Hi Hivers, Welcome to Another Post on My Blogs where I'm sharing Practical Insights and Tips as I Navigate the Building of PortalsX, a Metaverse Based Startup.
If you haven't already, Read My Introductory Post so You can Learn More about what this is all about!
So, let's Jump Directly into the Contents of this Post where I'm sharing my Views and Experience with No-Code Website Builders When Looking to Launch Your Website Quickly.
A Quick Run-Down: My Experience with Coding
I started Coding in 2020, BUT it's quite fair to say that Coding is not just my thing. Why? I never bothered to learn it too Deeply, Understand Best Practices and Know a Diverse Set of Languages.
To me, Programming Enough for a Use-Case in my Everyday life is All I Care for, It's Not some Competition after all.
My Coding Experience Goes through a Couple of Interesting Languages, always focused on their Use-Case. If I required Programming for something of High Interest to me, I'll Learn it.
Over the years, I've managed to pick up HTML, CSS, and Javascript for Website Development, Typescript and Js-Based Libraries for Game Development, Python and Supporting Libraries (scikit-learn, pandas, TensorFlow) for Machine Learning Models, and More Recently React-Three-Fiber and Three.Js for WebXR.
When it Comes to Building Websites, If you got anywhere from a similar Skillset to Mine Or better yet, More Advanced and Diverse Knowledge? You are Fully Capable of Building a Website, through Coding, and Ground - Up. The problem is this though:
Depending on Your Experience, The Time Required to do this, Begins to Count Upwards.
Finding yourself in a situation where You Need to Create The Best Site (Don't Settle for Lesser), And Very Quickly? No - Code Website Builders are your Closest reaching Savior.
How Many No-Code Website Builders?
The First thing which you might consider to be the Best Approach is to Quickly Research a List of No-Code Website Builder Services to get a good grasp of what will be Suitable for You.
While this approach tends to Give you Extra knowledge about the Variety of what is available, It most probably will not bring about any Significant Results. Why? - Because there are Just A FEW No-code Website Builders For Your Specific Usecase / Group of UseCase, Let me Explain.
The Idea here is that - You want to Launch Your Blockchain-Based Startup Website, The Following Reasons Will/Will Not Align (with an 80% chance of Positive Alignment):
- You want to Build a Site Without Paying an Average to High-Cost Developer.
- You Want to Build a Site that MUST Look Good. An Attractive Website is Always a Bonus; To Customers, To Investors.
- You Want to Build a Site and Publish Quickly - No Difficult Learning Curve, Set-up, or Pipelines.
- You want a No-Code Website Builder that is Flexible - Constantly Allowing for UI Updates, Without Crashing, Bloating Plugins
- Lastly, You Want a Website Builder that is DAMN Responsive across viewports; From my Experience, Building a Responsive Site makes you Feel x2 Achieved.
So, With All of these Important Highlights In Place, The Kinds and Number of No-Code Website Builders you really need, start to Reduce in Count, drastically. In other words, Most Will not Provide the Above Features for You.
Two Industry Competitors: Framer & Webflow
This Post is Directly Focused on Just Two No-Code Website Builders and These are Framer and Webflow. They are About the Best Options for Developers & Full-Time Designers when You want to Launch a Site Fast, Rather Easily, Flexibly, and Responsively. So Let's Dive into them;
WebFlow: Webflow is an Industry Standard No-Code Website Builder that has been Active for a While, Gaining Huge Popularity Among the Most Professional Developers in the Space. It is Relatively Cheap, But Best of All - It gets the Job DONE!.
The USP of Webflow lies in the fact that it comes packed with Advanced Features; From Layout, Animations, Interactions, CMS, and More. Webflow is Super Great!
Framer: Framer is a No Code Website Builder that Allows ANYONE to Build Websites and Launch them in Less than 1 Day. Framer is much Newer in the Industry BUT If You Wanna Come in rather Late to the Web Dev Game, Maybe Get Urself a Badass USP, Which Framer has Definitely Done!. Framer Allows Seasoned Designers with Zero Experience in Coding to Built Professional - Looking Sites with Animations, Interactions, and More.
Its USP lies in the fact that You can Import Your Website UI Designs from Popular Prototyping Applications like Figma and Adobe XD. This is solving the Issue of Developers Copying UI Designs Over Using them Directly, infact, it goes all the way on this - Because UI Designers will Not need Developers to Copy their Designs when they can Create it Themselves.
Summary to Start Building
If you're in a Similar Boat where you Need to Launch a Site for Your Startup Quickly AND You're a Developer(Beginner / Expert) OR a Designer (With no Experience in Coding), I'd suggest you start with Framer.
Yes, this post is directly Fixated on Framer Over Webflow (xD), But Because of The Following Reasons;
- I've had Experience Building with Both of Them AND I can Properly Guide you with Starting Framer Builder.
- Using both Webflow and Framer, I found out that Webflow is More Difficult to Use, and This is Not to say that Framer Has Zero Learning curve.
- Further down the Line, Webflow is also a Website Builder that might Not Work the Way you Expect it to (Majorly because it's an Online Editor), But Trust me When I say that, Framer is Flawless.
- Webflow has more Documentation than Framer because of its Time in the Industry, But One Video might be ALL you Need to Learn 80% About Framer.
- Lastly, People may Argue or be Concerned; That Framer cannot Create Highly Advanced Sites. My Answer to this: Have you Seen their Gallery? - Regardless of How Advanced You Want to Get, they are Literally Still Adding Features and I'm certain, Will Get there.
Getting Started with Framer
- One Video is ALL you Need, Take Out Time and Watch it, Or Like me (Get So Impatient) and Start Building AS You Watch It - Youtube Here
- A Site I Built with Framer in 1 Day, I Was so Damn Tired of Course. It's also Incomplete Because I discovered that Framer Actually Works! - Now I'm Building Mine. Amulet Protocol Demo
Thanks for reading Once Again, and I hope to See you Next time!
Chel_