For those considering Webflow for the first time, whether you're planning to migrate from another platform or create your very first site, it’s worth exploring what Webflow’s Site Plans are, how they work, and what they include. Webflow offers an all-in-one solution for website creation, hosting, and content management. This contrasts with other platforms like WordPress (WP), where users often need to purchase separate services from different providers (e.g., hosting, CDN, plugins), which can complicate things and increase costs.
Webflow's Site Plans are divided into different tiers depending on your needs:
- Basic Plan: Ideal for simple websites with no CMS. It includes a custom domain, up to 100 pages, and essential SEO controls.
- CMS Plan: Designed for content-driven sites like blogs or portfolios, with features like a powerful CMS, 2,000 CMS items, and support for dynamic content.
- Business Plan: Great for high-traffic sites, offering 10,000 CMS items, faster hosting, and enhanced performance capabilities.
- Enterprise Plan: Tailored to large-scale businesses, providing custom bandwidth, scalability, and advanced security features.
One of the major benefits of Webflow is that it provides a fully integrated service: design, development, and hosting all within one platform. Unlike WordPress, where you often need to rely on third-party hosting, CDN providers, and multiple plugins, Webflow handles it all seamlessly. This integration ensures smoother management and often results in fewer compatibility issues and a more optimized workflow for your projects.
Now, let's dive into the most recent updates Webflow has made, which offer even more flexibility and functionality for its users.
1. New Features and Updates
Webflow has rolled out several new features in preparation for this update. One of the standout additions is the new "Site Usage" dashboard, which allows users to monitor the bandwidth consumption of their various Webflow sites. This feature provides clearer visibility into how resources are being used. Additionally, a highly useful feature now lets users convert all the images within their CMS with just one click, making it easier to optimize projects quickly.
Alongside these new tools, Webflow has introduced some significant changes to the limitations across its plans, including:
- Increased limits on CMS features for the Starter and Business plans.
- Removal of the monthly visitor limit on all site plans.
- Increase in the maximum number of static pages for Business plans.
- Reduction in bandwidth limits across all plans.
While these updates are broad, you can find a detailed summary of these changes on Webflow's blog. Below, we’ll focus on the two major updates that are causing the most conversation: CMS and bandwidth limits.
2. Focus on Key Changes
Among the various changes, two aspects have generated the most attention: CMS modifications and bandwidth adjustments.
CMS: What’s Changing?
The CMS (Content Management System) is Webflow's back-end tool that allows users to manage, edit, and publish content directly from the platform. There are two major benefits from this update for CMS users:
- Increased CMS limits: Webflow has expanded the limits on the number of fields and references per collection, without increasing the cost.
- Greater flexibility: Users on the Business plan can now extend their CMS capabilities with customizable add-ons, allowing for more scalability based on specific project needs.
Bandwidth: Reduction and Its Implications
Bandwidth refers to the amount of data transferred between your website and its visitors, including images, fonts, and other elements. The most significant change in this update is the reduction in bandwidth limits across all plans.
This reduction is certainly a downside for some users, as bandwidth is critical for ensuring fast loading times and smooth performance. But why did Webflow reduce bandwidth? According to Webflow, around 96% of websites on their platform use less than 100 GB of bandwidth per month. As a result, this update aligns Webflow’s plans with the actual needs of most users.
It’s now essential for developers and site owners to monitor their bandwidth usage closely. If you exceed the new limit, you have three options:
- Purchase additional bandwidth via an add-on.
- Optimize your site's bandwidth by using Webflow's new Site Usage dashboard to track and reduce your site's load.
- Upgrade to a custom Enterprise plan, which offers higher limits but comes at a higher cost.
For those looking to better understand how bandwidth works and how to optimize it, Webflow provides a detailed blog post with best practices.
3. Webflow Localization: A New Global Approach
One of Webflow’s latest and most impactful features is Localization, which is especially valuable for businesses looking to reach international audiences. Webflow Localization allows you to easily create multi-language websites without the need for third-party plugins, offering a seamless experience for both developers and site visitors.
The main features of Webflow Localization include:
- Localized Content: You can manage translations directly within the Webflow CMS, making it easy to provide region-specific content to users around the globe.
- Dynamic Language Switching: Visitors to your site can easily switch between languages via dynamic language switching, ensuring a fluid and user-friendly experience.
- Optimized SEO for Multiple Languages: Webflow ensures that your site is fully optimized for international SEO, allowing search engines to index your content correctly in multiple languages. This ensures better visibility across different regions and search queries.
- No Need for Third-Party Plugins: Unlike WordPress or other platforms, where localization often requires external plugins or services, Webflow’s localization features are built-in. This reduces the risk of conflicts, ensures better performance, and makes managing multilingual content more straightforward.
Localization in Webflow comes with specific pricing plans depending on your needs. You can choose from different localization add-ons starting at $24 per month for one additional language, and the pricing increases depending on the number of languages you wish to support.
For businesses with global ambitions, Webflow’s localization capabilities offer a powerful and integrated solution. It eliminates the complexity of managing multiple language plugins or working with external providers, streamlining the process of expanding to new markets.
4. Our Opinion: A Balanced Approach?
In conclusion, Webflow seems to have struck a good balance between the different needs of its users. The new pricing model provides an affordable option for websites to grow, particularly benefiting small to mid-sized businesses that previously relied on the Business plan to expand their CMS collections. The ability to purchase bandwidth or upgrade to Enterprise solutions provides flexibility for the small percentage of users who exceed the new 100 GB limit.
Webflow’s Localization feature, in particular, represents a game-changing development for businesses seeking to establish a global presence. With its built-in functionality and SEO benefits, it positions Webflow as a competitive platform for international projects without the usual complexities of third-party plugins.
While some updates will impact users differently, these changes are likely necessary for Webflow’s long-term sustainability. They also highlight the importance of developing sites using best practices, encouraging developers to optimize performance, content, and bandwidth usage.
We hope this article has given you a clear insight into Webflow's latest updates, including their powerful localization feature, and how these developments might impact your future projects. If you’re considering Webflow for your next site or migrating from another platform, these changes may play a key role in your decision-making process.