Imagine this: you’ve got a brilliant idea, a spark of creativity, or a business on the verge of changing the game.
What’s the first step to making it real in today’s digital-first world? A website that doesn’t just inform—it inspires.
But as you stand at the crossroads of website builders, two giants loom large: Wix vs Webflow.
It’s not just about choosing a platform, it’s about choosing a path. One leads to convenience and ease, while the other opens doors to unparalleled design freedom. So which is the perfect match for your vision?
Ready to find out where your online story begins? Let’s dive into the Wix vs. Webflow saga.
For more on this topic you can check also our Wix to Webflow migration guide.
What is Webflow?
Webflow is a software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform that simplifies website creation for designers.
Using a visual editor directly in the browser, designers can build responsive websites without writing code.
Behind the scenes, Webflow automatically generates the necessary HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.
Webflow sites are hosted on a fast, reliable infrastructure powered by Amazon Web Services (AWS). With its built-in CMS, Webflow provides an all-in-one solution that doesn’t rely on external plugins, making it a streamlined choice for web design.
Webflow brings marketers, designers, and developers together on one platform to create, manage, and refine websites that deliver real results.
As of now, more than 368,000 websites have been created on Webflow, with nearly 185,224 of those based in the United States.
Webflow is designed for a diverse audience, including business owners, web development agencies, freelance designers, and content creators. Its extensive customization options make it an ideal choice for anyone looking to build a unique website.
It offers several standout features, including:
- A real-time visual builder for instant previews
- A wide range of themes to choose from during website development
- No need for additional plugins
- Reduced development time
- A cost-effective solution for building websites
What is WIX?
Wix is a cloud-based website builder that combines web hosting and design services into one platform. With its intuitive drag-and-drop tools and a library of over 500 pre-designed templates, Wix makes it easy to create a professional website without needing technical expertise or hiring a developer.
It simplifies the web development process while offering creative freedom to bring your vision to life.
Wix is particularly well-suited for small and medium-sized eCommerce businesses. According to Enlyft, the majority of Wix users are based in the U.S. (57%), followed by the U.K. and Canada (6% each).
As an eCommerce platform, Wix enables businesses to set up custom online stores, sell products, and scale operations. While it’s user-friendly, customizable, and relatively affordable, whether it’s the best platform for your business will depend on your unique needs and goals.
Wix vs Webflow: Pros and Cons
Pros of Webflow
Here are several reasons why Webflow stands out as the ideal platform for creating your client’s website, offering notable advantages over tools like Wix, WordPress, and Squarespace.
Integration of Design and Development
Gone are the days of separating visual design from coding. In traditional web design, you’d create wireframes, mockups, and hand off assets to a developer, only to deal with communication back and forth to ensure the design vision was executed. With Webflow, the process becomes unified, allowing you to both design and build a website within a single platform. This eliminates the disconnect between design and development, streamlining the entire workflow.
Intuitive CMS Interface
Webflow’s content management system is built for ease of use. With a minimalist dashboard, you’ll only see what you need to work with, streamlining the creation and management of content. This user-friendly approach makes it simple to manage dynamic content.
Create Stunning, Complex Animations
Webflow allows you to design intricate animations that truly enhance user experience. For example, the Flux Academy homepage showcases Webflow’s ability to create dynamic animations without needing deep knowledge of CSS or JavaScript. These visually engaging interactions can make a website stand out and captivate visitors, all through an intuitive, visual editor.
Total Design Freedom
The key reason to use Webflow is its unparalleled customization. You can take full control of HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript on a visual canvas, with Webflow translating your designs into clean, semantic code. This flexibility allows you to create truly unique, tailor-made websites from scratch.For more inspiration, check out a video showcasing five stunning websites all built with Webflow. It’s clear that Webflow is the perfect choice for designers looking for complete creative control.
