Magnolia vs. Webflow

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Magnolia
Score 8.1 out of 10
Mid-Size Companies (51-1,000 employees)
Founded in Switzerland in 1997, Magnolia is a CMS used to build composable digital experiences. Magnolia helps create fully integrated customer experiences and speeds up digital delivery of content. Magnolia boasts 480 enterprise customers, thousands of Community Edition deployments, and more than 200 certified Magnolia Partners around the world. They further state that their enterprise customers include Sanofi, Generali, the Atlassian, The New York Times, Harley Davidson, and Union…
$3,500
per month
Webflow
Score 8.8 out of 10
N/A
Webflow is a Website Experience Platform for modern marketing teams, used to visually build, manage, and optimize websites that offer both the consumer experience teams expect and enterprise-grade performance and scale.
$18
per month
Pricing
MagnoliaWebflow
Editions & Modules
DX Core
$3500
per month
DX Cloud
$6000
per month
Basic
$18
per month
CMS
$29
per month
Ecommerce - Standard
$42
per month
Business
$49
per month
Ecommerce - Plus
$84
per month
Ecommerce - Advanced
$235
per month
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
MagnoliaWebflow
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsUp to a 22% discount available for annual pricing.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
MagnoliaWebflow
Features
MagnoliaWebflow
Security
Comparison of Security features of Product A and Product B
Magnolia
8.0
Ratings
1% below category average
Webflow
7.1
Ratings
13% below category average
Role-based user permissions8.00 Ratings7.10 Ratings
Platform & Infrastructure
Comparison of Platform & Infrastructure features of Product A and Product B
Magnolia
8.1
Ratings
7% above category average
Webflow
7.0
Ratings
8% below category average
API8.50 Ratings7.00 Ratings
Internationalization / multi-language7.70 Ratings7.00 Ratings
Web Content Creation
Comparison of Web Content Creation features of Product A and Product B
Magnolia
8.0
Ratings
4% above category average
Webflow
9.3
Ratings
19% above category average
WYSIWYG editor8.50 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Code quality / cleanliness8.40 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Admin section8.00 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Page templates8.90 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Library of website themes7.00 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Mobile optimization / responsive design8.50 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Publishing workflow7.50 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Form generator6.90 Ratings5.00 Ratings
Web Content Management
Comparison of Web Content Management features of Product A and Product B
Magnolia
7.5
Ratings
2% above category average
Webflow
7.9
Ratings
7% above category average
Content taxonomy7.60 Ratings8.60 Ratings
SEO support7.20 Ratings9.80 Ratings
Bulk management7.60 Ratings7.10 Ratings
Availability / breadth of extensions7.90 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Community / comment management6.90 Ratings6.00 Ratings
Best Alternatives
MagnoliaWebflow
Small Businesses
ManageWP
ManageWP
Score 10.0 out of 10
ManageWP
ManageWP
Score 10.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
RWS Tridion Sites
RWS Tridion Sites
Score 9.0 out of 10
RWS Tridion Sites
RWS Tridion Sites
Score 9.0 out of 10
Enterprises
RWS Tridion Sites
RWS Tridion Sites
Score 9.0 out of 10
RWS Tridion Sites
RWS Tridion Sites
Score 9.0 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
MagnoliaWebflow
Likelihood to Recommend
8.1
(0 ratings)
8.8
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
8.1
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Usability
8.0
(0 ratings)
9.0
(0 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
1.0
(0 ratings)
Performance
8.5
(0 ratings)
1.0
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
9.1
(0 ratings)
6.5
(0 ratings)
Online Training
8.2
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
-
(0 ratings)
1.0
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
MagnoliaWebflow
Likelihood to Recommend
If you need a business CMS that brings along a good amount of features and also give you the chance to develop features on your own, Magnolia would be a good choice. Even if you have not the fitting infrastructure around, Magnolia provides you different ways like SAAS oder PAAS. If you have to review your code our have any problems the team behind will helps in a short time. Without using the connectors it is not so easy to connect special functionalities like Marketing tools or optimization tools. The DAM is very slow if you have an huge amount of documents and pictures to store for your website - you have to add an external DAM.
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The good outweighs the bad. I love how my webpage works, and it fulfills everything that I was trying to accomplish. The ability to tag and distribute content across the site saves a lot of time and energy. I just wish that custom elements were easier to reuse across pages and that it weren't so hard to figure out. This tool is better suited for someone who knows what they are doing, rather than a beginner.
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Pros
  • Use of YAML to define content models with code.
  • Versatility of defining actions for custom handlers.
  • Reloading classes when code is modified in a local dev environment is nice. While it doesn't seem to work when changes extend beyond the method body (i.e., adding methods), it remediates the pain of long startup times.
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  • Easy to use and customize CMS.
  • Develop engaging CSS interactions and JavaScript animations visually.
  • Several competitively priced hosting tiers are available and all use AWS servers and Fastly CDN.
  • Code can be exported to be used with other CMS platforms such as WordPress, or E-Commerce platforms such as Shopify.
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Cons
  • As a developer the learning curve is long, you can start developing relatively quickly but getting to know the platform in depth takes time.
  • Having a history of modifications not only at the page level but also at the Content Apps level would be very useful.
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  • The Content Management System needs improvement. In my experience, it's very difficult to organise all our content at big volumes. We want to create a resources section where we can categorize our content but there isn't an easy or intuitive way to do it
  • In my opinion, it's incredibly difficult to create tables in an article
  • You have to do custom coding for anchor links within an article and it's time consuming and, in my opinion, super annoying
  • Website designs are not responsive we need to keep designing a separate mobile version
  • In my opinion, Formatting content in articles is annoying compared to other CMSs like Wordpress, Shopify, Wix, Blogger, etc. Worst experience I've had.
  • Changes to the nav bar on the homepage do not reflect universally, we needed to do the same changes all over again for our blog and mobile
