---
description: 'Webflow is a visual website builder based in San Francisco, founded in 2013, that turns visual design into production-grade HTML and CSS, with a CMS, hosting, ecommerce and AI tools, and a free Starter plan on a webflow.io address.'
title: 'Webflow: visual website builder with CMS and hosting in San Francisco'
canonical: 'https://markleex.com/@webflow'
markleex:
  entity: '@webflow'
  url: 'https://markleex.com/@webflow'
  version: 2
  published: '2026-08-12T22:55:13+00:00'
  updated: '2026-08-23T19:19:41+00:00'
  ai_reads:
    value: 62
    as_of: '2026-10-19T10:00:00+00:00'
  lang: en
  content_license: 'https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/'
  ai_score:
    value: 63
    out_of: 100
    as_of: '2026-10-19T10:00:00+00:00'
  lists:
    -
      title: 'Best Free Website Builders (2026)'
      url: 'https://markleex.com/en/lists/free-website-builders'
      rank: 8
      of: 10
---

Webflow is a visual website builder founded in 2013 by Vlad Magdalin, Sergie Magdalin and Bryant Chou, with its headquarters at 398 11th St in San Francisco. Linda Tong is its CEO; Vlad Magdalin now serves as Chief Innovation Officer. The company says more than 300,000 teams and brands build with Webflow.

The product lets designers and teams lay out a site visually while Webflow writes production-grade HTML and CSS underneath, then hosts the result on a global CDN. A built-in CMS, ecommerce, localization, analytics and AI-driven testing sit in the same platform, so a site can be designed, published, translated and optimized without leaving it. It suits designers and teams who want control over layout and code without writing that code by hand.

## What Webflow does

- A visual designer that outputs clean, production-grade HTML and CSS
- A built-in CMS for collections such as blog posts, case studies or products
- Managed hosting on a global CDN
- Ecommerce for selling products from a Webflow site
- Localization for multi-language sites
- Analyze, for native site analytics
- Optimize, for AI-powered A/B testing and personalization
- An AI site builder and AI content generation
- Interactions and animations powered by GSAP
- Forms, integrations, APIs and webhooks
- Figma import, Shared Libraries and team collaboration with branching and approvals
- Webflow Cloud, for deploying web apps alongside a site

## How the product works

A site starts in the Designer, where each element is placed and styled visually, with the same box model, classes and layout systems a front-end developer would use. Content that repeats lives in CMS collections and is bound to templates, so editors can publish new pages without touching the design. When the site is ready, Webflow publishes it on its own hosting; teams can branch work, request approvals and share component libraries across projects. Analytics, testing and personalization then run on the live site from inside the same workspace.

## Plans

The free Starter plan publishes a site of up to two pages on a webflow.io address, with a small CMS and a handful of form submissions, which is enough to design and test a whole site before paying. A custom domain, more pages and custom code come with a paid site plan, billed per site.

## Customers

Webflow names IDEO, Monday.com, BBDO, The New York Times, TED, Docusign, Verifone, Dropbox, Greenhouse, SoundCloud, Reddit, Discord, Checkout.com, Lattice, Orangetheory Fitness, Copy.ai and Amazon among the brands that use it.

## Security and compliance

According to its site, Webflow is SOC 2 Type II, CCPA and GDPR compliant.

## FAQ

**Is Webflow free?** Yes, the Starter plan is free. It publishes a site of up to two pages on a webflow.io address, with a small CMS and limited form submissions. A custom domain requires a paid site plan.

**Who founded Webflow, and when?** Vlad Magdalin, Sergie Magdalin and Bryant Chou founded Webflow in 2013. The company is based in San Francisco and led by CEO Linda Tong.

**Does Webflow write real code?** Yes. The visual designer produces production-grade HTML and CSS, and paid site plans allow custom code.

**Can Webflow run an online store or a multilingual site?** Yes. Ecommerce and localization are both part of the platform, alongside the CMS and hosting.

**Who uses Webflow?** The company says more than 300,000 teams and brands, and names IDEO, The New York Times, TED, Dropbox, Reddit and Discord among them.

**Is Webflow secure for companies?** Webflow states that it is SOC 2 Type II, CCPA and GDPR compliant.

## Contact

- Website: [webflow.com](https://webflow.com/)
- Pricing: [webflow.com/pricing](https://webflow.com/pricing)
- Address: 398 11th St, San Francisco, CA 94103, United States