WordPress vs Webflow 2025: Why Modern Brands Are Making the Switch

What is WordPress

WordPress is a long-standing pillar in the history of website development, founded in 2003 by bloggers Mike Little and Matt Mullenweg. As an open-source platform, its source code is freely accessible, meaning anyone can view, modify, and distribute it. That doesn’t mean it’s entirely cost-free, but WordPress’s open-source nature significantly reduces upfront costs. Most expenses come from the plugins and services needed to build, maintain, and secure your site.

In its early days, WordPress was embraced by individuals and small businesses who needed a website but didn’t know how to code. Back then, there weren’t many alternatives. Its affordability and flexibility helped it grow into the most well-known CMS in the world.

Even today, WordPress powers 40% of all websites on the internet. But just because it’s the most used doesn’t mean it’s the best. It's the oldest — and in a fast-moving digital world filled with modern, specialized tools, WordPress is beginning to fall short in many areas, as we’ll explore throughout this

The Difference Between WordPress.org and WordPress.com

There’s a fundamental difference between WordPress.org and WordPress.com that’s often misunderstood, especially by businesses comparing platforms like Webflow vs. WordPress.

WordPress.org (Self-Hosted WordPress)

This is the original, open-source software you download and install on your own server. It’s the fully customizable version of WordPress.

With WordPress.org, you have full control over your site and data. You can install any theme or plugin, write custom code, and modify anything. It’s ideal for developers and agencies building fully bespoke web solutions.

That said, you’re also responsible for everything. From purchasing separate hosting (like Hostinger, Bluehost, or Kinsta) to managing updates, backups, and security. While WordPress.org might seem cheap at first, the maintenance and plugin bloat can quickly make it one of the more expensive options.

WordPress.com (Hosted WordPress)

WordPress.com is a commercial platform run by Automattic. It handles hosting, security, and updates for you, so it’s more convenient, especially for beginners.

But that convenience comes with limitations. You’re locked into their infrastructure, and many features like plugin installs and custom themes are only available on high-tier plans. It's often more expensive than expected and lacks the flexibility businesses need in 2025.

For any serious business or design-driven website, especially in comparison with a platform like Webflow, we can only compare it to WordPress.org, not WordPress.com.

What is Webflow

Webflow is a modern platform leading the future of website development into a new paradigm. It’s the first-ever website experience platform where marketers, designers, and developers can come together to build, manage, and optimize digital experiences that truly perform.

Unlike WordPress, you’ll never need to worry about software updates or outdated plugins. Even better, the most popular WordPress features come native to Webflow. And with a growing marketplace of vetted apps, custom logic, and powerful integrations, your ideas aren't limited by templates or tools. You can bring any vision to life. Beautifully, efficiently, and without compromise.

Let’s compare: WordPress vs Webflow

Before we dive into the details, I want to be upfront. I'm a Webflow specialist, and it's my platform of choice. But I didn't start there. Over the years, I’ve worked with WordPress and other platforms, seen their strengths, their pain points, and how they’ve evolved (or haven’t). This isn’t a blind endorsement of Webflow, it’s a grounded comparison based on real experience across both worlds.

If you’re looking for a comparison of any other platform, I made an in-depth guide to help you choose the right website platform for your business.

From 2023 to 2025: The Shift Begins

Back in 2023, I published a comparison between Webflow and WordPress 2023, and even then, the writing was on the wall. WordPress has been the foundation of the internet for the last 20 years, powering over 40% of all websites. It’s a legacy platform. One that grew because, for a long time, it was the only real option. Since that last article, the numbers have started to reflect what many designers and developers already feel: Webflow is catching on. Slowly but surely, the web is waking up to its advantages.

WordPress dropped from 43% global market share to 39.6% — from 34.2 million sites to 30.4 million — a decline of -11%.

Webflow grew from 0.45% global market share to 0.75% — from 375,000 sites to 575,000 — a jump of +52%.

The gap is still wide, but the trajectory is undeniable. Webflow isn’t just a trendy new tool. It’s a serious contender for the future of web development.

Build Speed

WordPress

WordPress has a reputation for being user-friendly, but that idea dates back to the early 2000s. When it was compared to hand-coded websites. In today's landscape, that comparison doesn’t hold up.

Next to modern site builders, WordPress is one of the clunkiest tools out there. You’ll likely find yourself buried in a maze of plugins, each built by different developers, with inconsistent interfaces and functionality. Things rarely feel unified. Conflicts between themes, plugins, and core updates are common, and troubleshooting them can eat up a lot of time.

