Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Webflow VS Yii Framework

Compare Webflow VS Yii Framework and see what are their differences

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Webflow logo Webflow

Build dynamic, responsive websites in your browser. Launch with a click. Or export your squeaky-clean code to host wherever you'd like. Discover the professional website builder made for designers.

Yii Framework logo Yii Framework

Yii is a high-performance component-based PHP framework best for Web 2.0 development.
  • Webflow Landing page
    Landing page //
    2024-07-09
  • Yii Framework Landing page
    Landing page //
    2021-10-17

Webflow features and specs

  • Design Flexibility
    Webflow provides an intuitive visual interface that allows designers to create highly customized and responsive websites without writing code.
  • Integrated CMS
    Webflow includes a built-in CMS that allows users to easily manage dynamic content, making it ideal for blogs, portfolios, and other content-rich sites.
  • SEO Capabilities
    Webflow offers robust SEO tools, including custom meta tags, alt text for images, and clean code output, which can help improve search engine rankings.
  • E-commerce Support
    Webflow provides comprehensive e-commerce features, including product management, checkout processes, and payment gateways, suitable for small to medium-sized online stores.
  • Hosting and Performance
    Webflow offers high-performance hosting with fast loading times, SSL, and global CDN, ensuring websites are secure and perform well.
  • No-Code Platform
    It empowers non-developers to build and maintain websites, breaking down barriers between design and development through its visual development platform.
  • Custom Interactions and Animations
    Webflow allows the creation of sophisticated animations and interactions directly in the designer, enhancing user experience and engagement.

Possible disadvantages of Webflow

  • Learning Curve
    Although it's a no-code platform, Webflow's extensive feature set can be overwhelming for beginners, requiring a significant amount of time to become proficient.
  • Cost
    Webflow's pricing can be relatively high compared to other website builders, especially for e-commerce plans and sites with large amounts of CMS items.
  • Limited Plugins
    Webflow has fewer third-party plugins and integrations compared to platforms like WordPress, which may be limiting for some users needing specific functionalities.
  • Custom Code Limitation
    While Webflow supports custom code, there are limitations on what can be achieved without full access to backend code, which may hinder more complex customizations.
  • E-commerce Scale
    While suitable for small to medium businesses, Webflow's e-commerce capabilities may not be sufficient for large-scale online stores with extensive requirements.
  • Export Restrictions
    Exported code from Webflow can be difficult to maintain if you choose to leave the platform, as the exported files may not easily integrate with other CMSs or platforms.

Yii Framework features and specs

  • Performance
    Yii framework is designed to be highly efficient by significantly reducing complexity in routine tasks and by optimizing performance for faster loading times.
  • Security
    Yii offers built-in security features such as input validation, SQL injection prevention, and Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) protection, making it a secure option for web applications.
  • Component-based
    The framework’s component-based architecture allows for reusability of code, encouraging developers to create modular applications with a higher level of maintainability.
  • Documentation
    Yii provides extensive documentation that covers almost every aspect of the framework including guides, tutorials, and API references, aiding developers in understanding and implementing features efficiently.
  • Active Community
    Yii has a large and active community, which means a wealth of third-party extensions, frequent updates, and active forums where developers can seek assistance.
  • Gii Tool
    Yii includes a powerful tool called Gii for code generation, which helps developers quickly generate models, controllers, forms, and CRUD operations, speeding up the development process.

Possible disadvantages of Yii Framework

  • Steep Learning Curve
    For beginners, Yii can have a steep learning curve due to its unique architecture and extensive feature set, making it somewhat challenging for those new to web development frameworks.
  • Overhead for Small Projects
    Due to its comprehensive set of features, Yii might introduce unnecessary overhead for smaller projects where a lightweight framework would suffice.
  • Advanced Configuration
    Yii offers a high level of customization but this typically requires a deeper understanding of the framework’s configuration settings, which can be complicated for less experienced developers.
  • Less Popular
    Compared to some other frameworks like Laravel or Symfony, Yii is less popular, which might make it harder to find resources, developers, and third-party integrations.
  • Extension Quality
    While there are many extensions available for Yii, the quality and maintenance of these extensions can vary significantly, potentially leading to issues if not chosen carefully.

Analysis of Webflow

Overall verdict

  • Webflow is a strong platform for those who want to create visually appealing, responsive websites without delving deeply into coding. Its powerful features and intuitive design interface make it particularly appealing to designers who want more control over their creative process. However, it may have a learning curve for those new to web design or those accustomed to more code-heavy development environments.

Why this product is good

  • Webflow is considered a good choice for web design and development because it combines the convenience of a visual design tool with the power of a CMS and the flexibility of custom code. It allows designers to create responsive websites without the need for extensive coding knowledge, while also offering the ability to add custom interactions and animations. The platform provides a comprehensive range of hosting services, SSL, and backups, which simplifies site management. The ease of use, coupled with advanced customization options, makes it a preferred choice for many freelancers, agencies, and businesses.

Recommended for

  • Designers looking to quickly prototype and develop websites.
  • Businesses seeking a platform that combines design flexibility with robust hosting features.
  • Agencies seeking a scalable solution for client projects.
  • Freelancers who want to offer end-to-end web design and hosting services.
  • Individuals or businesses looking for a CMS that supports custom integrations and interactions without extensive back-end development.