Customizable SEO Settings
Webflow gives you full control over on-page SEO, making it easy to optimize your site’s visibility. For CMS-based content, meta titles and descriptions are auto-generated based on your custom fields, ensuring that SEO is taken care of. Plus, every Webflow website comes with free SSL for added security.
Effortless Responsive Design
With Webflow, adjusting your design for different devices is simple. You can preview and fine-tune how your website adapts across desktop, tablet, and mobile views, ensuring a smooth, responsive experience. Thanks to tools like Flexbox, even complex responsive design challenges are easily tackled.
Fast Loading Times with Clean Code
Unlike other builders like Wix, which tend to add excess code that can slow down your site, Webflow ensures that your website is powered by clean, optimized HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. This means faster loading times and improved performance.
Robust Support and Learning Resources
Webflow goes above and beyond in offering support. From Webflow University and an active community forum to the Webflow blog and helpful tutorials on YouTube, you'll have access to a wealth of resources to guide you. If you ever need direct help, their customer support team is always ready to assist.
Cons of Webflow
Limited Code Customization
While Webflow offers powerful design flexibility, it doesn't allow for deep customization at the code level. You can make basic code adjustments, but altering the core functionality of the code itself isn't possible.
No Mobile Editing
Unlike some other CMS platforms, Webflow lacks a mobile app for content and design edits. Any modifications to your site must be made via a desktop or laptop, limiting on-the-go flexibility.
Complex Pricing Structure
Webflow’s variety of pricing plans can be overwhelming, making it hard to determine which option is best suited for your business needs.
Limitations for eCommerce
If you're planning to build an eCommerce store on Webflow, you might encounter some challenges. Their eCommerce system is still in beta, and its payment gateway, Stripe, is available only in 26 countries. If Stripe isn’t supported in your location, Webflow might not be the most effective choice for your online store.
Email Only Support
One major downside of Webflow is its limited customer support. It only offers email support, even for Enterprise plans, which can be frustrating when you need quick help. Since a website is crucial to a business's marketing, it's surprising that Webflow doesn’t offer phone or live chat support.
Pros of Wix
Over 800 Designer Templates
With Wix, you can launch your website today. Offering more than 800 professionally designed, ready-to-use templates, Wix ensures you'll find the perfect layout for any industry, allowing you to quickly meet your web goals.
Intuitive Drag-and-Drop Editor
Enjoy total creative freedom with Wix's drag-and-drop editor. Easily move elements across your page to create the ideal layout. Every component is fully customizable—resize, adjust colors, rotate, and align as needed. Plus, you can access thousands of built-in tools to craft a polished and professional website.
Wix Mobile App
Manage your website on the go with the Wix mobile app. Create your site in a few simple steps, upload images directly from your phone, and customize text and pages with ease. You can also run your online store from the app, managing inventory, processing payments, and tracking shipments directly from your device.
Wix ADI: Fast Website Creation
Pressed for time? Use Wix ADI (Artificial Design Intelligence) to quickly create a beautifully designed website. After answering a few questions, Wix ADI will generate a custom site complete with content and images. Personalize it further by choosing a theme and color palette that matches your style, or upload your own visuals to reflect your brand.
Video Hosting Options
Depending on your chosen plan, Wix offers video hosting from 30 minutes to 10 hours—or unlimited hosting with the Business VIP plan. Stream your videos, organize libraries, and even monetize by selling or renting your content. Wix makes it simple to get started with video hosting.
Wix App Market
Explore Wix's extensive App Market, which features over 300 powerful apps and tools to enhance your website and boost your business. Most apps are free, mobile-optimized, and easy to add, allowing you to customize your site with just a few clicks. Whether it’s a Wix-created app or a third-party tool, you'll find everything you need to elevate your online presence.
Cons of Wix
Expensive Recurring Pricing
While Wix offers a personal website plan starting at $14 per month, the costs can rise quickly as you need more features. It's essential to carefully evaluate the tools and options you need to avoid paying for unnecessary features. Pricing also varies for eCommerce plans.
