November 14, 2024

HubSpot CMS vs. Webflow: Which CMS Should You Choose for Your Business in 2025?

Comparison

by Rajat Kapoor

Choosing the right CMS isn't just about building a website—it's about driving growth, generating leads, and scaling your business efficiently. For business owners, it's a decision that affects every corner of the operation, from marketing to user experience.

HubSpot CMS and Webflow both offer strong capabilities but with very different strengths. If you’re trying to understand which one is right for your growing business, you've come to the right place.

In this guide, we’ll break down the features, compare both platforms and help you decide which CMS is right for you in 2025.

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Overview of HubSpot CMS and Webflow

HubSpot CMS Overview

HubSpot CMS is not just a website builder; it's part of a larger ecosystem that seamlessly connects your website with CRM and marketing automation tools. This integration makes it particularly strong for companies that want a holistic approach to managing marketing, sales, and customer relationships all in one place.

Webflow Overview

Webflow offers a different angle—it’s more than just a website builder; it's evolving into what can be called a "Website Experience Platform (WXP)." This means Webflow can help you create not just a website, but a complete, engaging experience for your users. Webflow combines design flexibility, with speed and scalability, making it a great choice for businesses that want creative control, a seamless user experience, and the ability to scale without limitations.

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Feature-by-Feature Comparison

Design Flexibility

HubSpot CMS: HubSpot offers some design customization options but focuses more on ease of use and ensuring users can quickly launch functional websites. Its drag-and-drop builder lets you build clean pages without needing design expertise. However, it has some limitations in terms of advanced customization, which might not satisfy highly creative design needs.

Webflow: Webflow on the other hand offers complexe design flexibility, giving you the ability to build pretty much anything you can imagine. It’s visual editor let’s you build beautiful layouts and resposive websites, without needing to tweak code.

Ease of Use

HubSpot CMS: HubSpot is built with simplicity in mind, making it easy for anyone to use—even those with minimal technical knowledge. The drag-and-drop editor, pre-built templates, and integrated features make building and maintaining a site straightforward. However, the focus on simplicity can sometimes mean reduced flexibility for more complex, unique designs.

Webflow: Webflow requires a bit more of a learning curve. Its powerful design tools offer unmatched flexibility, but mastering the platform can take time, especially for beginners.

However, with the recent page templates feature release, you can create brand-consistent templates for frequently built pages, making it much quicker and easier to develop new landing pages, even for non-technical folks.

SEO Capabilities

HubSpot CMS: HubSpot offers strong built-in SEO tools. From on-page recommendations to integrated analytics, HubSpot offers a full suite of SEO capabilities designed to help you rank higher on search engines without needing additional plugins. It’s built to be SEO-friendly right out of the box, which is a big advantage for businesses that need effective search visibility quickly.

Webflow: Webflow also offers robust SEO features, including the ability to edit meta tags, URLs, and alt texts directly within the platform, allowing for deep SEO customization. Additionally, Webflow has introduced tools like Analyze and Optimize to enhance data-driven decision-making. Analyze provides insights into visitor behavior, helping you understand how users interact with your site, which can inform your SEO strategies. Optimize enables you to test different variations of your site to see what performs best, allowing for continuous improvement based on real user data.

Marketing Integrations

HubSpot CMS: HubSpot CMS offers integration with HubSpot’s entire ecosystem of marketing and sales tools. You get everything in one place—email marketing, landing pages, CRM, lead tracking, and automation. This seamless integration makes it an all-in-one powerhouse for managing customer relationships and marketing efforts effectively, perfect for businesses prioritizing end-to-end lead nurturing and conversion.

Webflow: Webflow doesn’t have built-in marketing tools like HubSpot but integrates well with third-party services, such as MailChimp, Zapier, Google Analytics or Hubspot itself too. This gives you the freedom to choose which tools to integrate in your workflow.

Hosting and Performance

HubSpot CMS: HubSpot provides built-in hosting, which means you don't have to worry about setting up separate servers or managing complex configurations. It offers CDN (Content Delivery Network) integration to ensure quick loading times, and the hosting infrastructure is optimized for reliability and speed.

Webflow: Webflow also includes built-in hosting with Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Fastly’s CDN. It’s highly optimized for performance and scalability, which makes it a great choice for businesses expecting rapid growth. Webflow’s hosting setup is designed to handle high traffic while keeping load times minimal, offering reliable speed even for visually complex sites. The combination of AWS and CDN ensures that sites are delivered efficiently across the globe, which is perfect for businesses with an international audience.

Scalability

HubSpot CMS: HubSpot is highly scalable for businesses that grow over time, especially if your growth is tied to increasing marketing and sales needs. Its ecosystem grows with you, meaning as you add more marketing activities, such as emails or landing pages, HubSpot can easily handle the increased demand. However, the scaling costs can add up, especially as you expand the CRM and marketing features.

Webflow: Webflow’s scalability comes from its ability to design highly customized sites that can grow alongside your business needs. While Webflow doesn’t offer an integrated CRM like HubSpot, its flexibility with third-party integrations allows businesses to add functionalities as they need them. This makes Webflow a solid option for companies that need a platform to evolve with them but want to avoid getting locked into a predefined ecosystem.

Localisation

HubSpot CMS: HubSpot offers basic localisation capabilities, allowing you to create multi-language versions of your website, which can help in reaching a broader global audience. However, these features are largely manual, and for more advanced localisation needs—such as automated translations or managing multiple languages effectively—HubSpot relies on third-party apps available in its Marketplace. These integrations can streamline the localisation process and add more robust capabilities, but they do require additional setup and often come at an added cost.

