I don’t understand this limitation?? It’s also super annoying to only find out about it if I click ‘limit items’ and to not have it displayed on the nested collection list in the default state – I’ve just spent the last few hours building a nested collection list layout, then been frustratedly trying to figure out why half the items in one list weren’t showing and only found this out by chance when I clicked limit items. And now I’m going back to the drawing board on how to structure these lists. Honestly, if you’re going to limit things to 5 items, why even give people the ability to use that data structure at all?!
I can’t speak for Webflow, but the reason for collection list limits and nested item limits is likely performance and page-delivery costs. 100 items x 5 nested = 500 items that have to be delivered into the page dynamically and that can equal a ton of HTML.
That said, a lot of people have use cases where this limitation just doesn’t work, and that’s why there are solutions like Finsweet’s CMS Nest.
@Webflow needs to address this now, as the 5-item limitation has existed for ages despite numerous lauded performance enhancements. I can see very few instances where five would be sufficient, especially when working with multi-image uploads.
I’m fairly certain that you can exceed those limits ( essentially all limits ) on the Enterprise plans, so chat to Webflow if you want to go that route. Otherwise, 5 nested items is the limit we have at Business plan and below.
For what you’re describing, the best approach is to plan your UX around the limits. For example suppose you have a collection of Countries, with a multiref to major Cities.
On your main directory page, you can list all Countries, and nest the first 5 Cities of each. Add a “click to see all” link to the Country’s collection page. There, you don’t need to nest, so you show all of the cities.
Most of the time, this is the best approach anyway, to keep the UX lightweight and usable. When there are exceptions custom code can fix pretty much anything.
Depending on the country you’re in, the power plug on your wall is limited to 110V - 120V. Someone decided that. That limit could be increased, but service costs would rise with it.
Same here. 100 collection items per list page = arbitrary. 5 nested items = arbitrary. 20 lists per page = arbitrary. If you max those out, that page hits 2,500 database records every time you request it.
Pretty quickly you’re at the point where you should be using a more dynamic api fetch() solution anyway.
From my view, it’s not those limits that are the problem, because those limits must be set somewhere. What I find more frustrating is that Webflow doesn’t have mechanisms to support devs who need to exceed those arbitrary limits.
Ideally there should be a client-side JS-API that supports set queries and graphQL, so that the CMS isn’t so limited as a data source.
Webflow has always straddled the line between platform capability and low-cost hosting, so it’s a tricky line for them. But 90% of my work ends up being about how to break those barriers for clients.