Limited Interactions and Animations
Wix does allow some basic interactions and animations, like adjusting hover and disabled states for buttons, but it’s much more limited compared to other tools like Webflow. With Webflow, you have greater flexibility, able to apply animations and interactions to any design element, not just buttons.
Difficult to Transfer Your Site
One of Wix's major drawbacks is the inability to easily transfer your website’s content. Unlike platforms like Squarespace and WordPress, Wix doesn't offer an easy export feature. If you ever decide to move to another platform, you’ll face the challenge of manually transferring content, which can be costly and time-consuming.
Can't Easily Change Templates
Once you select a template in Wix and start adding content, you can’t easily switch templates. Changing templates means starting over from scratch or manually transferring your content. Be sure to choose your template carefully before diving into customization.
Not Ideal for Large Businesses
Wix is great for individuals or small businesses, but it’s not the best choice for large websites with complex structures. With limited scalability and no easy content transfer, it may not meet the needs of growing businesses that require more robust features and flexibility.
Tracking and Analytics Require a Paid Plan
In most website builders, connecting Google Analytics is simple and free, but with Wix, you need to be on a paid plan to access analytics. This may be a dealbreaker if you want detailed insights without additional costs.
Not Fully Optimized for Mobile
While Wix claims that its templates are responsive, there can be occasional issues when viewing sites on mobile devices. Unlike platforms like Squarespace, which are known for their mobile-optimized templates, Wix may display some odd formatting on mobile devices.
Wix vs Webflow: Ease of Use Comparison
Webflow offers a higher level of customization, allowing for responsive website design, intricate animations, and complex variations, all while providing a robust and adaptable CMS.
On the other hand, Wix is more straightforward and user-friendly, making it ideal for creating simple landing pages or for users with minimal design expertise.
Wix is designed for simplicity and speed, making it perfect for beginners. It allows users to create websites quickly with a drag-and-drop editor and offers AI-powered tools to build simple sites with minimal effort.
It’s great for those who need a straightforward online presence, like landing pages or digital portfolios. With easy customization options, a variety of templates, and features like parallax scrolling and video backgrounds, Wix has evolved into one of the most popular website builders.
However, while it’s user-friendly, its flexibility is limited by the chosen template.
In comparison, Webflow offers a more advanced platform with deeper customization options, ideal for designers and developers. Its intuitive designer tool gives you full control over HTML, CSS, and animations without needing to code.
Webflow supports dynamic content, complex layouts, and responsive design, making it perfect for those looking to create unique and professional websites. While it has a steeper learning curve, it’s favored by pros for its power and flexibility.
Wix vs Webflow: E-commerce Functionality Comparison
Webflow and Wix are both great choices for eCommerce, but they offer different approaches to building online stores. Here's a closer look at their eCommerce features:
Webflow E-commerce Overview 🛒
Webflow offers three premium plans that come with fully integrated eCommerce tools. It provides features such as online payments, automatic sales tax, and currency conversion, making it suitable for those seeking extensive control over their store's design and functionality.
Wix E-commerce Overview 🛒
Wix allows users to build a customized eCommerce store without any coding knowledge. It offers easy-to-use tools to create product grids, shopping carts, landing pages, ads, and promotions, making it ideal for those who want a simpler, more streamlined approach.
Wix vs. Webflow – E-commerce Functionality Comparison
Both platforms offer useful eCommerce features, but they cater to different needs. Webflow excels in offering complete design control, making it a great option for those who need highly customizable stores. However, it’s best suited for users with some design expertise or who are willing to invest time into learning the platform.
On the other hand, Wix is a more user-friendly platform, allowing you to quickly create a customized store without needing coding skills. This makes it perfect for smaller businesses or those looking to sell online without diving deep into design work.
Wix vs. Webflow: Template Comparison
Both platforms offer a wide selection of templates, but they differ in style and ease of use.
