Great question! 
It is a hard one to answer because it depends. You can create an adaptive design, you can also create a responsive design.
If you only use pixels for your settings then you will have an adaptive site. You will have to make the pixel adjustment so the size adapts to the media queries that are provided by Webflow. This approach won’t take into account other screen sizes not specifically targeted by the media query itself.
If you use relative units like percentages then you will have a responsive design and you will use the different media queries to make adjustment to the layout. The difference being that within those media query ranges the design adjust to all screen widths.
The container can make things look adaptive even though they are responsive. Here is an example The top row is a div with a max-width of 1280px it has 3 columns that are 33.33% the width of the div. The second row has a container with the same 3 columns. The container has a max-width of 940px. If you resize the browser you will see the top row columns respond because the 1280px max-width div is shrinking. The container doesn’t have to move because it is 940px and because the next media query begins at 991px, you will never see it adjust like the 1280px div.
hope this helps