[JMTQp8lwXL]

Congrats to these folks. But I have a serious, genuine question: How many of these click-and-drag, WYSIWYG website creators are we going to see?

I get there's a need for the long-tail of web traffic (small businesses, etc) to create an internet presence. But is it all that profitable, which I imagine is plenty of competition to undercut your prices? I don't know how a Wix, etc. can stand out or have a competitive advantage in this space. There are so many of them it seems.

[shubhamjain]

Webflow is different. It doesn't limit to set of templates and their styling, which most other site builders do. It's a GUI layer above raw CSS and HTML, which gives you the ability to build virtually anything. It's an order of magnitude more powerful than its competitors. Webflow's own website[1] is a great example of what you can make with it.

Considering how many marketing departments I have seen struggling to pull someone from the dev team to fix a tiny, tiny change, this is a massive opportunity.

[1]: https://webflow.com/

[JMTQp8lwXL]

So when there isn't a template to do what you need, you have to know CSS and HTML, and must code yourself. The premise is "no-code". The uniqueness of this editor is it's ability to play nicely with anything you write yourself.

[davidivadavid]

Nope. You don't have to code anything. That's the whole point. If you don't have a template, you start from a blank page and you build it using the GUI.

[JMTQp8lwXL]

My original discussion point (top-level comment) was that feature alone doesn't sound like much of a differentiator from other WYSIWYG web builders out there.

[callmevlad]

That is, in fact, our main differentiator – and the main reason people choose Webflow. Check out this very diverse set of sites [1] that can be built with Webflow, this ability to visually develop any kind of custom layout/experience really does go a long way to distance us from any competitors.

[1] https://webflow.com/discover/popular

[JMTQp8lwXL]

These sites are quite varied, I do agree. One small thing I noticed. Some sites could have improved tab navigation, for example https://www.memberstack.io/. The site, without any interaction, is buttery smooth 60fps. When I start tabbing through the "What others are saying..." carousel, though, it destroys the animation frame rate (Chrome, Mac OS, 32 GB RAM).

[davidivadavid]

Most WYSIWYG web builders are about assembling pre-existing blocks. Webflow gives you total freedom. Webflow is to Wix/Builders as Photoshop/Illustrator are to Canva.

[hanniabu]

I tried looking on the site but wasn't able to find a definitive answer, does this support the ability to add custom JS?

[callmevlad]

Yes, you can! https://university.webflow.com/article/embed

One thing to note is that we're also creating visual abstractions over common things that are hand-coded with JS. For example, see our declarative GUI for interactions and animations [1] – it allows designers to get the same exact effects that you'd build out manually, but without the need to learn how to write that JS from scratch.

[1] https://webflow.com/interactions-animations

[hanniabu]

Thanks for the info

[mandeepj]

webflow's designer seems to be heavily inspired by https://grapesjs.com/

[nixme]

I think it's the other way around

[callmevlad]

Bingo :)

[tempsy]

Well, ironically Lambda School uses Webflow (https://twitter.com/austen/status/1159145385891205120), so it's not just "mom and pop" small businesses that are customers. If anything, those businesses would be better served using something like SquareSpace or Wix, not Webflow.

[awad]

Even if you remove the massive long tail for a second, there's huge opportunity in the enterprise. I've never really met a marketing team satisfied with the speed in which they're able to create, edit, and deploy changes. A bit hyperbolic of course, but there's definitely room in the market.

[frenchman99]

I've heard great things about Squarespace's customer service, which is why I recommend them. So from my perspective, customer service can be one way to differentiate one company from the other.

[Gys]

It might be all about projecting a number of tiny businesses without websites yet (or not maintained, or old, or only on FB, etc) and convince VCs that you can get a large cut of those.

[rstupek]

I know Wix isn't making any money yet losing $30-$50M a year

[pavlakoos]

Source?

[avip]

WIX is a publicly traded company.

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/wix-reports-second-...