  • Content editors need to keep logging in every time they add content
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Likelihood to Renew
Magnolia is an innovative CMS, for example it is possible to use the ipad to manage the contents. Magnolia’s team works hard to improve the product; the community is small but active and the support for the enterprise version is good. Magnolia’s team asks the users what they think and what they need, and the new functionalities planned for Magnolia 5.3 are very exciting for example the content personalization.
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It's the perfect balance of GUI and code control
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Usability
There are a ton of small things that could make this CMS great Off the top of my head... 1) Better navigation between a component and its corresponding node in the jcr ( devs often have to flip between a page and a spot in the jcr even though there could be a button to take you from a page/component in the pages app to its location in the JCR) 2) Why does a content editor need to open the page to edit the page properties? They could just as easily edit the dialog from the tree view if they have many pages to touch, and it would save them time by not having to render the page.
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With a little education, I find Webflow incredibly easy to use. As previously mentioned, the Webflow University video library is amazing so anything you need help with is already available. That said, I do feel like it is a relatively steep learning curve and would be even steeper for someone who is completely new to Web Development, which is why I gave it the score I did.
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Reliability and Availability
No answers on this topic
In my experience, their customer service is an absolute joke, I tried reaching out to them they took forever. I had to keep following up with them as if they never received it in the first place. It’s a new platform, so guidance is needed. Tried the university they offer, in my opinion, it is completely useless, I would just completely move on from this website.
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Performance
It's a lean and performant platform. You don't need to put reverse proxy servers in front of it to speed it up (although that does make it go even quicker) as there are various layers of caching built in to the application. While it's a little cryptic, the internal caching system is actually quite configurable and can be tuned to the right sort of content.
Often what tends to surprise many an IT manager is that you can run it on relatively modest hardware. We've often been met with "are you sure ?" but the reality is that it doesn't need a whole lot of horsepower.
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In my opinion, it is horrible, the rendering takes forever. I have the newest MacBook and the platform will still lag and slow down on me. I’m not a developer, I am a designer which makes it worst because I am using the features they are providing not extra coding features. In my opinion, it is a horrible platform really, stay away.
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Support Rating
You always get an answer based on your SLA. But you always get a solution. That's the successfactor in this case. To often i was frustrated about people in a company without even a clue what there product is about or how to solve a problem. Magnolia's Support Team does a very good job and try to help you in most of the cases
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I haven't had to engage them from a support perspective; however, there is a considerable user community for tips/ideas/troubleshooting and the like. I believe the Pro plan supports additional resources but we didn't find that the cost justified the outcome. Overall the need for support has been relatively minor.
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Alternatives Considered
Magnolia DXP offers similar or more capability compared to the other platform, while much easier to implement. For example, Adobe Experience Manager tend to be more monolithic in nature, heavier footprint compared to Magnolia. Hence when implementing a DXP, it is much faster to build using Magnolia, at a much lower TCO. The other platform like Kontent.ai and Strapi are pure headless platform and offer lesser features. What really make Magnolia different is the APAC team, who are all out to support their client in the implementation, ensuring their client maximize their platform and the project implementation is successful. This is some thing that is not experienced when using other platform(s)
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So, Webflow gave me the freedom that other platforms didn't in terms of not needing to code (in comparison to WordPress), and the site looks like a professional page rather than a generic average one, and then in terms of having more than just writing key findings (in comparison to medium) like a site that feels unique and sophisticated. Finally, all in all, Webflow is harder at start but the results are eye pleasing and its totally worth the time.
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Scalability
No answers on this topic
I feel it doesn’t perform the way it’s supposed to and it doesn’t have any beneficial factors to it. In my opinion, there is no reason to use a platform like this when Wix and Shopify, and WordPress exist. I believe Webflow is a platform that shouldn’t exist and it’s only popular because of the hype it received. I tried it and hate it completely.
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Return on Investment
  • We have placed web content management in the hands of the organisation than retained it within the technology team.
  • We were able to quickly move to MVP and release and we are now focussed on moving the platform forward at some pace whilst not being burdened with BAU work inside the technology team as so much as self-service to trained organisational users
  • The use of the SAAS/PASS has inbuilt business resiliency as specialist work and aspects such as underlying security is done by Magnolia and we are able to focus internal effort on building out the platform.
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  • Work quality output has improved as Webflow helps bridge the gap between design and development.
  • Lower overall development costs mean more client budget can be allocated to strategy and creative.
  • Faster turnarounds result in shorter billing cycles, which improve agency cashflow.
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ScreenShots

Magnolia Screenshots

Screenshot of the Magnolia App Launcher, used to switch between workspaces and manage pagesScreenshot of the customer experience. This brings together content and audiovisual digital assets to form more compelling digital experiences.Screenshot of global search that brings relevant content, no matter where it resides.Screenshot of customizing the ecommerce experience.Screenshot of Magnolia Orchestratem where users can manage and track campaignsScreenshot of the WYSIWYG page editor