WordPress vs Webflow: Why We Build Every Church Website on Webflow

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If your church is thinking about a new website—or rethinking the one you have—you've probably come across two names: WordPress and Webflow.

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WordPress has been around since 2003 and powers a huge percentage of the internet. It's the platform most churches default to, and for good reason—it was the best option available for a long time. But the web has changed significantly since WordPress was first built. And for churches looking for a modern, secure, and low-maintenance website, we believe there's a better option.

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At Sunday Best, we now build exclusively on Webflow—and we think most churches would benefit from making the same switch. Here's an honest breakdown of how the two platforms compare.

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The Case for WordPress

Let's give credit where it's due. WordPress is popular for real reasons:

• It's everywhere. WordPress powers roughly 40% of all websites on the internet. That means there's a massive community, thousands of themes, and no shortage of developers who know the platform.
• Plugins for almost anything. Need a contact form? There's a plugin. Event calendar? Plugin. Online giving? Plugin. WordPress's plugin ecosystem lets you bolt on almost any feature you can think of.
• Low barrier to entry. You can get a WordPress site up and running for very little money, and many hosting providers offer one-click installs.

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For years, these advantages made WordPress the default recommendation for churches. But these same strengths come with trade-offs that many church teams discover the hard way.

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Where WordPress Falls Short for Churches

The challenges with WordPress aren't theoretical—they're the things we heard over and over from churches before they came to us for help.

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Plugin Overload

That plugin ecosystem is a double-edged sword. Most WordPress church websites end up running 15–30+ plugins just to handle basic functionality. Each plugin is a separate piece of software maintained by a different developer, and each one needs to be kept up to date. When plugins conflict with each other—or when one falls out of maintenance—things break. We've seen church websites go down on a Sunday morning because a plugin update caused a conflict.

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Ongoing Maintenance

WordPress requires regular maintenance: core updates, theme updates, plugin updates, PHP version updates, database optimization, and security patches. For churches with a dedicated IT staff member, this is manageable. But most churches don't have that. The communications director or an office admin ends up responsible for keeping the website running—on top of everything else they do.

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Security Vulnerabilities

Because WordPress is the most popular platform on the internet, it's also the most targeted by hackers. Outdated plugins are the number one attack vector. Churches are not immune to this—we've worked with multiple churches whose WordPress sites were compromised, displaying spam content or malware warnings to visitors.

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Design Limitations

While WordPress themes can look great out of the box, customizing them beyond the theme's built-in options often requires a developer. Page builders like Elementor and Divi help, but they add performance overhead and still feel limited compared to true design tools. Getting a pixel-perfect, custom design on WordPress usually means custom PHP development.

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Why We Chose Webflow

Webflow takes a fundamentally different approach to website building. Instead of relying on themes and plugins, Webflow gives you a visual development environment where design, content management, and hosting are all integrated into one platform. Here's why that matters for churches.

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No Plugins, No Maintenance Headaches

Webflow doesn't have a plugin system—and that's a feature, not a limitation. The functionality churches need (forms, CMS, SEO tools, responsive design, animations) is built directly into the platform. There are no plugins to update, no conflicts to troubleshoot, and no security holes to patch. Webflow's team handles all platform updates behind the scenes.

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Pixel-Perfect Design Freedom

Webflow gives designers complete creative control without writing code. Every element on the page can be precisely positioned, styled, and animated. This means your church website can look exactly the way you want it to—not like a slightly customized version of a theme that three hundred other churches are also using.

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For churches, this matters more than you might think. Your website is often the first impression someone has of your church. A unique, well-designed site communicates that your church pays attention to details and cares about the experience of newcomers.

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Built-In CMS That Your Team Can Actually Use

Webflow's content management system is intuitive enough for non-technical staff to use confidently. Your team can update sermons, blog posts, events, and staff pages without worrying about accidentally breaking the site's layout. The editing interface shows exactly what the published page will look like—no guessing, no preview buttons, no surprises.

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Enterprise-Grade Hosting Included

Every Webflow site is hosted on Amazon Web Services (AWS) with a global CDN, automatic SSL, and built-in DDoS protection. You don't need to choose a hosting provider, compare plans, or worry about your site going down during high-traffic moments like Easter or Christmas. It's all included in the platform.

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With WordPress, hosting quality varies dramatically depending on your provider. Budget hosting often means slow load times and limited security. Quality WordPress hosting that matches what Webflow provides out of the box can cost significantly more.

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Better Performance Out of the Box

Webflow generates clean, semantic code and serves pages through a global CDN. WordPress sites—especially those loaded with plugins and page builders—often suffer from bloated code, slow load times, and poor Core Web Vitals scores. Page speed directly affects your search engine rankings and your visitors' experience. A slow church website loses visitors before they ever find your service times.

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A Practical Comparison

Here's how the two platforms stack up on the things that matter most to churches:

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Security: WordPress requires manual plugin and core updates to stay secure. Webflow handles all security updates automatically at the platform level.

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Maintenance: WordPress sites need regular attention—plugin updates, backups, database optimization. Webflow sites require virtually zero technical maintenance.

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Design flexibility: WordPress depends on themes and page builders that constrain your layout options. Webflow offers complete visual design freedom from a blank canvas.

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Hosting: WordPress requires you to choose and pay for separate hosting. Webflow includes fast, secure hosting on AWS with every plan.

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Content editing: WordPress's editor can feel clunky, and plugins add their own separate interfaces. Webflow's CMS editor is visual, intuitive, and unified.

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Performance: WordPress sites frequently struggle with speed due to plugin bloat. Webflow sites are fast by default with clean code and CDN delivery.

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Cost of ownership: WordPress's upfront cost is low, but ongoing costs for hosting, premium plugins, security tools, and developer maintenance add up. Webflow's pricing is predictable, with fewer hidden costs over time.

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When WordPress Might Still Make Sense

We want to be fair. WordPress can still be the right choice in certain situations—for example, if your church needs a highly complex membership portal with custom application logic, or if you have a dedicated developer on staff who prefers working in PHP. WordPress's open-source nature also means you have full control over your codebase if that matters to your team.

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But for the vast majority of churches—those who need a beautiful, secure website that their team can easily maintain without technical expertise—we believe Webflow is the clearly better choice.

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Our Recommendation

We've been building church websites for years. We've worked with both platforms, and we chose Webflow because it lets us build better websites for churches while dramatically reducing the ongoing maintenance burden on church staff.

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Your church website should be something your team is proud of—not something that causes stress every time an update notification pops up. Webflow makes that possible.

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If your church is considering a new website—or struggling to maintain your current WordPress site—we'd love to show you what a modern church website on Webflow looks like.

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View our work to see what we've built for churches like yours.