Webflow vs Shopify: Which One Should You Use to Build Your Website?

Shopify is an e-commerce platform for building online stores, while Webflow is a website builder that can create all types of websites, including online stores.
Webflow vs Shopify

To create the perfect website, you need the perfect web development platform.

This article looks at the differences between Webflow and Shopify. Read to the end to learn which one is better for you.

Shopify has more built-in features for managing orders and shipping, while Webflow is more focused on the design and customization of the website itself.

A Look at Webflow

Webflow is a powerful platform that enables users to design and develop professional-grade websites and web applications without needing to have any coding knowledge.

It features a visual drag-and-drop interface that allows users to design the layout and style of their website, as well as add and manage content such as text, images, and videos.

Webflow also includes tools for SEO optimization and integration with third-party services such as e-commerce platforms, email marketing tools, and analytics software.

In addition to building static websites, Webflow also offers the ability to build dynamic sites with interactive elements, such as forms and animations, using its built-in programming language, Webflow JS.

One of the main benefits of using Webflow is that it allows designers and developers to work together on the same platform, streamlining the website development process.

Webflow also offers a range of templates and design elements that users can customize to create a unique and professional-looking website quickly and easily.

Webflow homepage
Image: Webflow

A Look at Shopify

Shopify is a comprehensive e-commerce platform that allows businesses to sell their products online.

It provides users with everything they need to create an online store, including a customizable storefront, a shopping cart, and a secure checkout process.

Shopify also offers a range of tools to manage and track orders, process payments, and handle shipping and taxes. It integrates with various payment gateways and shipping carriers, allowing users to choose the options that best suit their business needs.

In addition to its core e-commerce features, Shopify also offers a range of tools for marketing and customer engagement, such as email marketing, abandoned cart recovery, and customer reviews.

It also provides access to various third-party apps and integrations, including those for accounting, CRM, and social media.

Shopify homepage
Image: Shopify

Similarities Between Webflow and Shopify

Webflow and Shopify are pretty similar in how they work and the features they offer. Let’s look at some of their main similarities below.

Hosting and Domain Management

Both Shopify and Webflow offer hosting and domain management as part of their services, allowing users to focus on building and maintaining their websites without having to worry about infrastructure.

Shopify hosts all its stores and allows users to purchase and manage their own domains. At the same time, Webflow offers to host websites built on its platform and provides the option to purchase and manage custom domains through its Domain Manager.

E-commerce Capabilities

Both Shopify and Webflow provide e-commerce functionality, enabling users to sell products or services online.

Shopify is a comprehensive e-commerce platform that includes everything businesses need to set up and manage an online store, including a shopping cart, payment processing, and shipping management.

Webflow also offers e-commerce capabilities, including the ability to create product pages, manage inventory, and process payments using integrations with payment gateways such as Stripe and PayPal.

Customization Options

Both Shopify and Webflow offer a high degree of customization, allowing users to tailor the appearance and functionality of their websites to their specific needs.

In Shopify, users can choose a range of professional-looking themes and customize them using the platform’s built-in design tools or hire a developer to create a custom theme.

Webflow also offers a range of templates and design elements that users can customize using its visual drag-and-drop interface, or create custom designs from scratch using its built-in programming language, Webflow JS.

Differences Between Webflow and Shopify

While Webflow and Shopify are similar in many ways, they also have several differences that can help you decide which one to use. Let’s look at some of these differences.

Features Comparison

Before working with Webflow or Shopify, you’ll need to know which features are important.

Both platforms have a wide range of features, but they’re aimed at different types of users.

Webflow’s most notable features include:

  • A visual editor that also gives you access to HTML, CSS, and JS.
  • Countless plugins, themes, and other advanced customization options.
  • Customizable shopping cart.
  • A branded checkout page.
  • Zapier integrations.
  • Attractive product pages.
  • Social media campaign manager.
  • Blog software.

On the other hand, Shopify gives you features like:

  • The ability to edit code.
  • Abandoned cart recovery.
  • Dropshipping options.
  • Support for discount codes, product reviews, and gift cards.
  • Direct selling with Facebook.
  • Built-in payment gateway and support for many others.

From the features above, it’s easy to conclude that Webflow is ideal for individuals or businesses that want more customization and design freedom, while Shopify is for businesses that want to focus on eCommerce.

