Why I use Webflow

What made Webflow different for me was that it worked much more like a visual code editor for the web.

By that I mean I could design a website on screen, but Webflow stayed quite close to the way websites are actually built underneath. It didn't hide everything behind its own set of building blocks. I was working visually, but I was still thinking about the structure of the website and the code behind it.

That appealed to me for two reasons.

The first was that I could build things on a clean, solid foundation. I had a lot of control over how the website was put together rather than relying on layers of things I didn't really understand.

The second was design freedom. Webflow didn't dictate very much about what the finished website had to look like. If I could imagine something, I could probably find a way to build it.

That combination is what originally drew me to Webflow, and it is still a big part of why I use it today.

The Designer

The Designer is the part of Webflow where I spend most of my time. It lets me work visually while still thinking about HTML structure, CSS, responsive behaviour and how the page is actually put together.

That suits the way my brain works. I understand code and I think in code, but writing it from scratch is not the thing I am strongest at. Webflow gives me a visual way to work with those same ideas.

The CMS

Webflow's CMS lets me separate the structure of a website from the content that changes. Posts, projects, people, categories and other repeatable information can be managed as structured content instead of rebuilding pages by hand. For clients, that can make the parts of a website they need to update much clearer.

Solid foundations

Webflow gives me a good foundation for responsive layouts, semantic structure, accessibility and performance. It does not automatically make a website good, but it gives me the control to build it properly.

Components, variables and design tokens

I use components and variables heavily. They let me define the rules of a website once and reuse them rather than treating every page as a separate design.

That makes websites easier to keep consistent and easier to change later. It also means the design system itself becomes something I can work with, rather than a collection of decisions scattered across individual pages.

Webflow is changing quickly.

It now describes itself as “the agentic web marketing platform for high-performing brands.” That is quite a different description from the visual website builder I originally signed up for.

The direction is increasingly about designers, developers, marketers and AI agents working with the same website system. Webflow has introduced an MCP integration, and its roadmap says that “everything you can do in Webflow, your agents will be able to do too.”

It is also rebuilding parts of the platform around code as the source of truth. That work is still developing, so I am interested in where it goes rather than pretending the destination is already clear.

I have been exploring the same problem from my end. Crawford Green is my own Webflow framework and design system, and one of its goals is to give agents an existing system to work inside rather than asking them to invent one.

I don't know yet exactly what the agentic version of Webflow will look like in practice, but it is one of the more interesting things happening around the platform.

A managed platform

Webflow is a managed platform. Your site is hosted within Webflow's system rather than on hosting you control yourself. That simplifies a lot of technical work, but it also means moving away later is not the same as moving a conventional self-hosted website from one server to another.

The learning curve

Webflow gives you a lot of control, and that control comes with a learning curve. If your main goal is to make a straightforward site yourself as quickly as possible, there are platforms with gentler starting points.

It is quite US-centric

Webflow is a US company and much of the product is built around that market. Plans are priced in US dollars, and some features do not map neatly to New Zealand requirements.

Ecommerce

Webflow can run an online store, but ecommerce is not the part of the platform I consider strongest. A practical New Zealand example is tax: Webflow currently does not calculate New Zealand GST and does not let you set a custom New Zealand tax rate. If ecommerce is central to the website, the requirements need to be checked carefully before choosing it.

Framer

Framer is another visual website platform that has become particularly strong for design-led marketing sites. It has a polished visual editor, responsive design tools, CMS features and an increasingly capable publishing workflow.

It has its own way of working and its own strengths. If you like the idea of designing visually and want to explore another modern managed platform, it is worth a look.

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