Webflow videos

Webflow Review: Excellent Custom Design Tool

More videos:

  • Review - Building a site in Webflow - First impressions review!
  • Review - Squarespace VS Webflow: Website Building Platform Review

Yii Framework videos

No Yii Framework videos yet. You could help us improve this page by suggesting one.

Add video

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Webflow and Yii Framework)
Website Builder
100 100%
0% 0
Web Frameworks
0 0%
100% 100
CMS
100 100%
0% 0
Developer Tools
0 0%
100% 100

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare Webflow and Yii Framework

Webflow Reviews

  1. Amazing

    Designing websites with Webflow has been an absolute delight. Its visual interface makes the design process intuitive and efficient. The drag-and-drop functionality for elements is a real time-saver, and the real-time preview allows for instant feedback. Customizing designs to be responsive for different devices is a breeze. Webflow's ability to handle complex animations without code is impressive. All in all, Webflow has made website creation a smooth and enjoyable process. Definitely a game-changer for web design!

    🏁 Competitors: Tilda

Comparing 9 WordPress alternatives & competitors in 2024
Webflow’s visual, composable CMS is feature-complete right out of the box. With native integrations, optimization tools, and managed hosting, you can build, launch, and iterate your website at scale. Webflow also vets Apps built by our community, so you can trust apps that you install — with no need to update software or manage outdated plugins.
Source: webflow.com
19 Best WordPress Alternatives in 2025
Webflow offers more advanced design and animation capabilities than WordPress, allowing for custom-built websites without coding. Pixpa and Squarespace offer advanced portfolio management, e-commerce, and client gallery features tailored for creatives.
Source: www.pixpa.com
The 17 Best Wix Alternatives (2024) Who Else Can You Build Your Website With?
Webflow isn’t for everyone. It’s focused on designers and developers, so the user interface can be overwhelming to beginners. However, their designs are slick and they’re not afraid to show off their website builder: NASA uses it, and Webflow built their own website with the platform.
Top 10 Web Content Management Systems
Webflow is another unique CMS option based on the fact that it does not feature a single line of code anywhere for the user to bother with. Instead, it takes it upon itself to fully cover every single modification that a user may need as part of its preconfigured content management options. The UI is also designed with utility in mind. Whereas Wix also does not feature codes...
Source: cloudzy.com
Top No Code Website Builders in 2023
Webflow is an ideal option for designers and developers wanting to create custom websites with no code. Users can build a website while maintaining complete design control, leveraging advanced customization options, such as CSS and HTML editing.

Yii Framework Reviews

The Most Popular PHP Frameworks to Use in 2021
Familiarity with the command line is also key to using the Composer PHP package manager. The Yii Framework is one of several which uses Composer to install and manage dependencies, packages which are required for an application to run.
Source: kinsta.com
Top 9 PHP Frameworks For Web Development In 2021
The Yii framework has a whopping 11Mn+ downloads from Packagist and 13.6k+ stars on GitHub. Yii, branded as ‘YES, it is!’, is a fast, secure, flexible PHP framework for web development, especially for building MVC architecture websites. It ranks 4 on the PHP Benchmarks list. Yii is a strictly Object-Oriented PHP framework and requires knowledge of inheritance, polymorphism,...
The 10 Best PHP Frameworks To Use in 2021
Yii is a good choice for newcomers to PHP. The documentation for Yii is refreshingly comprehensive and not only will you learn about how to make an app, but you can learn more about working with database or MVC patterns, for instance.
Source: trio.dev
Top 4 PHP Frameworks to use in 2019
Yii2 is famous for advanced security and fast loading time. This framework applies a non-repetitive code principle. Such a principle allows for avoiding the repeated use of similar software patterns. Using Ajax and JQuery features, Yii2 simplifies the development of large-scale applications. Other Yii advantages are:
10 PHP MVC Frameworks in 2019 for Modern Web Developers
Another exceptional framework has graced the PHP framework list in the form of Yii. Pronounced as “yee,” this term means simple and evolutionary in Chinese. True to its Chinese semantic meaning, Yii is created to be simple, fast, and reliable. It is based in the DRY (Don’t repeat yourself) concept to help agile development for web developers.
Source: fullscale.io

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Webflow seems to be more popular. It has been mentiond 137 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Webflow mentions (137)

View more

Yii Framework mentions (0)

We have not tracked any mentions of Yii Framework yet. Tracking of Yii Framework recommendations started around Mar 2021.

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Webflow and Yii Framework, you can also consider the following products

WiX - Create a free website with Wix.com. Customize with Wix' website builder, no coding skills needed. Choose a design, begin customizing and be online today

Laravel - A PHP Framework For Web Artisans

SquareSpace - Squarespace is the easiest way for anyone to create an exceptional website. Pages, galleries, blogs, e-commerce, domains, hosting, analytics, 24/7 support - all included.

CodeIgniter - A Fully Baked PHP Framework

WordPress - WordPress is web software you can use to create a beautiful website or blog. We like to say that WordPress is both free and priceless at the same time.

CakePHP - The Rapid Development Framework for PHP