Optimizely Content Management System vs. Webflow

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Optimizely Content Management System
Score 8.6 out of 10
N/A
Optimizely Content Management System (CMS) is purpose-built for marketers, and fully composable for developers. The CMS supports the end-to-end content lifecycle, helping users to deliver on-brand, high-impact digital experiences that 'wow' audiences.N/A
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
Optimizely Content Management SystemWebflow
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
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
Optimizely Content Management SystemWebflow
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeRequiredNo setup fee
Additional DetailsUp to a 22% discount available for annual pricing.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Optimizely Content Management SystemWebflow
Considered Both Products
Optimizely Content Management System
Chose Optimizely Content Management System
Optimizely Content Management System is much more functional and robust out of the box
Chose Optimizely Content Management System
Optimizely Content Management System is much more feature rich, and less complex that the other CMS platforms we have used. Optimizely Content Management System is more intuitive in how the content is structured and how easy it is to pull blocks of content to create the layout …
Chose Optimizely Content Management System
It does feel a bit more legacy, but sometimes legacy can be good for companies. For both the companies we mapped against, it was clear the idea of server maintenance was out of question for us and we wanted a service that would provide uptime and us just doing the work of …
Chose Optimizely Content Management System
None quite like this, but I have had experience with HTML sites and CSS and WordPress and Wix, but nothing quite on the level of what Optimizely produces.
Chose Optimizely Content Management System
I think Optimizely does well connecting tools and processes into one ecosystem.
Chose Optimizely Content Management System
The best compared to Sitecore.
Chose Optimizely Content Management System
We chose Optimizely (at the time Episerver) after rigorous evaluation and due to overall impression that it was the right long term fit.
Chose Optimizely Content Management System
Optimizely stacks up by offering a more well-rounded and user-friendly experience. Especially with it's integration into the rest of Optimizely's offerings, this CMS opens the door to letting marketers manage their entire marketing experience on one platform where its …
Chose Optimizely Content Management System
We love that non technical people on our marketing team, can easily use and update pages and promote content.
Chose Optimizely Content Management System
I truly headless system and the ability to edit this platform over others gave Optimizely Content Management System this edge when it comes to creating a future-proof e-commerce solution. There are lots of other systems out there, but there has been great success with utilizing …
Chose Optimizely Content Management System
Being able to keep one catalog source that can spread to our multiple business units and being able to have our development team create custom widgets for new functionality.
Chose Optimizely Content Management System
I didn't see Konakart in the dropdown options, so I want to make sure we compare against this platform as well. With other platforms, the features are either so basic that you can't get very advanced in your site UX, or the interface is so unfriendly to it's users that it's …
Chose Optimizely Content Management System
Optimizely Content Management System fits our needs best being fully customisable and modular.
Chose Optimizely Content Management System
We’ve not evaluated other solutions following the launch.
Chose Optimizely Content Management System
Much better
Chose Optimizely Content Management System
We feel that Optimizly is a better solution, however, we like that contentful offers a lower price plan for testing our mobile app.
Chose Optimizely Content Management System
We as a business wanted to have ecomm built into the CMS website and we have looked into the options of WordPress and SiteCore and decided to go to Optimizely Content Management System the way it brings ease and also with out comprising on the security
Chose Optimizely Content Management System
I think is the features that Optimizely Content Management System provided that it fit what we are looking
Chose Optimizely Content Management System
Optimizely Content Management System is a much better system that allowed the customization that Adobe Connect did not offer.
Chose Optimizely Content Management System
Optimizely Content Management has more content marketing features
Chose Optimizely Content Management System
We selected Optimizely Content Management system for their ease of use and their other offerings like content marketing platform which helps us to keep everything under one roof.
Chose Optimizely Content Management System
We found we have more freedom with creating content and updating content was easier as we were able to build blocks and pages much quicker and easier than we were previously able to.
Webflow
Chose Webflow
Framer is Webflow's closest competitor and has some advantages in the animation department, but Webflow has a bit more brand recognition among clients. WordPress is old-fashioned in its approach, and despite offering site-builder themes and plugins, still doesn't have native …
Chose Webflow
Webflow, in my opinion, is a better tool because it gives you more granular control over tools like Framer and Wix Studio.
Chose Webflow
Webflow is a great replacement for simple websites like WIX & Squarespace. Webflow, in its current incarnation, will never be able to overtake the ubiquity of WordPress pages, it lacks the automation & tooling of Supernova, the design capabilities of Figma, and the design -> …
Chose Webflow
Framer is for designers with no underlying knowledge of how a website works. It's more like designing a website in Figma. Webflow offers a better balance of design features and true website configurations.
Chose Webflow
Webflow is simply more powerful without getting bogged down like other platforms.
Chose Webflow
In my opinion, Webflow has the worst CMS I have used. All the other tools make it much easier to write, format, publish and organize content. There's a lot more flexibility and they have better UX. I would not choose Webflow if given the choice, I would only use it if the …
Chose Webflow
The UI and UX is definitely better. The flexibility on the design is also better. Webflow is more powerful than these tools.
