For anyone looking to build a website, there are many platforms that can help you do it without any coding skills. In fact, there are so many platforms that it’s hard to choose between them. Some of these website builders are free; some are expensive; some offer free hosting, some don’t, and so on. Though, when it comes to functionality and style, these three giants stand out: WordPress vs Webflow vs Shopify.
So, in this article, we’re going to compare the three platforms to help you find the best page builder for your needs to create and launch your website. Remember that there’s no number 1 website builder; all of them have pros and cons, and you need to decide which one to use according to your website, its functionalities, and needs.
Before we start, we need to make a note about WordPress. It has two platforms. The key difference between them is the hosting provider. With WordPress.com, WordPress takes care of the hosting for you, making it easier to start. On the other hand, WordPress.org requires you to source your own hosting provider. In this article, we will be talking about WordPress.org. It has far more customization potential and is much less restrictive, compared to WordPress.com.
Ease of Use
| Webflow | Webflow’s visual canvas enables no-code site creation for most marketing sites. Advanced layouts and interactions can be built visually; custom code is available for edge cases. The website creation process in Webflow is straightforward: start a site, select from hundreds of free and premium templates [exact count needs external citation], and customize design elements within the platform. Its visual, drag-and-drop editor, known as the visual editor, translates your design into clean code and allows for real-time design adjustments. The visual design interface lets users design websites visually without coding, making it accessible for both beginners and designers. The design interface emphasizes user friendliness, ensuring an intuitive experience for all skill levels. |
| Shopify | Similar to Webflow, Shopify doesn’t require coding experience to launch a storefront. It’s an eCommerce-focused platform that includes hosting and automated updates, plus learning resources to get started quickly. Themes offer a fast path to an on-brand store without custom code; deeper customization is possible with Liquid/theme edits and apps. |
| WordPress | WordPress can feel overwhelming for first-time users because you choose hosting, themes, and plugins, and you handle some maintenance. Page builders (e.g., Gutenberg blocks, Elementor) reduce the learning curve, and you don’t need to know code to publish and maintain most sites. If you want a pixel-perfect build or complex functionality, an experienced WordPress developer can set up exactly what you need. Maintaining the site can be straightforward with good processes. |
Some landing page template options with our favorite WordPress page builder plugin, Elementor:
Design & Customization
| Webflow | Webflow is design-first. The Designer lets you customize layouts, interactions, and animations visually, start from scratch or use templates, and manage dynamic content via Webflow CMS. Webflow templates offer extensive customization capabilities and help streamline the design process for users, making it easy to launch niche or professional sites. You can create custom content structures (Collections) and fields for different page types, and manage CMS content directly within the platform. Webflow is responsive by nature, and you can fine-tune typography and styles across breakpoints. Thanks to the visual design tools and templates, users can achieve professional results without hiring a graphic designer. Custom code injection is available for advanced needs, giving you near-total design control with a managed hosting setup. |
| Shopify | Shopify is more opinionated about design and structure, but its themes are modern, professional, and production-ready. It’s ideal when you want to move fast with a polished storefront. Shopify offers free and premium themes (including third-party options). Editable elements typically include colors, fonts, images, and logos; deeper changes can be done via Liquid, HTML/CSS, or apps. |
| WordPress | WordPress provides maximal customization. With thousands of themes and page builders, you can create virtually any design. WordPress themes come in a wide variety, both free and paid, offering extensive customization options for different needs and styles. You can switch themes, but customized layouts may require rework. Modern themes are generally responsive. With a fast, well-supported theme and a disciplined set of plugins, you can build professional, performant sites. Thanks to the range of themes and visual builders, users can achieve a polished look without needing a graphic designer. If you want a unique design system or complex UX not based on a theme, a web-design agency or developer may be helpful. |
Features
| Webflow | Webflow combines design tools with integrated hosting and security. Its key features include a visual design interface, built-in hosting, and flexible CMS options. Webflow features an all-in-one approach, integrating design, content management, and hosting in a single platform. Its built in features simplify the design process without coding, making it accessible for non-developers. Advanced features are available through higher-tier plans, supporting more complex needs. It’s strong for marketing sites and content-driven experiences, and it offers eCommerce plans for online stores. Building an ecommerce site with Webflow is streamlined, with features for product management, checkout, and integrated hosting. While it doesn’t have a plugin marketplace like WordPress or an app store like Shopify, you can extend it via custom code and external services. You can also set up blog structures using CMS Collections or start from a template and customize. Webflow’s CMS powers dynamic content on a webflow site or webflow sites, offering flexibility for creative portfolios and landing pages, though it may have limitations for large-scale or highly customized content management. For complex or edge-case functionality, you’ll often add custom code or integrate third-party tools. |
| Shopify | Shopify includes the core features needed to run an online store—catalog, cart, checkout, payments, shipping, and tax. It’s intentionally opinionated to ensure operational reliability. You can extend features via apps and theme customization, but be mindful that too many apps can bloat the frontend and affect performance. Keep your app stack lean and purposeful. |
| WordPress | WordPress’s plugin ecosystem covers nearly any function you can imagine: membership, eCommerce, directories, LMS, multilingual, and more. As a content management system, WordPress excels at managing complex content models with custom post types, taxonomies, and fields. The WordPress ecosystem enables extensive customization and extendibility, supporting a wide range of themes, tools, and resources. WordPress boasts versatility and scalability, making it suitable for everything from simple blogs to large enterprise sites. WooCommerce is free to install and provides extensive eCommerce options; optional extensions and payment processing fees may apply. The WooCommerce plugin is essential for adding ecommerce functionality to a WordPress site, transforming it into a fully functional online store. You can embed video from YouTube/Vimeo and use backup plugins that integrate with third-party storage providers. WordPress plugins, including any WordPress plugin, third party plugins, premium plugins, and free plugins (with over 50,000 available), offer unmatched extensibility and variety for enhancing site features and customization. Advanced features can be accessed through premium plugins or higher-tier hosting plans, supporting complex or large-scale websites. |
WordPress powers more than 43% of all websites. Below, you can see 10 famous websites, all built with WordPress!
