WordPress, Webflow, Framer or custom code: how to choose your website platform

We build on WordPress, Webflow, Framer and custom code, so we don’t have a horse in this race. Here’s our honest take on each, and the one question that matters more than any feature list.

Start with the question that matters

Who will update this website, and how often?

A powerful CMS nobody logs into is worse than a simple site that gets updated every week. Search engines and AI assistants reward fresh, useful pages. So before comparing features, be honest about how your team works.

WordPress

Best for: content-heavy sites, ecommerce with WooCommerce, and businesses that need a specific plugin or integration.

• Strengths: the biggest ecosystem on the web. There’s a plugin for almost anything, plenty of developers, and you can host it wherever you like.
• Trade-offs: it needs looking after. Plugins and themes need regular updates, security matters, and a site loaded with plugins can get slow.
• Editing: page builders like Elementor or Bricks make visual editing approachable once the site is set up well.

WordPress is a great choice if it’s hosted and maintained properly. It’s a risky one if nobody owns the updates.

Webflow

Best for: design-led marketing sites with structured content like blogs, case studies, team pages or resources.

• Strengths: precise design control, a strong CMS for structured content, and hosting included with no plugins to patch.
• Trade-offs: a steeper learning curve for whoever builds and changes layouts, and pricing that grows with your plan, CMS items and site traffic.
• Editing: content editors can update text and CMS items safely without touching the design.

Framer

Best for: startups and teams who think visually and want to launch fast.

• Strengths: the fastest route to a beautiful, animated marketing site. Editing feels like a design tool, and hosting is included.
• Trade-offs: less suited to complex content structures, ecommerce or unusual integrations, though its plugin marketplace keeps growing.
• Editing: very approachable for founders and marketers who are comfortable in tools like Figma.

Custom code

Best for: fast, light marketing sites where you’d rather request changes than make them yourself.

• Strengths: excellent speed, no plugins to update, a much smaller security surface, and complete design freedom. With frontier AI models, custom-coded sites are now much faster and less expensive to build than they used to be.
• Trade-offs: no visual editor out of the box. Changes go through your developer or studio.
• Editing: through requests. Our AI websites pair custom code with a service package and a request queue, so changes are a message away.

A quick way to decide

• You publish often and want to do it yourself: Webflow or WordPress.
• You need ecommerce or specific integrations: WordPress, or a custom build for complex needs.
• You want to launch fast and your team lives in design tools: Framer.
• You want the fastest site and would rather not touch it: custom code with a care plan.

Think three years ahead

Moving platforms later means a rebuild. So pick for the business you expect to be in three years, not just the site you need this month. Ask whether you’ll need a blog, landing pages for campaigns, multiple languages, member logins or a shop. Those answers usually make the choice for you.

Not sure?

That’s what onboarding is for. Our questionnaires cover how your team works, what you publish and what you sell, and we’ll recommend a platform before any design starts. Compare our CMS websites on WordPress, Webflow and Framer with our custom-coded AI websites.