Just about to SIGN UP - very excited new WEBFLOWER here!!!
I’m making it official - I’m a WEBFLOW user from today onward!
I just have one little question regarding the websites I will create. Because WEBFLOW is web based and I don’t ever hold a copy of the SITE here locally, what if WEBFLOW ever CRASHES or loses all the data and I have no ability to have a backup here? I’m entrusting all my Client data (blogging and web info etc) to you guys and once they create their posts online, they won’t hold backups of it at all - it’s all ONLY within WEBFLOW. How can we retrieve that info if you ever have a fatal crash or massive issue that loses all our data? and what guarantees to WEBFLOW provide to my Clients for their information security etc.
I only ask because I heard of a Client who recently lost his entire blog due to a hosting provider losing their entire info and he lost his site with no backup?
I’ll let a staff member reassure you on the above specifics - but suffice to say I thought long and hard about making Webflow ‘home’ - and when you see other on-page design tools rising to prominence and then closing down, it makes your decision even more important.
Having been around the ecosystem for the last 2.5 years, I see a company who want to do things right (and hold their hands up when they don’t) build a quality tool that will last, and grow sustainably (not crash!). They could (mentioning no names) plaster youtube and tv with adverts to become the biggest visual site builder out there, but instead focus on trying to make the best quality one, and make it an independant professional tool.
I also find it reassuring that when I contact support, i’m being advised by experienced fellow web designers/developers who have first hand experience (and currently all of them joined staff from this community)
If you’ve not had a chance, it’s always worth listening to previous Q+As/interviews with co-founder/ceo @callmevlad to get the full picture on where Webflow came from, the challenges ahead, and where they see it going:
And if you’ve got a bit longer, learn about his passion for bananas :
Thanks StuM - appreciate the support and advocacy of WEBFLOW. I have now placed my Clients in the trusted hands of WEBFLOW and am building out my first Client site! yippeeeeee. I know these guys take it seriously. I have listened to a few of Vlad’s videos. He sounds super passionate. I hope they don’t sellout to a huge corporation - As an ex MUSE user, I’m super nervous that WEBFLOW will run an IPO and eventually be bought out by god help us - ADOBE - ahhhhh! Can you imagine.
Just to add, if you are on a Lite plan or above, and want an extra level of backup beyond Webflow’s own - you can export a copy of the site into a zip file to store locally.
Hey there! Webflow CTO here chiming in on our data retention policies and our backup mechanisms. Hopefully this gives you peace of mind that you and your clients’ data with Webflow will be safe.
All of your site’s data lives on databases managed by mlab, which uses Amazon EC2. There are multiple ‘slaves’ which keep copies of your site data on standby servers in the event of hardware failures so the application won’t suffer downtime.
All of the database backups, as well as your site’s assets are stored in Amazon S3. It’s pretty much impossible for S3 to lose data (they tout 99.9999999%), but in the 0.000000001% chance that data does get lost, we replicate all of your site’s assets to another Amazon S3 region also with 99.99999999% uptime.
We also periodically do cold-backups, where we download database backups and store them on hard drives in the event Amazon has a catastrophic failure. (if this were to happen you’d also lose your Netflix/Reddit data too, which is likely worse than losing your Webflow data — just kidding.)
We take security and the prevention of data loss very seriously at Webflow and we do our best to implement the most up-to-date security and IT processes to ensure Webflow data is secured in the most optimal way.
Thanks for responding - I’ve attracted the big guns I see! I’m just a little nervous ONLY because I’m out there ‘selling’ your hosting and need to provide the info to back it up (and as I’m not a technical person, it helps to have a ‘pitch’ that includes it all. I guess my reputation relies on your product and I take that pretty seriously.
Perhaps having a sales tool slide deck or something (a tool for us designers out there in the world) would be a great idea (like Shopify?). Just a thought.
Love all the technical detail you provided about Amazon etc - really helpful!
While I have you here - a really silly question:
I really wanted to know if I accidentally ‘delete’ a project in my dashboard (totally something I might accidentally do?) - is that easy for you guys to get it back for me? I like to look at worst case scenario.
Again, thanks for chiming in - greatly appreciated!
I’ve read some other forum members (on a Pro plan - unlimited sites) actually have a folder for sites to delete - so they drop them in there as an extra 4th stage!
Then after a little while, like a cooling off…when they are 200% sure, they delete!
