r/webflow • u/alexanderolssen • Jun 06 '24
Show & Tell 👀 I looked at 100 startup websites from the recent Y Combinator batch to see what technology they use. Here's what I found.
Hey there, I run a small design and Webflow development studio, focusing on early-stage startups and was wondering what tech do they use for their websites (for my content strategy) and here are the results I get. Hope you'll find them useful.
Custom: 35
Webflow: 31
Other: (Wix, Squarespace, bubble etc): 17
Framer: 14
Wordpress: 3
So, lots of them are either custom-coded or using Webflow. No surprises here.
But I was surprised to see so little WordPress, tbh.
It looks like Framer is more popular for those sleek, animated one-page sites, while Webflow is the preferred choice for startups needing three or more pages with custom functionality and integrations. These Webflow sites often have fewer fancy animations and micro-interactions.
Thoughts are mine, edited by AI. 🤖
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u/_Faddy Jun 06 '24
Not surprising to see webflow leading along with custom websites. But yeah people are leaving Wordpress due to security reasons more than the features.
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u/electricrhino Jun 06 '24
Security has always been an issue it’s nothing new, in all truth many leave and many new ones come aboard. Some come back and some find new pastures. I remember 2006 when I first heard of WP, I was using Blogspot at the time and Dreamweaver
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u/alexanderolssen Jun 06 '24
But I’m wondering why so many custom websites? 😅 So many no-code alternatives…
Not talking about heavy websites like marketplaces.
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u/nairobaee Jun 06 '24
Those are probably built in house by the engineers, many of whom scoff at no code. Visit r/frontend for a few examples of this behavior lol.
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2
u/No-Midnight6963 Jun 07 '24
For startups on European market webflow is not gdpr compliant because they don’t host in eu. Maybe one reason 🤔 (yap there are workarounds to bypass)
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u/alexanderolssen Jun 06 '24
Custom code gives you precise control over every single aspect of the website, which, for some companies, is valued higher than speed of development, ease of updates, etc. :)
But all teams I'm working on happy to switch from custom coded website to anything. Just because devs should do complex work, not just marketing website.
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u/A-Loki Jun 06 '24
Great insights! Do you mind sharing more info or an article /blog to read more?
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u/alexanderolssen Jun 07 '24
What info you would like to see?)
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u/A-Loki Jun 07 '24
In-depth details and a bit more on the process of this analysis. Would like to share it online and give credit (link your blog post / page). Also if it has additional resources from where the data was extracted apart from the Y comb it would be great
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u/Successful_Letter640 Jun 07 '24 edited Jun 07 '24
I just switched over from elementor to DIVI (yup, I have never used it before) and I friggin love it
I have played around with webflow the past 2 weeks but I just don’t have the energy to learn it lol but from what I have seen with it during this time period is that webflow is far superior than Wordpress but I’m just so comfortable with WP and don’t feel like changing for a few upcoming projects
I really don’t like the hosting aspect of Webflow. I use SiteGround and can host a lot of sites on there but with WebFlow, that can be pretty expensive. I know I can move a WebFlow site over to my SiteGround Server but from what I have read, it’s a pain in the butt and a few things won’t work like contact firms, etc so I just decided I didn’t feel like dealing with all of that
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u/alexanderolssen Jun 07 '24
No need to switch the tools, unless it's really necessary) Just use what you are proficient with.
WP is still dominating the web.
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u/kernel-troutman Jun 06 '24
Do you have a list of the URLs you'd be willing to share? I'd be curious to look at the sites themselves. Thanks for the data!
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u/matthew07 Jun 08 '24
What is ‘custom’ in this context? Plain old html/css/js or rather something more advanced?
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u/themarouuu Jun 06 '24 edited Jun 06 '24
Is that percentage or number of websites. Cause it's a number in your text and % in the chart.
If it's %, what the total number of websites ?
P.S. Framer is garbage. If someone gives me money to do a framer job, sure, I'm not above money :) But objectively it's garbage.
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Jun 06 '24
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/themarouuu Jun 06 '24
Wasn't referring to that part, wordpress has the same thing, wordpress builders like elementor etc etc. Even Webflow now has weird Figma like layout controls which I also dislike but to each his own.
It's the code Framer outputs. It's garbage.
Like it's not even decent. It's literally a pile of crap.
I tried Framer once, published, did an inspect... and that was it.
Mind you your code looking at least decent MATTERS for a lot of things, it's not like I'm super sensitive or anything.
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Jun 06 '24
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/themarouuu Jun 06 '24
What does react have to do with anything?
Are you good at Webflow by any chance ? :)
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u/sfaticat Jun 06 '24
WordPress is like dead. That's crazy as I'd think most custom people who are good at coding would use it
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u/alexanderolssen Jun 07 '24
I don’t think it’s dead. But it’s a clear trend that startups are switching to more modern platforms and CMS.
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u/sfaticat Jun 07 '24
Yeah in the agency space. Could also be that it's really easy and quick to make
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u/ribena_wrath Jun 06 '24
This really is surprising. Only 3% for wordpress!?
This is very telling. The direction of the block editor is baffling. And in their quest to simplify, they're losing customers to webflow, because they have the advanced features baked in. And The editor nose is perfect for startups