Site builders come to your aid if you want to build a website. Webflow and WordPress are the leading companies in this field. They both offer excellent tools to satisfy your website and succeed on the Internet ultimately.
But it's not that simple. Despite all the similarities, WordPress and Webflow have their strengths and weaknesses, which makes them more attractive for one business, and less attractive for another:
Webflow vs. WordPress: Which is Right for You?
What is Webflow?
If you've never heard of them before, Webflow is a website builder with a wide range of functionality, especially loved by designers and professional studios engaged in website development.
Why does Webflow seem so hard to use?
Webflow uses a unique visual coding language that takes some getting used to. In fact, if you're not familiar with coding, it will take you some amount of time to understand how everything works.
What are the drawbacks of the Webflow platform?
The infrastructure used for Webflow websites does not scale well. Furthermore, the mobile-responsive features are limited.
Some Web Designers think the final look and feel of Webflow websites is not aesthetically pleasing in addition to having poorly coded CSS classes supporting them.
The website creation process is not user-friendly. If you're not hiring a Webflow Developer to build it out your site, there could be quite a learning curve.
Why do people leave Webflow?
Webflow has a number of drawbacks that include the following items.
Too hard to master
Webflow developers have done an excellent job giving the user rich functionality. But often, it can be too much, especially for beginners. The interface looks very busy, and it takes a lot of time to figure it out. It is not what you expect from a ‘no-code’ solution, especially if you need a simple website.
Pricing
Perhaps everything will suit you at the initial level, but when you get used to the tool and want to do something serious already, you will have to pay hundreds of dollars a year for each website.
It is one of the main reasons why many are looking for alternatives.
Restrictions on plans
Webflow has large number of restrictions in plan on plans.
Why should you consider a move to Nexcess Hosting?
Migrating a Webflow site is not so difficult; it's harder to find a suitable alternative. Webflow is an excellent site builder, but sometimes you must reconsider your decision after in-depth analysis. Everyone can have their reasons, and in this article, we will take a deep dive into the following aspects:
- You will find out why Nexcess will be the best new place for your site.
- Сompare it to WordPress to be sure of your choice.
- Then, get step-by-step instructions on how to migrate your website to Nexcess.
Webflow vs. Nexcess: Why Nexcess is an excellent Webflow alternative
Nexcess has a lot to offer Webflow customers who are ready to find a winning alternative. We have four primary products when it comes to the web hosting product line:
- WordPress
- WooCommerce
- StoreBuilder
- Magento
Why are there so many product options at Nexcess?
The fact is that each product is exclusively suitable for certain businesses. There is a simple analogy to imagine: you want to cut bread, then if you had a choice between a Swiss knife or a kitchen knife, the choice would be obvious.
Developers understand this and focus on developing niche solutions, eliminating unnecessary functions that load the system and distract from the main work.
How to choose the correct Nexcess product option?
This article will review the Nexcess products presented, comparing them with Webflow. In addition, you will find examples of businesses, tips on what to pay attention to, and how to make migration easy and safe.
Should you move to WordPress?
WordPress is the king in the world of site builders. We can see this picture more clearly by comparing how many website owners use each platform and place their money and business operations on a WordPress foundation:
Why the popularity of WordPress is important
A large community makes the product better. Thousands of developers create new functionality every day, and any particular problem you may encounter may be solved faster due to the pure volume of people working on the fix.
For example, suppose you have a problem with a plugin. In that case, the usual search for a solution in Google may take only a few minutes since it has probably already been solved by someone from millions of people. In contrast, in the case of Webflow, you will need to wait for help from technical support.
Nexcess Support vs Webflow Support
Nexcess provides full support to its customers 24/7:
With the "helpful humans" at Nexcess, you can:
- Call and get technical support right on the phone.
- Start Live chat and fix an error in a matter of minutes.
- Create a ticket and explain your problem there.
You’ll be updated via email as the problem is solved. Even the most challenging problem can be solved in a few hours.
In case of any problem, even if it occurred without your knowledge, the system would notify technical specialists. It will be fixed in minutes, even without your participation.
Webflow can offer only email support that takes up to 48 hours to answer.
Which is easier to use?
People have come to love Webflow for its ability to build a website by dragging and dropping objects onto pages. It's an intuitive method that makes development much easier. Designers can finally do without the need to hire a programmer.
But in reality, the drag-and-drop concept turned out to be a little more complicated. Dozens of buttons and functions greet users, and it can take a long time to figure them out.
From the feeling at the beginning of the process when you want to create a website in an intuitive streamlined manner, you run into a wall. "How does this development environment even work?" you think. You go into a state where you don't understand anything and frustration — even panic — sets in. Stuck, to make even a simple website, you can't achieve the outcome you seek without long tutorials. Time sunk! What a learning curve!