Webflow Templates
Webflow provides modern, professionally designed templates that are fully customizable to align with your brand’s identity.
Wix Templates
Wix offers templates across various categories, making it easy to find a design that matches your brand. Its templates are user-friendly and ideal for beginners with no design experience.
If you're a beginner or need a simple website without the hassle of coding, Wix is the best choice. Its drag-and-drop functionality lets you get up and running quickly. However, if you're comfortable with coding and want complete creative control, Webflow provides a more customizable, high-end solution.
Key Features Comparison
- Webflow: Offers advanced customization options, best suited for those with some coding knowledge.
- Wix: More beginner-friendly with an easy-to-use drag-and-drop interface, though it offers fewer customization options.
In summary, if you're looking for a simple, easy-to-use platform, Wix is ideal. But for those who want to push creative boundaries and create a unique website, Webflow is the better choice.
Wix vs. Webflow: Template Comparison
Both platforms offer a wide selection of templates, but they differ in style and ease of use.
Webflow Templates
Webflow provides modern, professionally designed templates that are fully customizable to align with your brand’s identity.
Wix Templates
Wix offers templates across various categories, making it easy to find a design that matches your brand. Its templates are user-friendly and ideal for beginners with no design experience.
If you're a beginner or need a simple website without the hassle of coding, Wix is the best choice. Its drag-and-drop functionality lets you get up and running quickly. However, if you're comfortable with coding and want complete creative control, Webflow provides a more customizable, high-end solution.
Key Features Comparison
- Webflow: Offers advanced customization options, best suited for those with some coding knowledge.
- Wix: More beginner-friendly with an easy-to-use drag-and-drop interface, though it offers fewer customization options.
In summary, if you're looking for a simple, easy-to-use platform, Wix is ideal. But for those who want to push creative boundaries and create a unique website, Webflow is the better choice.
Comparing Webflow and Wix for SEO: A Breakdown
Both Webflow and Wix come equipped with SEO tools to help boost your website's visibility in search engines. However, they differ in functionality and flexibility. Here's a closer look at how they stack up in key SEO areas:
1. SEO Features Overview
- Webflow: Offers advanced options like custom URL structures, automatic sitemaps, and in-depth SEO customization—all without relying on plugins. It’s a powerful option for experienced users who want full control over their SEO strategy.
- Wix: Provides a simpler setup with built-in SEO plugins, making it user-friendly for beginners. While efficient for basic SEO needs, it lacks the depth of customization that Webflow provides.
2. URL Structure
Webflow provides superior control over URL customization. It allows users to edit URLs for individual pages and create optimized structures for SEO.
Wix, while functional, is limited in its approach. You can tweak page URLs but can’t fully control the structure for blog posts or product pages, which might hinder advanced SEO strategies.
3. Meta Tags and Redirects
Both platforms let users add essential meta tags, like titles, descriptions, and keywords. However:
- Webflow: Offers real-time changes to meta tags, supports structured data, and allows easy sitemap generation and hierarchical site structures (H1, H2, H3).
- Wix: Allows meta tag edits but lacks support for structured data and doesn’t handle collections as efficiently. While it supports 301 redirects, Webflow’s implementation is more advanced.
4. Page Speed
- Fast-loading websites rank higher on search engines and provide better user experiences.
Webflow: Optimizes site speed with efficient code, image compression, minified CSS/JavaScript, and advanced caching through AWS hosting.
Wix: Uses heavier code, which can slow down loading times. It also lacks robust caching features and relies on its own servers, which may be slower than Webflow’s AWS hosting.
5. Mobile Optimization
With Google prioritizing mobile-first indexing, a mobile-responsive design is crucial.
- Webflow: Allows users to create unique layouts for different devices and screen sizes, providing unmatched flexibility for mobile optimization.
- Wix: Automatically adapts your design for mobile. While simple and efficient, it doesn’t offer the granular control available on Webflow.