Templates

Webflow and Shopify offer templates as a starting point for building websites, but there are some key differences between the two.

Shopify offers a range of professionally designed themes that users can customize to fit the specific needs of their online store.

These themes are pre-designed and include various layout and design options, as well as customizable color schemes and fonts. Users can choose from industry-specific themes or opt for a more general-purpose design.

Webflow also offers templates, but they focus more on specific design elements rather than complete layouts.

These templates include pre-designed page sections such as headers, footers, and forms, which users can add to their own custom layouts.

Webflow also offers complete templates for specific types of websites, such as portfolios and e-commerce stores, but these are less customizable than the individual design elements.

Webflow template library
Image: Webflow template library

Ease of Learning

Both Shopify and Webflow are relatively easy to learn and use, but they differ in terms of their complexity and the skills required to utilize their features fully.

Shopify is a comprehensive e-commerce platform with many tools and features for managing an online store.

While it is relatively easy to set up and manage a basic store using Shopify, it may require more time and effort to fully utilize its features and customize the store to a high degree.

Webflow, on the other hand, is primarily a design and development platform that allows users to create custom websites without writing code.

It has a visual drag-and-drop interface that is relatively easy to use, even for those with little or no web design experience.

However, to fully utilize Webflow’s features and create more complex designs, users may need to learn its built-in programming language, Webflow JS.

Therefore, Shopify has a shallower learning curve than Webflow due to its limited customization features.

User Interface

Shopify has a more traditional e-commerce platform UI, with a left-hand sidebar menu that allows users to access different platform sections, such as orders, products, and analytics.

It also has a top navigation bar for accessing global features, such as the account settings and help center.

Shopify user interface
Image: Shopify user interface

Webflow, on the other hand, has a more design-focused UI, with a top navigation bar for accessing design elements and a canvas area for building and previewing the website. It also has a right-hand sidebar for managing website pages and settings.

That said, the UI of a platform depends on its focus and intended use. Shopify’s UI is tailored to the needs of online store managers, while Webflow’s UI is made for designers and developers.

Webflow’s user interface
Image: Webflow’s user interface (source)

Payment Gateway

Shopify’s payment gateway, Shopify Payments, is fully integrated with the platform and allows easy setup and management of payments.

It supports various payment options, including credit cards, debit cards, and digital wallets. Shopify Payments also has transparent pricing, with no additional transaction fees for using the gateway.

Additionally, Shopify integrates with over 100 external payment gateways, allowing you to use your preferred one.

Webflow, on the other hand, does not have its own payment gateway. Instead, it integrates with external payment gateways such as Stripe, PayPal, and Square.

This allows you to choose the payment gateway that best fits your needs. However, using an external payment gateway may come with additional transaction fees.

Overall, Shopify is more convenient because it offers an integrated payment gateway, but also allows you to add external integrations.

Inventory Management System

Both Webflow and Shopify offer inventory management features to help e-commerce businesses keep track of their products and stock levels.

Shopify’s inventory management system allows you to track stock levels, set low-stock alerts, and create automatic notifications when products go out of stock.

It also supports multiple locations and allows you to create product variants and organize their inventory with tags and custom fields.

Webflow does not have a built-in inventory management system, but it allows you to track stock levels using custom fields. However, this requires manual updates and does not offer the same level of automation and organization as Shopify’s system.

Customer Support and Community

Both Webflow and Shopify offer customer support and have active online communities for merchants to connect and get help.

Shopify has a large and dedicated support team that can be contacted via phone, email, and live chat. It also has a comprehensive help center with a wide range of resources and a large online community forum where merchants can ask for help and share knowledge with each other.

Webflow also offers customer support via email and has a help center with a range of resources. It also has a vibrant online community forum where merchants can connect and get help from each other and Webflow’s support team.

Pricing Comparison

Webflow and Shopify have several pricing plans that offer different features. Let’s compare them below:

Shopify Pricing

Shopify offers new users a 3-day free trial to learn how the platform works. In addition, it has the following paid plans:

  • The basic plan for $1 per month: Offers an online store and basic features like 2 staff accounts.
  • The Shopify plan for $69 per month: Offers professional features for a small to mid-size business.
  • The advanced plan for $299 per month: Gives you everything Shopify has to offer, including some custom features.
Shopify pricing plans
Image: Shopify pricing plans

Webflow Pricing

Webflow offers a free starter plan ideal for beginners who want to learn how the platform works. It also has the following paid plans:

  • The Basic plan for $14 per month: Ideal for launching a simple website.
  • The CMS plan for $23 per month: Offers great features for a blog or content-driven site.
  • The Business plan for $39 per month: Ideal for a high-traffic marketing website.
  • The Enterprise plan for a custom price: For big corporations that want enterprise-level scalability, compliance and security.

