WordPress vs Webflow: Which should you choose?

WordPress vs Webflow: which platform should you choose to build your website in 2025?

Building a website has never been more accessible. With today’s wide range of development tools, you can create a functional and visually polished site in no time.

While WordPress has long led the market (holding a 43.4% share in 2025, according to W3Techs), Webflow is gaining significant traction thanks to its no-code approach and promise of full creative freedom.

So which platform is the right fit for your project? Let’s break it down.

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What is WordPress?

WordPress is an open-source content management system (CMS) that relies heavily on plugins to deliver most of its functionality. It offers limited built-in design control and generally requires a certain level of technical knowledge to use effectively.

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What is Webflow?

Webflow is a low-code website development platform that combines design flexibility, intuitive usability, and reliable performance. It comes with robust native features covering design, CMS, reusable components, marketing tools, and SEO capabilities, all in one place.

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WordPress vs Webflow: key comparison criteria

Choosing between WordPress and Webflow depends largely on your specific needs.
In the sections that follow, we’ll compare these two leading platforms across several key criteria to help you make an informed decision.

Keep in mind, this isn’t an exhaustive comparison but we’ve highlighted the most impactful factors to consider.

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Ease of use and getting started

If you're new to website creation, the learning curve can feel steep no matter which tool you choose.

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WordPress, having been around much longer, benefits from a vast ecosystem of tutorials and community support. Its interface is relatively intuitive, and the abundance of plugins makes it easy to get started. However, when it comes to daily use, WordPress is somewhat limited by its template-based system meaning that any custom modifications often require coding knowledge.

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Webflow can initially feel more complex, especially for beginners. That said, Webflow has invested heavily in education. Webflow University offers an impressive library of short, hands-on video tutorials covering every feature. Once you're familiar with the interface, Webflow becomes incredibly intuitive thanks to its visual, drag-and-drop design environment. With a little effort, the platform gives you full control to create a dynamic and highly customized site without writing code.

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⭐️ Bonus feature with Webflow:

Every project is automatically hosted on a temporary staging server. This lets you publish and test your site at any time, even before attaching a custom domain. WordPress offers a similar option but only until a domain is connected.

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🏆 Best for getting started: WordPress

🏆Best for design flexibility and ease of use (once learned): Webflow

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Customization without constraints

Both WordPress and Webflow allow for extensive customization, but their approaches are quite different.

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WordPress is generally easier to handle at first, as it starts with selecting a theme. This gives you a design foundation to work from, rather than beginning with a blank page. You also have access to thousands of plugins, which make it possible to build almost any kind of layout or visual. Elementor, the most popular page builder, allows you to design visually attractive pages quickly, without needing advanced web design skills. The main drawback of WordPress is its heavy reliance on plugins, which can complicate the development process. For example, if you want to build a complex animation, you’ll need to install a specific plugin. Depending on the project, you might end up with a dozen or more plugins, which increases your site’s weight and makes the overall experience less intuitive and more fragmented.

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Webflow takes a different approach. There is no need for external plugins, everything is built directly within the design and development interface using Webflow’s native no-code features. The advantage is that you don’t depend on third-party tools, you don’t need to learn a variety of plugins to meet your project’s needs, and you don’t have to deal with plugin maintenance or updates. Taking the same example, if you want to create a complex animation, you can do it directly in Webflow using its built-in tools. Whatever your project requires, everything happens in one centralized place. The only downside is that getting started with Webflow can be more challenging and requires more effort upfront to fully understand how the platform works.

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A few months ago, Webflow launched its own library of applications, similar to plugins. However, the promise remains the same: these apps are optional, and everything can still be built natively within the platform.

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🏆 Winner: Webflow, for its long-term simplicity and flexibility without reliance on external tools.

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A user interface (UI) that stands out

If you're an experienced developer, you won’t have trouble building a powerful user interface on either WordPress or Webflow. But for beginner developers or web designers without coding skills, WordPress sites often end up looking standard and sometimes even generic. In fact, it’s easy to recognize a WordPress site at a glance.

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Webflow, on the other hand, gives designers the freedom to build visually striking and dynamic interfaces, even without advanced development skills. The platform actively promotes modern, high-end design through the resources and templates it offers. And yes, Webflow sites are recognizable too, but for all the right reasons.

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🏆 Winner: Webflow

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Response time and reliability

WordPress : Performance depends heavily on the hosting provider you choose. With lower-end hosting, you may encounter slow response times and reliability issues. However, with quality hosting and well-optimized configurations, WordPress can still deliver strong performance and stability.

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Webflow : As an all-in-one platform, Webflow offers consistent response times and high reliability. It manages the entire infrastructure, from hosting to deployment, which ensures a seamless and controlled experience.

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🏆 Winner: Webflow

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Opening the source code

WordPress : WordPress is an open-source platform, meaning you have full access to the source code of your site. This level of openness gives developers complete control and is one of the key reasons for WordPress’s flexibility and adaptability.

