I’m new to Webflow and just started a new account. I’m hoping to create a simple membership website.
I read that in case I value security I should probably go with the native Webflow options as the addons also described here usually use javascript for their paywalls and can be circumvented by people who have the knowledge to do so.
If I understand correctly, the native Webflow option is now also no longer possible (or will be ended pretty soon). If that is indeed the case, then I feel quite dissapointed. On the other hand, I also feel quite lucky I didn’t start building within the Webflow ecosystem in the first place.
Guess I will look further, would be interested in any suggestions.
Hi, @Victor_Philip, Prior to Webflow launching User Accounts (memberships) and then just announcing they’re pulling the plug less than 2 years later… I used Memberstack to handle the subscription side of things and Weblfow for the site build. It worked (and still works) perfectly.
If Webflow will work for you, and you don’t mind paying for Webflow hosting AND Memberstack fees, it will be perfect.
Most people are moaning (me included) only because we’ve built client sites using the relatively new Webflow ‘User Accounts’ and expected the functionality to improve, not get binned entirely. The end result is our clients are rightly well p***off, and us devs are left trying to lessen the blow and smooth the waters. (which will cost us time/money to put right). Cheers @webflow
Hey Webflow, since you have increased the pricing and decreased the features, it would be highly appreciated if you could at least give us more than 2 workspace guests. This would actually be a helpful update!
I’d like to carify – because I feel that I’m missing something. I design a site for a client. I add a hosting plan… Up until now, that client had, as part of their hosting, editing access for:
three users when on a CMS plan, and
10 users when on a Business plan.
Some of my clients found this a bit of a limitation, but becaus they are charities or small businesses they worked around it, rather than spending $72/year each to add more people.
Now, from next year, when I hand over a site with a CMS or Business plan it seems to me that no editing access is included at that same price???
I see something about a “limited seat” costing $15 a month (which is 150% more expensive per seat compared to currently adding and editor on top of site plan allowanes). If site plans didn’t have any editing access included any more, there would be:
$45/month (3 editors) on top of CMS hosting to achieve the same number of editors (would equate to 195% price increase), or
$150/month (10 editors) on top of Business hosting (equates to 385% price increase)
…in order to just arrive at the same as what’s been included in hosting so far. Am I missing something here? That would be an anourmous differnce in cost, like $276 a year for a CMS site with 3 editors now, and $816 in future. For Business sites you’d be looking at $2,268 per year compared to $468 now if you had 10 editors. Surely, that can’t be the case?
Talk about bad timing. After years of waiting on the side-lines while it was in beta, I finally had the perfect use-case for User Accounts, only to read the latest announcement when 75% of the way through the project
From my understanding, Webflow’s User Accounts uses server-side authentication to determine whether gated content is served to the broswer, whereas 3rd party alternatives do not. Am I mistaken? Perhaps a proxy setup is needed?
Authentication takes place server-side with Memberstack - what you’re thinking of is how content is gated.
By default, Memberstack gates content client-side, because Webflow doesn’t give us access to control what goes on server-side. That being said, the standard content gating (ex. gating the user dashboard, gating the ‘profile’ button so it only shows to users, etc) should be perfectly fine to happen client side. Of course, you’re not worried that some bad actor will get access to a button which says ‘profile’ on it.
So, that leaves us with the business-critical stuff. If you’re selling an e-book for example, your entire business relies on people NOT being able to access that e-book unless they pay for it.
For stuff like this, critical links, or anything like that - Memberstack has a feature called hosted content. This is 100% secure server side gating which means the content will not go anywhere near the end-user’s computer until Memberstack verifies they are logged in.
So, if you don’t properly gate things, you could have issues, but if you use the correct types of gating for the correct parts of your website, all will be secure.
Memberstack’s Hosted Content is an interesting approach that hadn’t come to mind.
I co-found a digital asset manager app that can serve access restricted JS/CSS/HTML files via custom URLs or API. Utilizing Memberstack for authentication and subscriptions, with my DAM serving the content sounds appealing.
I’ll give this some more though and reach out privately with any Memberstack questions.
Totally agree… you make many great points. Another (smaller) example of this is the lack of a dynamically updating navigation element. This is something nearly every other CMS or web design platform has. Most clients don’t want t learn how to go into the Designer to manually add a new page to the navigation every time they create a new page; and most won’t remember! And while this might be relatively minor issue, it’s an example of how the focus on large corporate clients (how many times are we going ot hear about the Orange Theory case study!) with in-house WebFlow designers rather than Agencies/Freelancer needs.
Note how when they announced the “Builder” role they were very careful to use “Landing Pages” as the wording/example of what could be built… because it’s not a fully baked Builder like other platforms.
Perhaps a proxy setup is needed?