Scalability and Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
| Webflow | Webflow outputs clean HTML/CSS and bundles high-performance hosting/CDN, which supports Core Web Vitals and SEO. You can customize titles, metas, headers, and alt text, and add structured data via custom code or page settings. Webflow offers robust SEO features, easy-to-use SEO settings, and built in SEO tools for on-page optimization. Site performance and optimized hosting are key strengths, ensuring fast load times and better SEO results. Both Webflow and WordPress provide tools to help websites perform well on search engines. For advanced analytics, testing, and personalization, you can inject scripts and connect external tools. |
| Shopify | Shopify provides a strong SEO baseline for eCommerce (mobile-friendly themes, sitemaps, canonical handling). Advanced SEO often involves theme edits and apps. URL structure and some system pages are opinionated, so you’ll manage within those constraints and optimize content, templates, and internal links. |
| WordPress | WordPress offers deep SEO extensibility through plugins (e.g., Yoast, Rank Math) and custom code. These SEO plugins expand the platform’s SEO capabilities, enabling advanced SEO optimization and granular control—Yoast SEO is especially popular for on-page guidance and meta management. Performance depends heavily on your hosting, theme efficiency, and plugin discipline. To fully leverage WordPress’s SEO and scalability features, a higher level of technical knowledge is often required. With proper technical setup and governance, WordPress scales well for large content libraries and complex architectures. |
Support
| Webflow | Webflow offers email support and extensive education through Webflow University, along with community forums. Live phone support is available for Enterprise customers. Weblow University has tutorials that can help you learn how to use the platform, they have FAQs and a forum where you can find many questions answered and discuss the issues with the community. |
| Shopify | Shopify has a customer support center which is there for you 24/7. It’s a live chat that you can access with your admin account. They also have a community of 900,000 merchants and partners, where you can ask questions and discuss all the issues with the community members. Shopify also has an academy where you can learn how to start your online store and learn about Shopify features. |
| WordPress | Although there is no official support center, there is an extensive community of web developers using WordPress who are happy to provide advice and offer solutions to problems. There are online forums as well as regular meetups. You may also hire a web design agency to help develop the page in the first place or take care of an issue when it arises. |
Website Management
| Webflow | Webflow is also a CMS platform that includes hosting and security and handles all the code, so it will be pretty easy to manage a Webflow website. Its hosting is quite good, and you don’t need to look for better-quality hosting services. Webflow hosting is an integrated hosting solution, meaning Webflow includes hosting as part of its platform, which simplifies website management and ensures scalability, security, and high performance without the need for third-party providers. However, Webflow has limitations in managing user accounts, which can be a drawback for e-commerce or membership sites that require robust user account management. And best of all, it offers a free plan, which you can use to fully build your website and then buy one of its plans to host your website. Though, when you want additional functionalities that Webflow doesn’t offer, you’ll need to write the code yourself and then make changes to it manually. |
| Shopify | Shopify is great when it comes to website management. All its plans come with hosting services; it has customer relationship management, inventory management, shipping, order tracking and tax management tools. Besides that, Shopify automatically updates the website and provides the SSL certificate, so you won’t have to worry about technical stuff. So, everything is handled by Shopify, which is quite helpful as you won’t need to hire other specialists or companies to manage your website. |
| WordPress | You have to source your own hosting provider and register a domain name before you can launch a site with WordPress. It is important to choose reliable web hosting and web hosts, as different hosting providers can impact your website’s performance and security. Due to its impressive usage (a third of all websites run on WP), it is susceptible to hacking, but updates and plugins are available to help mitigate this risk. To enhance website security, you should use SSL certificates, enable security features, and install security plugins to protect your site from vulnerabilities and threats. Also note, that you need to take care of the website and plugin updates yourself and make sure they are all compatible with each other. So, in the case of WordPress, it may take more effort and time to manage and maintain your website properly. |
Decision Guide by Role and Priority
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CMOs/Growth: Plan your CRO and analytics stack early. WordPress supports broad testing tools and custom data flows. Webflow supports client-side testing via custom code. Shopify relies on apps/theme edits for experimentation.