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Webflow : Webflow is not open source, so you don't have direct access to the full source code of your website. However, you can still add custom code — HTML, CSS, or JavaScript — without issue.

⚠️ Note: Custom code is limited to 50,000 characters per page.

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🏆 Winner: WordPress

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Traffic limitations

WordPress : Traffic capacity depends primarily on your hosting plan. With shared hosting, you may face restrictions on bandwidth or concurrent users. However, upgrading to VPS or dedicated hosting typically provides much higher, or even unlimited, traffic allowances.

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Webflow : Traffic limits are based on the site plan you choose. While each plan offers generous bandwidth, it’s important to select a tier that aligns with your expected visitor volume to avoid potential overage charges.

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🏆 Winners: WordPress and Webflow

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Available themes

WordPress : The WordPress ecosystem offers thousands of themes, both free and paid, across virtually every niche. This gives users great flexibility in terms of design options and built-in functionality.

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Webflow : Webflow provides a growing library of templates. While the selection isn’t as extensive as WordPress, the designs tend to be more modern, polished, and better aligned with current design standards.

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🏆 Winner: WordPress

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Ease of updates

WordPress : WordPress requires regular updates. Although they are generally easy to apply, they can sometimes conflict with certain plugins or themes, requiring verification and adjustments.

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Webflow : Webflow handles all updates automatically in the background. Users get new features and fixes seamlessly, with no action required and no risk of compatibility issues.

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🏆 Winner: Webflow

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Security

WordPress : WordPress’s popularity makes it a frequent target for attacks. While it can be made secure with best practices, regular updates, security plugins, strong configurations, it requires ongoing attention to avoid vulnerabilities.

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Webflow : As a closed, all-in-one platform, Webflow manages security centrally. This provides strong protection against common threats, without the need for plugins or manual maintenance.

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‍🏆 Winner: Webflow

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Search engine optimization (SEO)

WordPress : With plugins like Yoast SEO or Rank Math, WordPress can be highly optimized for search engines. These tools offer detailed control over key SEO elements, making it easier to manage metadata, sitemaps, structured data, and more, even for non-technical users.

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Webflow : Webflow includes many built-in SEO features, such as customizable meta tags, clean HTML structure, alt text editing, and automatic sitemap generation. However, it lacks the depth and plugin ecosystem that WordPress offers for advanced SEO management.

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🏆 Winner: WordPress

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Page load speed

WordPress : Site speed on WordPress depends heavily on your hosting provider, the number and type of plugins used, and the theme’s optimization. With proper configuration, caching, and performance-focused plugins, WordPress can achieve excellent loading times but it requires technical attention.

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Webflow : Webflow sites benefit from fast and reliable performance out of the box. Its built-in hosting infrastructure and clean code generation ensure consistently fast load speeds across all sites without needing extra plugins or optimizations.

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🏆 Winner: Webflow

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Features and e-commerce

WordPress: With its vast ecosystem of plugins, WordPress allows you to add nearly any functionality — from booking systems to multilingual support and full-featured online stores. WooCommerce, the most popular e-commerce plugin, is powerful, flexible, and highly customizable, making WordPress a strong choice for complex online stores with large product catalogs.

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Webflow: Webflow does not use a plugin system. All features must be built using native tools or through custom integrations. Its intuitive design interface makes it easy to create and manage many elements, but complex features may require workarounds or custom development. Webflow does offer its own e-commerce plans, but for now, they’re more suited to smaller stores with limited product ranges.

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🏆 Winner: WordPress

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A Cost to Consider

When it comes to pricing, WordPress clearly has the upper hand : the platform itself is completely free. You can install WordPress directly on your hosting provider (like OVH or Bluehost), with no software fees required. The only potential costs are for premium themes and plugins. However, it’s entirely possible to build a functional website at no cost using free themes and plugins.

Webflow, on the other hand, is known as a more premium solution — and comes with recurring costs. If you use Webflow, here’s what to expect:

• Workspace plan (per user): starting at $16/month
• Site plan (per website with a custom domain): starting at $14/month

Note: Webflow offers free plans for both the workspace and site, but they’re very limited. Most users will need to upgrade quickly to unlock essential features.

If user experience, visual identity, and design precision are key to your business, the investment in Webflow is absolutely justified. But if you’re looking for a more standard website on a tight budget, WordPress will likely meet your needs at minimal cost.

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🏆 Winner: WordPress

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Conclusion

Choosing between WordPress and Webflow ultimately comes down to your goals, budget, and the type of digital experience you want to offer.

• If your budget is limited and a standard website is all you need, WordPress is likely the best fit.
• If you're looking for design flexibility, a modern interface, and a unique brand experience, Webflow is a powerful choice worth the investment.

At We-R, we’ve made a clear choice: we’re a Webflow agency. Why? Because we believe in creating websites that go beyond templates : websites that stand out, engage, and scale with your business. We work with companies that want to make a real impact online and turn their digital presence into a true growth driver.

Want to be one of them?
Contact us today, we’d love to hear about your project.