Does webstudio have any plans to roll out its own CMS?

I don't think they plan this feature. Yep it's seems not convenience for clients but I really think that there is their strenght!

I tried to think a strategy about that and my conclusion is the following : maybe Webstudio is not for small websites. Maybe this builder is perfect for a more advanced websites. For example, I think webstudio is perfect for this uses cases:

• The company has website and mobile app and they need to have one CMS to handle their content (so they can have a mobile app and a webstudio website with just one CMS to handle that)
• The company has differentes teams for content (marketing, communication, support, Sales...) and need one website for all with differents CMS
• The company need to scale their content (lot of SEO, languages...) and need a robust CMS and a robust website without limitations and a high pricing

Theses uses cases are not really SMB's use cases that's why I think Webstudio is better than Webflow, Wordpress or Framer.

BTW, for the small website the client doesn't have to pay for 2 separate providers. Yes, you have to pay for a Pro Plan on Webstudio but you can use Hygraph (CMS) in a free Plan which is good. It costs you only 20$/m.

Yes, it's not as easy as WP or Webflow to setup the CMS but to my mind the UX for writing content in Webflow CMS is so bad (and complex) for client so you can turn this in an advantage!

Yep it's seems not convenience for clients but I really think that there is their strenght!

I disagree with that. If you're going to market Webstudio as an open source alternative to Webflow then should at least try to match Webflow in terms of features. You're going to draw people away that are coming from Webflow expecting Webstudio to be very similar. Forcing users to use an external CMS like you said is only going to be useful if they have an existing CMS solution however you're going to really limit your potential customers.

maybe Webstudio is not for small websites. Maybe this builder is perfect for a more advanced websites.

That's really unfortunate.

BTW, for the small website the client doesn't have to pay for 2 separate providers. Yes, you have to pay for a Pro Plan on Webstudio but you can use Hygraph (CMS) in a free Plan which is good. It costs you only 20$/m.

Yes I can find a free tier CMS but the main disadvantage is that the customer still has to create more than 1 account. Having a single account to change the look and feel and the content on their site is far more convenient. This is where Wordpress and Webflow really shine.

Just out of curiosity have you compared Webstudio to other visual site builders such as builder.io, storyblok or any others?

This is unfortunately a deal breaker for me which is too bad because I really like the Webstudio UI. It's made for people who are already familiar with web development. Other site builders try to make the UI more "user-friendly" for people who don't know web development but it makes it much more difficult to optimize / have more control over the site.

You should read their blog in order to understand their (to my mind, amazing) vision : https://webstudio.is/blog 🙂

@Milan Boisgard | Uncode School
I have. I like everything they are doing just not the CMS part 😆 That's a big deal.

Yep I understand but CMS and builder are completely different product. It’s hard to be the best in this 2 parts

Maybe Webflow is not the real competitor. WeWeb could be a better competitor

Yeah I'd agree with that. Perhaps the description should be changed from

Open Source alternative to Webflow, check out our CMS launch

https://github.com/webstudio-is/webstudio

to

Open source alternative to Weweb, checkout our CMS launch

Using Webflow is misleading imo the only real similarity is the UI.

I think Milan did a great job at explaining this.

In fact, "The web builder for advanced sites" is what we are looking at changing our copy to.

I suppose the CMS capabilities really shines with advanced sites but I personally would use it for smaller sites too. It is a little more hassle though so I hear you there. However, what type of client are you handing over an advanced UI to modify things? In fact the separation of design and blog gives editors their own place to work on the things they "get". We likely will introduce an edit only feature on webstudio in the future.

I've used this setup in the past with a client (diff platform) and they really enjoyed the simplicity of updating airtable to modify their team page and i really enjoyed them not getting close to the design 😅

@CrazyPanda
The problem is that in your mind, just adding a simple cms is going to solve all your problems. But in reality, this is just opening a rabbit hole of CMS problems.

What we are trying to do right now is to help you find the right cms for the task at hand. Most small projects will be able to use a lot of CMSs for free.

Blog, tabular content, CRM/user management, subscriptions etc all represent different kinds of content management.

The difference is huge and trying to make one cms work for everything is ususally resulting in tons of workarounds.

We will probably add a simple content authoring component in the future for cases where user just wants static pages to have some client-written content that fits into the design.

Something like medium.com style experience

Most likely not this year though.

@CrazyPanda did you see this?

https://webstudio.is/blog/frontend-for-headless-cms#why-building-a-custom-cms-is-bad-for-webstudio-and-its-users

Using an external CMS also have it's advantage. You client is familiar with airtable ? => you can say to him that he can pilot some of dynamic content directly with it's favorite tool.

Yes, the 2 login 2 different interface in THE big inconvenience of this approach. That's why I think webstudio have to do some efforts there, for example by providing the possibility to create a link to the cms backend directly from webstudio interface. Why not stocking CMS backend credentials in webstudio project settings and automatically login the user when clicking that button. I think some QOL features can be done here to minimize that inconvenience

Because API token is not the same as user login. API token can be the same while different users can have different logins and different access rights to that project data.

Providing links for services used on the site sound basically like a notes feature for convenience, a place to go to when you enter a project to learn about it and have some convenience links

Like some kind of readme