If you're aiming for a fully custom design in WordPress, you’ll need a PHP developer to build a custom theme, and that takes time and budget. So, for a fairer comparison, let’s talk about visual builders. In my experience, Gutenberg is the best option within WordPress. I recommend it over tools like Elementor or Divi, which tend to produce bloated code, load slowly, and often introduce bugs.

Gutenberg isn’t perfect either. It still feels limited compared to modern platforms, but with the right setup, you can launch a decent site within a couple of weeks.

Webflow

What makes Webflow so much faster is that all the essential features are built in. You don’t need to install or configure anything to get started. That lets you focus on design and content, not setup and maintenance. Add to that a super-efficient visual design system, and you’ll fly by any wordpress build. 

And if you want to push development speed even further, you can use tools like Relume. Allowing you to generate sitemaps, wireframes, and style guides with AI. Tasks that used to take hours, like building out page structures or design systems, can now be done in hours instead of days.

As an ex-WordPress user, I can confidently say you'll cut development time by at least half when using Webflow.

Quick Tip: I use the Client-First naming system on all Webflow projects — it keeps everything organized, scalable, and easy to maintain as your site grows.

Design Freedom and Capabilities

WordPress

Design flexibility in WordPress depends heavily on third-party tools and plugins. If you want to go beyond basic templates and create something truly custom, it often requires stitching together multiple add-ons, each with its own limitations.

For businesses with more advanced design or UX goals, this can quickly turn into a time-consuming process. The only real way to unlock full creative control is by building a custom WordPress theme, but that requires a PHP developer, which is often out of reach for most businesses.

Webflow

Webflow gives you a true blank canvas with full creative control. You're not locked into rigid templates or limited by plugin constraints. What you can build depends only on your vision.

If you need more advanced features, Webflow also supports custom code. It even includes powerful animation capabilities thanks to its integration with GSAP, the industry standard for motion design.

What sets Webflow apart is how it brings design and development together in one platform. It lets ideas move from concept to live website faster, without handoffs, workarounds, or waiting on multiple teams. The result is a responsive, scalable site that not only looks great but performs just as well.

"Using WordPress today is like clinging to a Nokia in the age of the iPhone 16." - Rimbo

‍

‍

‍

Functionality & Performance

WordPress

WordPress has a massive ecosystem of plugins, themes, and extensions that can expand your site's functionality in almost any direction. But with that flexibility comes complexity.

Managing multiple plugins, especially from different developers, often leads to compatibility issues. It’s not always easy to get everything working together smoothly, and as you stack on more add-ons, your site can start to slow down and become harder to maintain.

When it comes to performance, results vary dramatically depending on how your WordPress site is built. Page builders like Elementor and Divi tend to generate bloated code, which can hurt loading speeds and Core Web Vitals scores.

However, with a well-optimized setup — such as using Gutenberg as your editor, LiteSpeed Cache or WP Rocket for caching, ShortPixel for image optimization, and hosting on a platform like Kinsta or Cloudways — you can achieve solid performance. Just make sure you’re using properly sized images, compressing them to WebP or AVIF, and avoiding unnecessary plugins.

In short: WordPress performance is possible, but it requires active effort and technical know-how to get it right.

Webflow

Webflow takes a streamlined approach. Most features you’d typically need plugins for in WordPress are built directly into the platform. This keeps your site faster, cleaner, and much easier to manage.

There’s still room to extend functionality through Webflow’s App Store, but it’s a smaller, curated ecosystem, which means fewer performance risks and less maintenance.

Beyond that, Webflow’s ecosystem is rapidly expanding. Tools like Finsweet supercharge CMS capabilities, enabling advanced filtering, dynamic sorting, and complex content relationships that go well beyond the native feature set. 

Memberstack makes it easy to build secure member areas with gated content, subscription paywalls, and social logins — no custom backend required.

And with automation platforms like Make and Zapier, you can connect Webflow to virtually any app, CRM, or database with an API. Whether you’re syncing leads to a sales pipeline, automating emails, or powering a dynamic product catalog, Webflow fits into your broader digital stack without the complexity.

In short, the possibilities are wide open, from building gated communities to dynamic product catalogs to fully automated lead-gen funnels. You can do almost everything without the need for traditional back-end development.

From a performance standpoint, Webflow is built for speed by default. It generates clean, semantic HTML, CSS, and JavaScript — comparable to what a skilled front-end developer would write by hand. 