6. Extra Features
Wix:
- Built-in Google Search Console integration.
- Native SEMrush integration for keyword tracking.
- Canonical tag management to avoid duplicate content issues.
Webflow:
- Custom sitemap creation.
- Comprehensive asset management with alt-text for images.
- Capability to create programmatic pages for dynamic SEO strategies.
Verdict: Webflow vs Wix for SEO
For beginners or those seeking an easy-to-use platform with basic SEO capabilities, Wix is a practical choice. It simplifies the process, allowing you to manage your SEO without diving too deep into the technical side.
For advanced users or businesses requiring more robust SEO features, Webflow shines with its superior customization, cleaner code, and advanced optimization tools. While it has a steeper learning curve, the payoff is a highly optimized, professional-grade site.
Whether you value simplicity or flexibility, the choice between Webflow and Wix depends on your SEO goals and expertise level.
Wix vs Webflow: Hosting and Pricing
When it comes to hosting and pricing, Wix keeps things simple and seamless. All membership plans include hosting, so there's no need to worry about setting up servers or hunting for a third-party hosting provider. Wix’s pricing tiers offer different features and bandwidth, making it an affordable option for small websites or basic online businesses.
Webflow, on the other hand, takes a slightly different approach. Its hosting, while carrying a separate cost, is celebrated for its reliability and speed. Features like automatic backups and a global Content Delivery Network (CDN) come standard.
Pricing varies depending on the number of projects and the type of site—be it a CMS, business, or e-commerce website. While Webflow’s plans may seem pricier upfront, the added performance and control make it a worthy investment for those seeking flexibility and robust capabilities.
Webflow may come with a higher price tag, but it delivers quality and advanced features that justify the cost. On the flip side, if you’re working with a tight budget, Wix offers a more wallet-friendly solution.
Webflow offers the flexibility to design your site on its platform and then export it to host elsewhere. This means you can opt for your own ultra-fast hosting provider if that suits your needs. Wix, however, doesn’t provide this level of freedom—your site stays hosted exclusively on their platform.
Wix is perfect for those looking to build a good-looking, functional website without overspending. Meanwhile, Webflow caters to those aiming to create a jaw-dropping, highly customized online presence.
The key to picking the right website builder lies in aligning your choice with your budget. However, if you’re serious about your business, investing a bit more in a platform that meets all your needs can pay off in the long run.
Why Webflow Takes the Crown: The Simple Breakdown
After exploring both Webflow and Wix in depth, it’s clear why Webflow stands out. Here’s an easy explanation of why it wins:
1. Total Creative Control
With Webflow, you have the power to design exactly what you envision. While Wix’s drag-and-drop system is great for quick setups, it’s more restrictive and template-dependent. Webflow lets you customize every detail, giving your website a unique and tailored look.
2. Superior Performance and SEO
Webflow's clean, efficient code means your site isn’t just visually impressive—it’s fast and optimized for search engines. Features like advanced SEO tools and custom site structures make it easier for your website to rank higher and attract more traffic.
3. Professional Features That Stand Out
Webflow offers advanced animations, custom interactions, and flexible e-commerce tools. These features deliver a polished, professional-grade site that feels more dynamic and adaptable than what Wix can achieve.
4. Scalability and Integrations
Webflow allows your site to grow with your needs, offering seamless integrations and a developer-friendly environment. You can expand functionality in ways that simply aren’t possible with Wix.
5. Learning Curve with Lasting Rewards
Yes, Webflow is harder to learn upfront, but the educational resources—like Webflow University—and its supportive community make it worth the effort. Plus, the skills you gain will benefit future projects, giving you a lasting edge.
Our Final Verdict
Wix is ideal for beginners or anyone needing a simple site quickly. But if you’re aiming for creative freedom, better performance, and a professional-grade website, Webflow is the clear winner.
For those willing to invest in learning, Webflow offers unmatched flexibility and scalability, making it the smarter choice for long-term success.