Webflow: Webflow provides native localisation tools that allow you to easily create multi-language versions of your website without needing third-party integrations. The Webflow localisation tools make it simple to set up localized pages for different audiences. In addition, you still have the flexibility to use third-party solutions like Weglot for more advanced features if needed. This combination makes Webflow an excellent choice for businesses looking for a scalable, customizable approach to internationalization that doesn’t compromise creativity.

Customer Support and Community

HubSpot CMS: HubSpot is known for its robust customer support, offering a variety of resources including 24/7 chat, email, and phone support, depending on your subscription tier. There’s also an extensive knowledge base and a thriving community forum where users can ask questions and share tips. HubSpot Academy offers free courses that help users get the most out of the platform.

Webflow: Webflow provides strong community support through forums, user groups, and Webflow University—an educational resource filled with tutorials, guides, and courses. Their customer support is available via email, and while there isn’t always a direct phone line, the Webflow community is highly active and supportive. This makes it a great platform if you’re willing to engage with the community or learn from Webflow’s extensive self-help resources.

Pricing

HubSpot CMS:

HubSpot CMS pricing is tiered to accommodate businesses of different sizes and needs. Here's a breakdown of their pricing structure:

Starter Plan: $15/month/seat (billed annually)
Content Hub Professional Plan: $450/month (includes 3 core seats; additional seats at $45/month each) (billed annually)
Content Hub Enterprise Plan: $1,500/month (includes 5 core seats; additional seats at $75/month each)

These prices include hosting, security, and access to HubSpot’s suite of marketing, sales, and service tools.

Webflow:

Basic Site Plan: $14/month (billed annually)
CMS Site Plan: $23/month (billed annually)
Business Site Plan: $39/month (billed annually)
Enterprise Site Plan: Custom pricing

These plans cover hosting and design features, making Webflow a more predictable and often cost-effective choice.

Security

HubSpot CMS: HubSpot provides robust security features out of the box, including SSL certificates, firewalls, and 24/7 monitoring. The platform handles security updates automatically, ensuring your website stays protected without manual intervention. HubSpot is also GDPR-compliant, which is crucial for businesses dealing with customer data.

Webflow: Webflow also offers strong security features, including SSL encryption and daily backups. Security updates are handled by Webflow, taking the burden off the user. Additionally, Webflow’s infrastructure is backed by Amazon Web Services (AWS), known for its high level of security. Webflow is also GDPR and SOC II compliant.

Integrations

HubSpot CMS: HubSpot offers a vast library of native integrations that work seamlessly within its ecosystem, including CRM, email marketing, and various marketing tools. The built-in integrations save time and reduce the complexity of managing multiple platforms. HubSpot’s App Marketplace also offers integrations with many popular business tools, ensuring that your website works cohesively with the rest of your software stack.

Webflow: Webflow provides flexibility through both native integrations and third-party tools. Webflow’s native apps let you easily integrate with popular tools, providing a more straightforward setup for certain functionalities. Additionally, you can use tools like Zapier to connect your Webflow site to almost any other platform you use, giving you even more options.

While it doesn’t have as many native integrations as HubSpot, this mix of native and customizable integrations allows you to choose the best tools for your specific needs.

Ease of Migration

HubSpot CMS: Migrating to HubSpot can be relatively seamless if you’re using supported platforms, as HubSpot offers migration services and tools to help transfer your data. However, if you're coming from a highly customized platform, the migration process might require manual adjustments. HubSpot provides good documentation and support to ease the process, but the deeper the customization of your previous site, the more complex the migration could become.

Webflow: Webflow allows for easy importing of content via CSV files, making migration straightforward if you’re moving text-heavy content like blog posts. However, migrating a full website with complex designs would need expert assistance due to the level of customization Webflow offers. Unlike HubSpot, Webflow doesn’t provide dedicated migration services, but you can always reach out to webflow certified partners to get help with these

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TL;DR Comparison Table

To make the decision easier, here's a shorter comparison table to help you determine which CMS platform aligns best with your business needs.

Criteria	HubSpot CMS	Webflow
Ease of Use	Beginner-friendly, minimal setup	Some learning curve
Design Flexibility	Limited but efficient	Full control with advanced options
SEO Tools	Built-in recommendations	Manual customization with Analyze/Optimize
Marketing Integration	All-in-one marketing, CRM, automation	Third-party integrations for flexibility
Hosting and Performance	Built-in, reliable	AWS and Fastly CDN, highly scalable
Scalability	Scales with marketing tools, costly	Flexible integrations, customizable
Pricing	Starts at $25/month, can be costly	Predictable, starts at $14/month
Security	SSL, firewalls, GDPR compliant	SSL, AWS-backed, manual third-party checks needed
Migration	Offers tools, manual for custom sites	Easy content migration, manual for complex designs
Support	24/7 chat, phone, HubSpot Academy	Community forums, Webflow University, email support
Localisation	Basic multilingual support via third-party apps	Native localisation tools with additional third-party options

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Making the Right Choice for Your Business

When to Choose HubSpot CMS

HubSpot CMS is a great fit for businesses that need an all-in-one solution that combines marketing, sales, and customer relationship management. If you want to manage every aspect of your business on one platform and don’t need a visually unique/customized website, HubSpot may be good for you.

When to Choose Webflow

Webflow is an excellent choice for creative teams or businesses that prioritize having complete control over their website's design and user experience. If you need a platform that allows for hands-on SEO customization, integrates easily with a variety of third-party tools, and offers the flexibility to create beautiful yet fast and scalable websites, Webflow is the way to go. It suits those who prefer a customized, design-driven approach and want the freedom to connect specialized tools without being locked into a single ecosystem.