Hosting is powered by Amazon Web Services (AWS) and deployed globally through Cloudflare CDN (Content Delivery Network), meaning your site content is automatically cached and served from the closest edge location to your visitor. This setup dramatically reduces load times and latency, ensuring a fast, responsive experience on every device and in every region.

Webflow also includes built-in image compression tools, allowing you to convert files to WebP or AVIF with a single click, reducing file sizes by up to 90% without compromising quality.

Unless you’re building something highly experimental, you can expect strong, consistent performance right out of the box.

Community, Support & Resources

WordPress

While WordPress has been around for decades, I’ve personally found its community support to be a bit hit or miss. When I’ve searched for help. Whether it's tutorials, guides, or answers in forums. It’s often hard to find something clear, up-to-date, or directly relevant. Forums can feel inactive, and I’ve rarely received helpful replies in a reasonable timeframe.

That’s not to say the knowledge isn’t out there. It probably is. But the sheer volume of outdated content and conflicting answers makes it frustrating to navigate. For someone who just wants to move forward with a build, it often feels like you’re digging for needles in a haystack.

Webflow

Webflow, on the other hand, has built a community and learning ecosystem that feels tight, active, and genuinely helpful. Webflow University is one of the best free learning platforms I’ve used, full of well-produced, up-to-date tutorials that actually make the platform easier to master.

The Webflow Forum, Slack groups, and even their presence on platforms like Twitter and Reddit feel responsive and friendly. Every time I’ve posted a question or run into a wall, I’ve had answers within minutes. The community seems to care deeply about quality, creativity, and helping others build better, and that really shows.

SEO tools

WordPress

WordPress has long been seen as SEO-friendly, largely thanks to its wide selection of plugins. Tools like Yoast and Rank Math make it easier to manage meta data, generate sitemaps, and optimize content for search engines. But relying on third-party plugins to handle essential SEO tasks can quickly make the backend feel bloated. As the number of add-ons grows, performance can suffer, and ironically, that can hurt the very SEO you're trying to improve.

Webflow

Webflow takes a more focused approach to SEO. Key tools like meta tag editing, alt text, clean semantic markup, and automatic sitemap generation are all built in from the start — no plugins required. This keeps the backend lightweight and efficient, which contributes to faster page speeds and better search performance. On top of that, Webflow’s integrated hosting is optimized for speed, reliability, and security, giving you a solid foundation for climbing the rankings.

If your new to SEO but want to have a better understanfing of it check out my SEO beginners guide.

‍

‍

Localisation

WordPress

Localising a WordPress site is possible, but often requires stitching together third-party tools. One of the most popular options is TranslatePress, which allows you to translate full pages, forms, and dynamic content. Pricing starts at $113/year.

Webflow

Webflow offers a much more integrated approach to localisation. Not only can you translate content based on language and region, but you can also dynamically swap out visuals, adjust layout styles, and control visibility all within Webflow’s native design environment.

A standout feature is the one-click AI-powered full-page translation, which makes launching multilingual sites incredibly efficient. Webflow Localization is a paid add-on starting at $108/year. about the same annual cost as TranslatePress, but with a more seamless and scalable experience built directly into the platform.

‍

‍

Enterprise Collaboration

WordPress

Collaboration in WordPress often feels like a patchwork. Sharing access means managing user roles manually or handing around login details. You’ll likely rely on third-party tools for comments, feedback, or content approvals — and even then, things rarely feel smooth or in sync.

While there are plugins that aim to improve collaboration, they’re not built into the platform, and often fall short of a true multi-user workflow. It works, but it’s clunky, especially when multiple team members need to work on a site at the same time.

Webflow

Webflow is built for real-time collaboration. Its cloud-based platform allows designers, developers, and content editors to work together seamlessly, without overwriting each other’s changes or managing complicated handoffs.

For larger teams or high-stakes projects, Webflow Enterprise takes this even further. Features like page branching let collaborators duplicate a live page, make changes safely in a sandbox, and only merge updates when they’re ready. It’s like version control for the web, without the technical overhead.

From personal experience, working in Webflow feels like working in a shared design doc. Fast, clear, and safe. Whether you’re launching a new campaign or fine-tuning content on a live site, it keeps your team in sync and your workflow efficient.

Ease of use & Learning Curve

WordPress

WordPress has been around for over 20 years, and while it's incredibly flexible, that flexibility often comes at the cost of clarity. Most business owners I’ve worked with find the WordPress dashboard overwhelming — filled with options, settings, and menus that don’t feel relevant to day-to-day updates. And when things break (as they often do with plugins), it usually requires a developer to step in.