How does WordPress provide flexibility?
WordPress is loved for its flexibility due to themes and plugins. You can implement anything — a blog, a news site, a store, you name it. Just download the theme and customize it. Need a new payment method or a shopping cart? Just install the plugin.
Even the drag-and-drop function that Webflow uses has long been implemented using plugins such as Element or SeedProd:
What about the mobile version or the adaptive version of WordPress?
Not a problem. Those versions behave well under the mobile parameters they encounter. Report have come in that websites developed with Webflow have pitfalls when it comes to mobile displays:
What is fully managed WordPress hosting suitable for?
Fully managed WordPress hosting will be helpful for creating blogs as well as news, personal, business, and portfolio websites. In theory, any solution can be implemented using WordPress. But if you want to create an online store or some commercial website, it is better to choose another Nexcess product:
- WooCommerce
- StoreBuilder
- Magento
You will learn more about these targeted ecommerce solutions from Nexcess in the article.
How much does a fully managed WordPress hosting cost?
Nexcess offers four WordPress products at various price points. It all depends on what kind of plan you want:
There are also more serious plans. You can get more detailed information on the WordPress product page on the Nexcess website.
Webflow vs. StoreBuilder
StoreBuilder is a modified WordPress/WooCommerce shell for creating an online store. What makes StoreBuilder different is how fast and easy you can create an online store. You will already be adding your first products in just a few minutes.
It already has the most necessary plugins installed for carefree work:
- Payments? Check!
- Shopping cart? Check!
- Convenient product control panel? Check, Check, Check!
With Webflow, it will take a lot more time to organize everything for your ecommerce aspirations to succeed. With StoreBuilder, it's all in your box! See how easy it is to manage your store with StoreBuilder in this video:
Webflow vs. WooCommerce
WooCommerce is the big brother of StoreBuilder. It is chosen if you already have experience in ecommerce or have several websites you need to manage conveniently.
WooCommerce is the most popular WordPress ecommerce plugin, and what could be better than watching a live review to find out why this is so:
Webflow vs. Magento
Magento is a titan among shop builders.
You choose Magento if you are ready to build a large, high-quality store for many products. Its complexity is higher than a CMS like WordPress or Webflow, but you will be able to build a unique system.
When you build a Magento store, you usually can't do without a team of developers and designers, but the result will be very high quality.
The most famous brands choose Magento. In addition, online stores such as Ford, Coca-Cola, Tommy, and many others trust Magento.
If you compare it with Webflow, it's hard to imagine a serious team of developers trying to build a big store on Webflow. Because a new product is always a risk, a technical error can cost a lot of time. A large store usually needs complete control as Magento 2 allows.
Learn more about Fully Managed Magento Hosting!
Factors to consider for a move to Nexess from Webflow
Magento, WordPress, StoreBuilder, WooCommerce. Whatever you choose, you need to be confident in the quality of your hosting provider. Hosting is the core of a website. A lot of your website's success will depend on the quality of your web hosting company.
How fast your website will be?
Even if you make a perfect website, if your hosting providers is lacking adequate infrastructure, you will have slow page-loading performance. Slow pages are ranked poorly when it comes to SEO. But, alas, you will be indexed in a Google search engine below your competitors.
Even if you run paid ads, people need a fast website. No one will wait an extra few second for your pages to load. The visitors will simply leave.
How many visitors will your site be able to withstand?
Let's imagine that your web hosting provider is fast. But at some point, the queue for your website may be higher than the server's bandwidth in terms of capability for the number of simultaneous visitors. Then the speed will not matter since people can't enter the site.
How secure and stable is your site?
Businesses value time — in fact time is money some say. The worst thing that can happen to a website is if it crashes for some reason since this is time spent and, therefore, money.
Advertising on social networks, on Google, on YouTube channels, banner advertising, everything ultimately goes to your website. And if your site is unavailable, not only will you not get customers, but you will also damage your reputation.
Webflow vs. Nexcess: What is the difference here?
Let's compare the numbers in terms of dollars, static pages, and bandwidth:
Nexcess is primarily a high-quality, high-value, high-service web hosting company with the right answers for those savvy web hosting shoppers:
- Cost/benefit tradeoffs? Quality is what you get by choosing this company. No matter what website you want to build, you can be sure that you get first-class hosting.
- Speed? Nexcess has about 30,000 servers running all over the world. The closer the server is to you and your clients, the faster your site will be.
- Security? Nexcess guarantees 100% uptime and contractual conditions where if the most unusual situation happens, every downtime website outage will be refunded to you with 10-fold credits — 1 minute down is equal to a 10-minute bonus.
Migrating to Nexess from Webflow
Are you ready? Do you want to migrate? No problem! Nexcess provides free migration, no questions asked. Read more to see how we make migrating painless.
