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They literally did the same thing with dreamweaver as well. And now dreamweaver is a fast growing business in the form of Webflow. It’s the same story over and

They literally did the same thing with dreamweaver as well. And now dreamweaver is a fast growing business in the form of Webflow. It’s the same story over and over again. Adobe acquires and then stifles innovation. 10 years later we realize what we were missing out on when a challenger eventually gets big enough—-until Adobe kills that company too. I’d bet a nice chunk of money that Webflow is next.

rchaud 4y ago
I don't think so. Webflow is all marketing and PR IMO. The issue with Webflow is that GUI-based web design that exports static HTML files doesn't fit with how most large websites are coded and deployed. It would be one thing if Webflow CMS and Ecommerce was gaining market share vs Squarespace and Wix, but I don't know if that's really happening. When I go on Twitter, I mostly see PR-type posts about Webflow. Lots of "Webflow experts" but few real companies that are willing to build large sites with it.
- pembrook 4y ago
  They actually are gaining market share dramatically among high traffic (big company) marketing sites: https://www.sitebuilderreport.com/state-of-website-builders/ https://www.sitebuilderreport.com/state-of-website-builders/ Once static site generators + headless CMS's became all the rage among enterprise IT types, that opened the door to Webflow...since Webflow is basically a GUI-based static site generator + headless CMS. If you ask the engineering team, they'll build the marketing site into a complicated monstrosity on Gatsby + Contentful, and then never allow you to touch it again. You'll need to go through them to make any changes--and they'll be busy with real product work. If you build on Webflow, you're basically doing the same thing, but putting ownership of the marketing site squarely inside the marketing org (who likely has people who's time is less expensive able to do what you need in Webflow...and faster). There's limitations for sure (eg. multi-lingual sites, nested directory URL structure, etc), but within a few years I'm guessing those will be solved and the adoption will be even more dramatic. Although Webflow seems to be stupidly focusing on the whole "No code" Twitter circle-jerk with Logic/memberships, so they may get disrupted by Framer in the meantime however.
  - rchaud 4y ago
    > If you build on Webflow, you're basically doing the same thing, but putting ownership of the marketing site squarely inside the marketing org (who likely has people who's time is less expensive able to do what you need in Webflow...and faster). Fair enough. I still don't think Webflow CMS is going to make much of a dent in this market (even though I think their GUI is much better than Wix/Squarespace). The charts in the site builder report link, even being 2 years old, suggest they're well behind even obscure platforms like Google Sites.
    - magicink81 4y ago
      I would expect change in market share to be faster for design tools than CMS systems / web builders, as the barrier to adoption is lower for design tools, however, change does happen when innovation addresses under-served market needs and delivers greater value against those needs. Framer, Webflow, Jotform and others seem to be on a path to doing just that. Here's a chart that shows Figma's rise against competitors: https://miro.medium.com/max/1400/1*gdeNbC57BJKydbYQjNdqOg.png https://miro.medium.com/max/1400/1*gdeNbC57BJKydbYQjNdqOg.pn...
    - omnimus 4y ago
      Every webflow site means paying customer (and professional setting). It's pretty expected that free builders like Google Sites will have more websites. The question is how many of them are high quality. If you look at the 2 year old data - Webflow already had more sites in top 1 milion websites than WIX.
- omnimus 4y ago
  Maybe it depends on country but Webflow has massive adoption around here. Every agency is becoming webflow agency because they can teach their designers to create small to medium sized websites without coding. You can't create custom unique branded websites without coding with any other tool. It got to a point where clients themselves require webflow because it means easy, cheap, fast visual changes. Wix had to rush to create their Editor X which is direct Webflow competition. Yes it won't replace big sites that require complex CMSes and publishing flows. But it certainly has a niche. TBH i think it will be super interesting if somebody made some kind of more open webflow style html/css editor that could be integrated to current CMSes and workflows. Like sections of pages that are handcrafted like this. Or your header/footer and blog are CMS but landing page is this super visual html/cms editor.

rchaud 4y ago

I don't think so. Webflow is all marketing and PR IMO. The issue with Webflow is that GUI-based web design that exports static HTML files doesn't fit with how most large websites are coded and deployed. It would be one thing if Webflow CMS and Ecommerce was gaining market share vs Squarespace and Wix, but I don't know if that's really happening. When I go on Twitter, I mostly see PR-type posts about Webflow. Lots of "Webflow experts" but few real companies that are willing to build large sites with it.

pembrook 4y ago
They actually are gaining market share dramatically among high traffic (big company) marketing sites: https://www.sitebuilderreport.com/state-of-website-builders/ https://www.sitebuilderreport.com/state-of-website-builders/ Once static site generators + headless CMS's became all the rage among enterprise IT types, that opened the door to Webflow...since Webflow is basically a GUI-based static site generator + headless CMS. If you ask the engineering team, they'll build the marketing site into a complicated monstrosity on Gatsby + Contentful, and then never allow you to touch it again. You'll need to go through them to make any changes--and they'll be busy with real product work. If you build on Webflow, you're basically doing the same thing, but putting ownership of the marketing site squarely inside the marketing org (who likely has people who's time is less expensive able to do what you need in Webflow...and faster). There's limitations for sure (eg. multi-lingual sites, nested directory URL structure, etc), but within a few years I'm guessing those will be solved and the adoption will be even more dramatic. Although Webflow seems to be stupidly focusing on the whole "No code" Twitter circle-jerk with Logic/memberships, so they may get disrupted by Framer in the meantime however.
- rchaud 4y ago
  > If you build on Webflow, you're basically doing the same thing, but putting ownership of the marketing site squarely inside the marketing org (who likely has people who's time is less expensive able to do what you need in Webflow...and faster). Fair enough. I still don't think Webflow CMS is going to make much of a dent in this market (even though I think their GUI is much better than Wix/Squarespace). The charts in the site builder report link, even being 2 years old, suggest they're well behind even obscure platforms like Google Sites.
  - magicink81 4y ago
    I would expect change in market share to be faster for design tools than CMS systems / web builders, as the barrier to adoption is lower for design tools, however, change does happen when innovation addresses under-served market needs and delivers greater value against those needs. Framer, Webflow, Jotform and others seem to be on a path to doing just that. Here's a chart that shows Figma's rise against competitors: https://miro.medium.com/max/1400/1*gdeNbC57BJKydbYQjNdqOg.png https://miro.medium.com/max/1400/1*gdeNbC57BJKydbYQjNdqOg.pn...
  - omnimus 4y ago
    Every webflow site means paying customer (and professional setting). It's pretty expected that free builders like Google Sites will have more websites. The question is how many of them are high quality. If you look at the 2 year old data - Webflow already had more sites in top 1 milion websites than WIX.
omnimus 4y ago
Maybe it depends on country but Webflow has massive adoption around here. Every agency is becoming webflow agency because they can teach their designers to create small to medium sized websites without coding. You can't create custom unique branded websites without coding with any other tool. It got to a point where clients themselves require webflow because it means easy, cheap, fast visual changes. Wix had to rush to create their Editor X which is direct Webflow competition. Yes it won't replace big sites that require complex CMSes and publishing flows. But it certainly has a niche. TBH i think it will be super interesting if somebody made some kind of more open webflow style html/css editor that could be integrated to current CMSes and workflows. Like sections of pages that are handcrafted like this. Or your header/footer and blog are CMS but landing page is this super visual html/cms editor.