Chose Webflow
It does not compare at all to WIX, in my opinion, it is an insult to them even comparing them side by side. No doubt WIX is 100 times better than Webflow. Wix has features that Webflow lacks and has extra help when needed. In my opinion, WIX customer service is astonishing …
Chose Webflow
We loved the feature set and extensibility. It's a little pricey but when we have the time to devote to a project it shows why Webflow is such a good fit. Of course there are lots of other things you can use it for, but it's been working for us for one-off marketing projects.
Chose Webflow
The code quality and speed can't even be compared to Elementor; Webflow is simply a much better tool. Instapage has a cool feature for dynamic landing pages, which changes according to Google Ads Keyword, which I miss; however, amazing webflow community members recreated that …
Chose Webflow
I would not say it has substitutes for all features of the other platforms, but overall it is better to use and implement. I would like to see Wix's user management, Shopify and WooCommerce's shop features, and WordPress' ability to host big enterprise blog management. The …
Chose Webflow
A lot more design control and easier to create a custom site, and then also to scale that site going forward. There's a lot about WordPress I miss, though, when it comes to managing a blog—user permissions, SEO control, edit HTML version of posts.
Chose Webflow
Compared to other closed platforms like Squarespace or Shopify, Webflow is much more developer friendly and customizable. The CMS is easier to use and much more flexible to design and develop in. Price points between the 3 are similar. Most of the 3rd party integrations for …
Chose Webflow
Webflow falls somewhere in between Wordpress as a most basic theme-based platform and HubSpot CMS Hub, which has nearly unlimited capabilities. The ease and pricing are a win for HubSpot but we still use and host sites using Wordpress as that is often a client's desire for …
Chose Webflow
Webflow is unmatched in its design customization and code output quality.
Chose Webflow
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 …
Chose Webflow
Webflow is more comprehensive, so it is also a little bit harder to use. I selected Webflow because its component-based approach allows me to change content once, and it updates across multiple pages, which has saved me a significant amount of time. Sometimes, it can be …
Features
Optimizely Content Management SystemWebflow
Security
Comparison of Security features of Product A and Product B
Optimizely Content Management System
8.5
Ratings
5% above category average
Webflow
7.1
Ratings
13% below category average
Role-based user permissions8.50 Ratings7.10 Ratings
Platform & Infrastructure
Comparison of Platform & Infrastructure features of Product A and Product B
Optimizely Content Management System
8.0
Ratings
5% above category average
Webflow
7.0
Ratings
8% below category average
API8.10 Ratings7.00 Ratings
Internationalization / multi-language7.80 Ratings7.00 Ratings
Web Content Creation
Comparison of Web Content Creation features of Product A and Product B
Optimizely Content Management System
7.9
Ratings
2% above category average
Webflow
9.3
Ratings
19% above category average
WYSIWYG editor7.80 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Code quality / cleanliness8.30 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Admin section8.20 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Page templates8.40 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Library of website themes7.50 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Mobile optimization / responsive design7.90 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Publishing workflow8.20 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Form generator6.90 Ratings5.00 Ratings
Web Content Management
Comparison of Web Content Management features of Product A and Product B
Optimizely Content Management System
7.6
Ratings
3% above category average
Webflow
7.9
Ratings
7% above category average
Content taxonomy8.20 Ratings8.60 Ratings
SEO support7.20 Ratings9.80 Ratings
Bulk management7.10 Ratings7.10 Ratings
Availability / breadth of extensions7.50 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Community / comment management8.00 Ratings6.00 Ratings
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Optimizely Content Management SystemWebflow
Small Businesses
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Score 10.0 out of 10
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Score 10.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
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Score 9.0 out of 10
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Score 9.0 out of 10
Enterprises
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Score 9.0 out of 10
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All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Optimizely Content Management SystemWebflow
Likelihood to Recommend
8.6
(0 ratings)
8.8
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.6
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Usability
8.5
(0 ratings)
9.0
(0 ratings)
Availability
9.2
(0 ratings)
1.0
(0 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
1.0
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
10.0
(0 ratings)
6.5
(0 ratings)
Online Training
10.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
6.4
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
-
(0 ratings)
1.0
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Optimizely Content Management SystemWebflow
Likelihood to Recommend
Very much if a business is doing a rebrand, for example, or a digital transformation, the DXP product is super competitive. The managed services that provided around the infrastructure and all of the moving parts really, really works well. It just makes life as a developer very easy when ultimately you just have to do the code and deploy it out and don't worry about the environment infrastructure. I think it's really, really well and fits in really well with that. Areas where it's not so great in my experience, I would say, well, I've already mentioned kind of the CMS to SaaS product, but also just in general it feels like we're going through a bit of a transition period with the documentation at the moment. So when new features are rolled out or the product catalog expands, the documentation isn't always the best or streamlined. That can make life as a developer a little bit work at the times.
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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
  • Folder structure - I was on Magento 1.x & 2.x for 10 years, which had no folder structure for blocks or images - it was very difficult to find things. We couldn't keep anything straight without it.
  • The fact that it knows what block or image is being used and links to where it's being used is pure gold. It prevents deletion of needed elements.