Step-by-step instructions for migrating to Nexcess from Webflow
Speaking of migration, let's explain the process. Imagine the following situation.
You are a biologist, and you have a personal blog on Webflow. You are interested in the Fully Managed WordPress Hosting plan from Nexcess, as it is suitable for blogs. You follow navigate to the Fully Managed WordPress Hosting page, go through the registration procedure, and get hosting from us.
Once you log in to the Nexcess Panel to set up your new website, here are the steps involved.
Step #1: Adding your domain
First, let's add your domain to the hosting:
Follow these steps:
- Click on Plans.
- Choose your plan.
- Click on the pencil above the domain.
- On the right, there will be a button, Modify Master Domain.
- And enter your domain name
Great, the domain name has been moved!
Step #2: Changing your nameservers
Now, we need to change one technical detail. “DNS Records” are unique signatures so your site can communicate with the server, send mail, receive it, and be visible on the network.
When moving to a new hosting, you only need to change one thing — nameservers. Nexcess will take care of the rest.
Please go where you’ve bought your domain and change “nameservers” to Nexcess. For example, did you buy your domain in GoDaddy? If so, then review the documentation form GoDadddy for changing your nameservers with that domain registrar.
Here are the Nexcess nameservers:
Now that the "nameservers:" have been changed to Nexcess, the technical support team can help you with everything else!
Press this little button depicted to start a chat. You can copy this message as an example, but be sure to specify your domain:
"Hi, I just purchased hosting from Nexcess. My domain is paste-your-domain-here.com.
Please help me add these things:
- SSL certificate per domain
- A record
- SPF record
- MX record
- DKIM
- DMARC"
After you add those details, you need to wait up to a couple of hours for the changes go live.
Step #3: Moving the website's HTML and other code components from Webflow to Nexcess
Now that the foundational domain and routing portions for your website move are ready, it's time to move the site itself.
The Webflow website's codebase differs from a WordPress website's codebase technically. Therefore, to migrate your Webflow website to Nexcess, you need to use one essential plugin.
Step #3a: Install the Udesly Template Configurator extension to your web browser
Here's what you'll need to do. First, install the Udesly Template Configurator extension to your web browser:
Udesly Template Configurator - Chrome Web Store (google.com)
It is necessary to convert a Webflow site to WordPress:
Install the web browser as per the steps below:
- Click on the Extensions icon.
- Attach it to the home page.
- Restart Google Chrome by closing and opening the window.
Step #3b: Configuring attributes from your Webflow website
Now go to your Webflow site:
Follow these steps:
- Open the site in the Designer.
- Click on the extension in the web browser.
- Choose Webflow to WordPress.
You should have the attributes configured and downloaded with a CONF file.
Step #3c: Downloading your website's code
The next step is to download the code:
Follow these steps:
- Click on the <> icon you see in the image above.
- Download the ZIP file by clicking Prepare ZIP > Download ZIP.
Step #4: Making your WordPress Theme
Next, you should go to the Udesly website to make a WordPress Theme:
Follow these steps on the Udesly website:
- Create an account.
- Click Go to App.
- Next, click Getting Started.
- Choose ZIP file.
- Select the CONF file from the step above.
- Download the WordPress template file!
Step #5: Adding your WordPress Theme via the WordPress Admin Dashboard
Let's apply this WordPress Theme using the WordPress Admin Dashboard. If you don't know how to go to the WordPress Admin Panel, don’t worry, just follow the click sequence depicted:
Follow these steps:
- Go back to the Nexcess Panel and go to your plan.
- Find your website and click on it.
- Scroll to the bottom and find Application. Here you will find username and password.
- The Admin button will take you to the login page of your WordPress Admin Dashboard.
Step #6: Installing your WordPress Theme
Now let’s Install the WordPress theme you just created and added to WordPress:
- Choose Appearance > Themes.
- Clicks on Add New > Upload Theme > Choose File and File Your ZIP File > Install Now.
- Press on Begin Installing Plugin > Click on Install under Udesly App > Return to Required Plugins Installer > Activate.
- Find the house icon in the upper left corner of the screen. Hover over it and click Visit Site.
Great job! Migration is complete!
Please review the results. If some elements were copied incorrectly, for example, you had a complex animation set up or you are confused — watching the video below is a convenient backup step for you to dive into the steps covered in this article. We advise you to watch this video:
Are you looking for an easier migration option?
Freelancers on such platforms as Upwork, Total, Upler, Geekflare, and others will help you if you wish to pay a consultant to help you with the site move.
Are you ready to migrate from Webflow to Nexcess?
Contact Nexcess Support Specialists for migration guidance or call the number — 866 639 2377.
Or, check out our plans to get started today.
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