What's New In Webflow in 2023

The burning question in the web development world is, what is new at Webflow? Whether you were lucky enough to be there or missed it, we’ve condensed everything Webflow announced at their Webflow Conf 2022 and picked out some of the most exciting bits.

Let’s paddle through…

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Visual Development

In the conference, Webflow announced that they were deepening the power of visual development and expanding the capabilities of what can be built in Webflow. They announced some great new design features to enable us to make even more wow-able sites:

1. Evolving “Symbols” to “Components”
2. Scaling the CMS beyond 10,000 items
3. Higher product limits on ecommerce plans
4. Ability to sync Webflow components with any React project with DevLink (coming soon)
5. Variable font control (coming soon)

Symbols < Components

One of the first things mentioned was the evolution of ‘Symbols’ to ‘Components’. The name change comes as a representation of the added power and flexibility of the Webflow canvas. Paddle Creative have been part of the closed Components Beta program, helping Webflow fine-tine the Components experience for other Webflow users, and we have loved our experience using Components.

A major development is new on-canvas controls. With the use of new on-canvas controls, you or any member of your team is able quickly update anything that is already on the canvas. The process of customising your Components is greatly simplified by defining characteristics that can be changed on each instance.

The ability to display dynamic CMS data as components is another helping hand. This new feature allows you to reuse components on other CMS Collection pages to maintain a consistent look and feel. Wherever that layout appears on your site, Components gives you even more control over how to change your designs so you can respond to various situations.

Scaling the CMS

Webflow's CMS storage architecture has undergone significant modifications to handle websites with unparalleled scalability for Webflow Enterprise users.

As a result, Enterprise clients may expand far more than 10,000, 20,000, or even 100,000+ items.

Additionally, these updates enable you to have more CMS Collections, allowing you to have more content varieties on your site.

It is thanks to the improved CMS architecture that Webflow have been working on over the past year that enables those with Ecommerce plans to increase item limits on their site plans and also makes it possible to raise the limit on the number of members per site to 20,000, so you can scale your communities even further.

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Collaboration

Webflow is highly invested in collaboration and making it easy for teams of all sizes to be able to work cohesively. The easier collaboration becomes inside Webflow, the more users and teams will use Webflow. Just look at how seamless collaboration inside Figma has helped it to scale to global design domination. This is why Webflow have been hard at work improving workflows and admin controls for the growing teams using Webflow and the Webflow agencies and freelancers that support them.‍

Freelancer and Agency Workspace Plans

If you have ever used Webflow with any other users, you will know the pain of password sharing, duplicate costs and a general clunky workflow working on projects with a team. We think this is a gamechange - Webflow unveiled their new Freelancer and Agency Workspace plans during the conference, which were created with full-time Webflow specialists in mind. By eliminating the need for customers to pay for an additional seat on their team or fuss with attempting to share login credentials, these new options make it simpler and less expensive to "drop in" to a client's workspace. You can read more about that in-depth here.

Page Branching

This innovative and very useful feature will allow design teams to build sites faster and safely explore new designs by allowing multiple designers to work on separate pages at the same time. It is thought this will initially only apply to Enterprise clients, but we are hoping it is rolled out to all plans in the future to allow even faster, more collaborative workflows.

Control Access to Workspaces

Site-specific access will be made available by Webflow in the beginning of 2023, enabling big teams (plan subscribers to Agency, Freelancer, or Enterprise Workspace plans) to manage which websites invited visitors may access.

Large teams using Webflow will benefit from increased protection and control thanks to site-specific access, which will also allow Enterprise customers and Enterprise Partners to select which sites internal colleagues may access.

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Webflow Community

Community is at the heart of everything Webflow does. Creating a passage for like minded creators to share and grow their ideas is the engine that keeps the Webflow train chugging. This is why Webflow has been working to elevate their already thriving community, creating simplified and better organised channels for the Webflow community to help grow resources, apps, and connections.

As such, a number of features have been put in place to help channel the creativity and expertise that our community is putting out in the world, while creating even more new opportunities for those building businesses on Webflow.

Webflow Marketplace

Yep, it is exactly what you think it is: a brand-new location for all the goods and services you need to make your website a reality. From project support and top Webflow Experts to style ideas from the newest Webflow sites, you can find it all in Webflow Marketplace.

At Paddle Creative, we are very excited about the Webflow Marketplace as it could be the development that brings Webflow power to more users, just as happened when Shopify introduced a marketplace.

Starting off with the introduction of Libraries:

With the addition of Libraries, teams can now locate collections of website layouts created by top Webflow developers with ease. This allows you to quickly develop exceptional sites using the community's design skills, directly within the Webflow Designer.

Webflow Developer API

Elevate with apps. Yes, APPS! Webflow has now made it possible to build your own Web App directly in Webflow with the launch of Webflow Developer.. Again, we see this as a MAJOR development in increasing the power of Webflow and increasing the use cases of Webflow,  With the help of this feature, you can expand and improve Webflow's functionality while also unlocking new developer features for your Webflow sites.

A final newbie in the Webflow Marketplace is an enhanced Webflow Experts section. In order to help your next project, Webflow has made it simpler than ever to identify the ideal Webflow agency or freelancer, such as Paddle Creative, without spending hours looking. Using an updated Webflow Experts directory, Webflow can play matchmaker and pair you up with someone who can help you achieve your greatest website wishes. 

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There you have it, a brief rundown of the 2022 Webflow Conf announcements. Of course this isn’t an exhaustive list and there are many other new companions to the growing amazement that is Webflow. If you want to find out about the complete goings ons of the Webflow Conf you can find all the session and other information on their website, or of course you can get in touch with a member of the Paddle Creative team and we’ll be happy to help!