To get a custom quote for the enterprise plan, you can contact Webflow’s sales team

Webflow pricing plans
Image: Webflow pricing plans

Recommendations Based on Usage

Now that we’ve compared their features, let’s look at how Shopify and Webflow would perform in specific use cases.

For Design Freedom

Webflow offers more design freedom than Shopify, as it allows you to customize your website’s design using CSS and HTML fully.

Shopify also allows for some design customization, but it is more limited than Webflow.

Both platforms offer a range of templates and themes to choose from, but Webflow’s templates are more customizable and offer more flexibility.

For Blogging and SEO

Shopify has a built-in blog feature that allows merchants to easily create and publish blog posts, as well as customize the design of the blog.

It also has good SEO features, such as customizable title tags and descriptions, as well as an option to create custom URLs.

Webflow also has a built-in blogging feature and allows merchants to customize the design of their blogs. It also has good SEO features, including customizable title tags and descriptions, as well as the ability to create custom URLs and add alt tags to images.

For eCommerce

While both platforms have eCommerce features, Shopify has more advanced options. The platform is specifically designed with eCommerce in mind, compared to Webflow, which is more of a design and development platform.

For Good Buyer Experience

Both Webflow and Shopify offer a good buyer experience with features such as easy navigation, a range of payment options, and responsive design.

However, Shopify has more features specifically geared towards optimizing the buyer experience, such as abandoned cart recovery and customer reviews.

For Efficient Shipping Fulfillment

Webflow is a website builder, while Shopify is an e-commerce platform. Shopify has more built-in features for managing orders and shipping, making it more efficient for fulfilling orders.

Webflow may require more manual setup and integration with third-party tools for order and shipping management.

For Marketing Features

Shopify has more robust marketing features, such as creating discount codes, abandoned cart recovery emails, and email campaigns.

Webflow does not have these features built-in, but you can integrate it with third-party marketing tools. Webflow is more focused on the design and customization of the website itself rather than marketing and promotion.

For Data Privacy

Shopify has a privacy policy to protect customer data and offers SSL certificates to secure online transactions.

Webflow also has a privacy policy and offers SSL certificates, but it does not have the same built-in features for protecting customer data as Shopify.

Both platforms may require the use of additional tools and measures to secure customer data fully.

For Building Mobile-Friendly Sites

Both Shopify and Webflow offer the ability to build mobile-friendly websites. Shopify has a responsive design and offers a separate mobile commerce shopping cart, while Webflow allows you to customize your website’s mobile design through its design tools.

Pros and Cons Summary Table

WebflowShopify
ProsConsProsCons
Many customization optionsLimited marketing featuresEasy to learn and useLimited customization features
Free plan for beginners Advanced eCommerce features 
User-friendly UI Better security features 
Thousands of integrations Affordable basic plan 

Final Word

Webflow and Shopify are excellent no-code web development platforms. However, the right one for you depends on your priorities.

When to Use Webflow

Webflow is ideal for individuals and businesses that focus on the aesthetics of their website. It offers various customization features that allow you to create attractive and responsive sites.

When to Use Shopify

Shopify is best for businesses that focus on the eCommerce aspect of their site. The platform has some of the most advanced marketing and eCommerce features that guarantee customers a good experience.

Best Alternatives

Here are a few good Shopify and Webflow alternatives:

  • BigCommerce: This is a cloud-based e-commerce platform that offers a wide range of features for managing an online store, including marketing tools and integrations with popular payment gateways. It is suitable for businesses of all sizes and offers a range of pricing options.
  • Wix: This is a website builder that offers a range of templates and design tools for creating websites. It has e-commerce capabilities and offers integrations with payment gateways and marketing tools.
  • Squarespace: This is a website builder that offers a range of templates and design tools for creating websites, as well as e-commerce capabilities and integrations with marketing and payment tools. It is suitable for businesses of all sizes.
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