Even publishing a blog post or updating a team page can become a confusing task if the backend was stitched together with third-party tools. For more advanced setups — like custom content types (e.g., case studies, events, or staff profiles) — you’ll need plugins like JetEngine, which means extra costs and a steeper learning curve.

If you're not technical and just want to edit your site, WordPress can be a tough ask.

Webflow

Webflow is different. Once your site is built, the Webflow Editor gives you a clean, focused interface where you only see what you need. No clutter, no distractions. Clients often tell me how refreshing it is to log in and just see their site content, ready to be updated.

Want to swap an image? Change a price? Publish a blog post? It’s all as simple as clicking and typing — directly on the live site preview.

Yes, learning to build in Webflow takes time (especially for someone new to design tools), but using the finished product is intuitive. For content managers, marketers, or business owners, it’s built to empower you, not bury you in technical details.

Security 

WordPress

WordPress its open-source nature and reliance on third-party plugins can introduce security vulnerabilities. Many security breaches stem from outdated plugins or themes, which can be exploited by attackers. To mitigate risks, users often need to install additional security plugins like Wordfence or Sucuri, and ensure regular updates to the core system and all extensions. However, even with these measures, the decentralized nature of WordPress can make comprehensive security management challenging.

In early 2025, a legal clash between WordPress.org and WP Engine disrupted plugin and theme access for thousands of users. While eventually reversed, the incident exposed how fragile the WordPress ecosystem can be — and how quickly internal conflict can ripple out and affect live websites.

‍

Webflow

Because Webflow is a fully managed platform, you don’t have to worry about plugin vulnerabilities, server settings, or patching outdated tools. Everything from hosting to backups to encryption is handled behind the scenes by Webflow’s infrastructure.

Webflow’s top security features:

• SOC 2 compliant
• Amazon Web Services (AWS) 
• Hosting Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) encryption 
• Custom Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificates 
• Distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) protection

Pricing

WordPress:

At first glance, WordPress.org appears budget-friendly. The core software is open-source and free. But building a fully functional, professional-grade site involves more than installing WordPress. You’ll likely pay for premium themes, plugins, reliable hosting, ongoing maintenance, and developers (often both front-end and back-end). 

The plugin ecosystem, while powerful, is also the source of hidden costs: security tools, backups, multilingual support, and SEO optimizations often come with recurring fees. Over time, WordPress can become more expensive than expected, especially when factoring in maintenance and developer hours.

Webflow

Webflow runs on a subscription model, starting at $14/month for basic sites and $23/month for CMS functionality. That includes fast, global hosting (via AWS and Cloudfront), built-in security (SSL), and native design and CMS tools. You won’t need to hunt for plugins or worry about backend complexity. While the upfront cost may seem higher than WordPress, Webflow saves money long-term by reducing maintenance, speeding up development, and eliminating third-party plugin expenses. For most businesses, Webflow ends up being the more cost-effective choice when you factor in total lifetime value.

Final Review

WordPress has a legacy — no doubt. It has built the internet for two decades, and many still rely on that trust. But if you believe it’s the best option just because 40% of the web runs on it, you’re looking backward, not forward.

Yes, WordPress can be budget-friendly at a glance. But the moment your site needs to scale or stand out, the hidden costs, patchwork plugins, and development overhead start piling up fast. What once seemed “cheap” becomes slow, fragile, and expensive.

Webflow flips the script. It’s built for modern teams and modern expectations — fast to build, clean by design, and powerful without the bloat. No duct-taped plugins, no endless updates, just a streamlined experience that lets you go from idea to impact — fast.

If you’re starting fresh or rethinking your digital presence, don’t just follow the crowd. Choose the platform built for what’s next.

Thinking About Switching from WordPress to Webflow?

Already using WordPress but tempted by Webflow’s speed, control, and cleaner workflow? You’re not alone — and making the switch is easier than it sounds. While any migration comes with considerations (like temporary SEO fluctuations), a well-planned move can preserve — and even boost — your rankings.

Want to avoid the common pitfalls? I’ve put together a simple, no-fluff guide to help you do it right:

👉 Website Migration to Webflow in 9 Easy Steps

Got Questions? Let’s Chat

I run Rimbo Designs with a simple goal: to build standout websites that actually move the needle for your business. I’ve helped brands around the world transition to Webflow, streamline their tech stack, and create digital experiences that feel as good as they look.

Whether you’re stuck on something technical, curious about how Webflow could work for your business, or just want a second opinion, I’m here.

Reach out and let’s talk. No pressure, just good advice.