webflow…

@Pasint totally understand your frustration here. Webflow shared this with me before, maybe it will help you also:

I’m working on implementing it on a couple sites… Not nearly as easy as a built-in solution obviously, but it does seem to be a good workaround for now. Hope that helps.

Yes, I’ve seen that @asksj. But it’s not that easy to implement and is not really smooth to use. Multilanguage really needs to be a core feature.

And that kinda defeats Webflow’s “no code design” :crazy_face:

For the moment I’m still doing 1 page or 1 collection per language, but it’s really a drag and for big sites, it gets you very quickly to the page amount limit…

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I love my Camaro, it’s fast, handles well, looks cool, has room for groceries and more. Not good at hauling lumber back from the lumberyard. For lumber I use my truck.

If I client needs a full fledged multi-language site, that is not a hack, I use other tools to solve the problem. When this is a native feature, I won’t have to ask the client, “before we get started, do you need multi-language support on your site, now or in the near future?”. Their answer could rule Webflow in or out quickly for me. My clients want good SEO, so an add on does not cut it.

Just my opinion.

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I know, I know, and of course it’s like that. I only have a handful of my websites on Webflow because of that reason. And I’ve not mentioned ecommerce not having a login functionality…

I might have vented a bit here. But I guess I find the platform so good that I get quite frustrated not to be able to do more on it and still be stuck with other tools not as good. Especially for that kind of basic stuff…

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Well, I think if you account for the developer hours in (name an open source project) to implement multi-lingual correctly you might be astounded. I built it into a custom CMS once. Lots of fun!

Webflow will get there! Thanks for sharing your feedback! Don’t forget to Vote with your mouse.
https://wishlist.webflow.com/ideas/WEBFLOW-I-58

The only thing stopping me from purchasing webflow hosting right now is the lack of multi-language support. The clients I work with have a wide range of native languages, and having simple mutli-language support is essential for my business. Crossing my fingers for it coming out in the next month or so by some magical chance before I have to renew my hosting contract, so I can migrate everything over.

Hey there! I’m assuming you’ve already looked into something like https://localizejs.com?

@webdev by basic I don’t mean in terms of development, I mean in terms of standard feature. I worked years for big online businesses, I know dev is never really basic when it comes to large platforms. But from a business requirements point of view, this feature is basic stuff…

@adiggy yes, but it’s a VERY expensive add on… basically paying double the hosting price to add multi language makes little economic sense.

Considering the cost of creating localized content, which it does for you, and is SEO friendly, I would call that cheap. Just saying.

We’ve been using Webflow for some time now and had no problems at all to create our two language website - using the Webflow CMS for most of the content: for example there are simply two CMS records for a product, one in English, one in German.
https://www.adoptsmt.com

Hey @NorbertWeiss
In using the CMS for managing your language versions, do you create page templates for each page in order to be able to use the copy in your CMS?

this is very similar to not saying anything.

Hey @erikmeylemans
I’m not really sure what’s meant by the approach you describe, but: here is how we do it:
Example CMS table: Products, shown here: https://www.adoptsmt.com/#SectionProductsServices

  • One CMS table, here ‘products’

  • ‘products’ has a language property, “English” and “German”

  • So we have two records for a ‘product’, one record in English, one in German.

  • one template page for ‘products’

  • For textual items in the ‘products’ template page (e.g. titles, forms), two versions exist, one for English and one for German. Their visibility is set using the ‘language’ property of the CMS record

  • On the main page, where the collections of CMS items are shown, the items are also filtered by language: English only on the English main page, German only on the German main page.