  • I like that I can drag a block or image somewhere new and it doesn't break anything.
  • Our search of blocks and images is now working, that's very helpful.
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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
  • promo types, several have been released that do not work as they are advertised/labeled which has caused us to make custom promos for just about all of them where we've actually fixed the functionality. The OOB types are completely unreliable
  • promo exclusions/sorting -- this is very buggy, and some of this would normally be "out of the box" like no two order discounts should ever be able to stack. This gets incredibly difficult to manage when you have 75 active promos at a time.
  • asset management - replacement files with same name aren't recognized even when the first version is deleted, this creates a mess in asset folders - nothing can be successfully deleted from epi asset library
  • html automatic edits -- issues when typing in either content page links or asset links, epi always adds random characters to the end (?"Epieditmode=false,6789" for example, which doesn't break content, but does make it more difficult for the team to use non-epi html tools to build or edit
  • auto dimensions on images -- when adding an image in the html, you have the address exactly, but any other way causes the editor to put width and height dims on the code, making the image warp in mobile, this is adding steps to undo the automatic edits, they are completely unhelpful
  • blogs - we are running a blog in Opti that is compeltely manual, every "related article" and every "articles about x topic" block is hard coded, there is nothing dynamic in the content library which is frustrating, and creates a huge time suck for articles across the site, every time there is a new one, that's 10+ manual page updates
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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
Since I work on the implementation side of things, and do not directly own licensing for Ektron CMS, I have to base this rating off of how I think it will be received or presented to customers looking to start a new site deployment. I try to remain CMS agnostic, though my specialty is with the .NET and Microsoft stack. Because of the experience I have working with Ektron, I tend to be more forgiving with the shortcomings as I am familiar with how to work around them or past them from experience. Being familiar with the community available also helps, as you become familiar with the best approaches to find solutions to your issues. Each product has it's ups and downs and all of them are only going to be as good as the company or development team implementing them can make them. This is EXTREMELY important to remember when choosing a CMS, as it can make or break your expensive investment.
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It's the perfect balance of GUI and code control
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Usability
From our editors perspective they find the CMS system easy and to clear to use. Our developers find it very easy to design on and appreciate the level of service support available. It's also always evolving and getting better every year. We find this investment reassuring and encourages us to try keep pace and see how we can continue to push the envelope and continue to improve all aspect of our websites and online touch points.
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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
Unplanned outages or errors are fairly rare in our instance. And when there are issues, they're usually fixed fairly quickly
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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
No answers on this topic
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
I attended multiple trainings/tutorials early in the process. The vendor-supplied content about Optimizely was engaging for users/attendees (I often analyze training content, compliance programs, governance plans), which helps our OCM people by having good "word of mouth" about the product long before a rollout ever happens. I actually when the user-focused portion of the Optimizely Academy twice in 2022 to ensure I had a grasp on operability and to be able to support the training and OCM efforts
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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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Online Training
Ektron is one of the best solution for .Net platform. Over the years have improved the performance issues that the previous versions had. My only complain is right now you can't do Page builder pages if you choose to have a MVC architecture
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No answers on this topic
Implementation Rating
I was not fully involved.
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No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
Optimizely Content Management System takes the best bit of previous platforms and simplifies them without removing the more advanced features but not making the necessary to get things going. allowing for any user to jump in and start working is a massive help but empowering power users to take advantage of all its features.
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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
  • Flexibility with design that allows us to work towards our mission of 'Tennis Opened Up'
  • Speed of deploying content, meaning users can really on us for the most up-to-date content on tennis in Britain
  • Ability to have different logged-in areas for different user groups, allowing us to create more bespoke and personalised experiences
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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

Optimizely Content Management System Screenshots

Screenshot of Content delivery: Developers can use modern GraphQL and REST APIs to query content from any source and send it to any channel or device.Screenshot of User roles and permissionsScreenshot of (SaaS CMS): Visual Builder: Add an image: Optimizely Visual Builder offers a range of editing features designed to make content creation and layout building intuitive and accessible to both technical and non-technical users. A drag-and-drop system is used to add, move, and rearrange elements within the layout, for quick and flexible content organization.Screenshot of (SaaS CMS): Visual Builder: Create an experience: Create an Experience functionality in Optimizely Visual Builder offers a code-free way to build and manage captivating digital experiences. It offers pre-built content blocks or elements (like text, images, buttons, forms, etc.) that can be positioned on the page layout as desired. Visual Builder offers extensive options to customize the appearance and behavior of these elements. Users can modify colors, fonts, sizes, animations, and even add interactive features providing flexibility in arranging content, accommodating various design needs and responsiveness across different screen sizes.Screenshot of (SaaS CMS): Visual Builder: Publish: The Visual Builder displays changes in real-time as they are made. This includes side-by-side previews for different devices like desktops, tablets, and mobiles. Before publishing, the Interactive Preview mode can be used to test elements like forms, buttons, and other interactive components to ensure they work as expected on the live site. Changes can then be published directly from the Visual Builder interface, making them instantly available to site visitors.Screenshot of the central location to manage assets, editing and publishing content.