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UX Directors: Webflow’s visual components and constraints support consistent design systems. WordPress requires builder/theme governance to maintain consistency at scale.
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Founders: Managed hosting (Webflow/Shopify) reduces operational overhead and accelerates launch. WordPress offers maximum flexibility but needs a maintenance plan.
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E-commerce Managers: Shopify streamlines core store operations; WordPress + WooCommerce offers flexibility but typically requires more oversight and performance tuning.
Pricing: WordPress vs Webflow vs Shopify
| Webflow | Webflow has four Site plans billed yearly. Starter is free for prototyping on a Webflow.io domain (2 pages, small CMS limits). Basic is $14/month for simple sites without a CMS and lets you use a custom domain. CMS is $23/month for blogs and marketing sites, adding Collections, more CMS items, and site search. Business is $39/month for higher-traffic sites, with more pages, larger CMS limits, and extra features like form file upload. Always confirm current pricing and limits on Webflow’s official page. |
| Shopify | Shopify has four plans. Basic is $19/month (yearly) for solo entrepreneurs; includes 10 inventory locations, 24/7 chat, and in‑person selling; third‑party payment fees start at 2%. Grow is $49/month (yearly) for small teams; adds 5 staff accounts; third‑party fees start at 1%. Advanced is $299/month (yearly) for scaling stores; includes local storefronts and 15 staff; third‑party fees start at 0.6%. Plus is $2,300/month on a 3‑year term for complex, high‑volume needs; offers 200 inventory locations, priority support, unlimited staff, and customizable checkout |
| WordPress | Monthly Costs: free! WordPress.com offers hosted plans billed yearly: Starter for personal sites, typically around $4–$9/month, with a custom domain and basic features; Explorer/Beginner (where available) steps up storage and tools, often around $8–$14/month; Creator for professional sites and portfolios, commonly around $18–$25/month with advanced design/customization; Entrepreneur for small businesses adding payments/ecommerce features, usually around $30–$45/month; Commerce for full online stores with product management and advanced store tools, generally around $70–$100/month; and Enterprise/Scale tiers for large organizations with custom SLAs and pricing. WordPress pricing is often considered more flexible and affordable compared to other platforms, especially since the core software is free and you only pay for hosting and optional upgrades. |
Decision Tree: Pick Your Platform in 30 Seconds
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Is selling online your primary objective?
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Yes → Shopify
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No → Go to 2
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Do you prioritize visual design control with managed hosting and minimal DevOps?
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Yes → Webflow
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No → Go to 3
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Do you need complex content models, deep integrations, or a broad plugin ecosystem?
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Yes → WordPress
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No → Webflow (fast, design-led execution)
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Do you expect heavy CRO experimentation, custom data flows, or AI-driven personalization soon?
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Yes → WordPress (or Webflow with custom code) + plan for an analytics/testing stack
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Commerce-focused → Shopify + curated apps + custom theme work
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Final Thoughts
So, which one is the best for your business? Let’s make conclusions, starting from Webflow.
Webflow is a visual drag-and-drop builder that lets you completely control your web design. So, if you’re a web designer and want to build a highly-customized and branded website, then Webflow is a good choice. Though, bear in mind that if you need to add extra functionalities that Webflow doesn’t have, you’ll need a developer’s help. Webflow also offers many templates for users to choose from, providing a variety of design options.
Shopify is a great e-commerce platform and the most popular e-commerce platform for a reason. It has excellent features and all the necessary functionalities to start an online store. Although, Shopify is not very flexible, and if you need to create a customized design or a complex website, you will face some limits and will need to know how to deal with the code or hire a developer. But overall, for someone who doesn’t have experience neither in design not in coding, it’s a good choice to start an online business, and it’s probably one of the best e-commerce platforms. However, unlike WordPress, Webflow requires a subscription to unlock essential e-commerce features, whereas WordPress allows users to leverage WooCommerce at no additional cost for basic usage.
And finally, WordPress. For complete control over your website, the potential for customization and scalability, and the availability of a wide range of plugins and features, WordPress is by far the best option. You may need to invest some time in getting to grips with its building tools or hire a web developer to do the work for you, but the long-term results will be worth it as there is virtually no limit to the kind of website you can design. Additionally, WordPress offers over 60,000 plugins that extend its functionality, making it a highly versatile platform.
Explore your options carefully and weigh the pros and cons against your goals, timeline, and internal capabilities. You can migrate later, but expect rework—content models, templates, and URLs rarely map 1:1. If you need guidance or want a team that can design, build, optimize, and automate quickly across WordPress, Webflow, or Shopify, Passionates can help.
