You built your website in Webflow. The design looks great, the CMS is full of content, and everything works as expected. Then someone on your team, or a client, asks a simple question:
"Can we export the site and host it ourselves?"
The short answer is yes.
You can export your Webflow site's HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and images. But you cannot export everything that makes the website work. Features like the CMS, forms, e-commerce, memberships, site search, and the Webflow Editor stay on Webflow's servers.
This is the part many tutorials skip. They show you where the Export Code button is. They rarely explain what happens after you click it.
If you are thinking about moving your Webflow website elsewhere, it is worth understanding exactly what you get, what you lose, and when exporting actually makes sense.
Can You Export a Webflow Website?
Yes, you can export a Webflow website if your workspace includes code export.
The exported ZIP file contains:
- HTML files
- CSS files
- JavaScript files
- Images and other assets
These files can be hosted on almost any web server.
However, Webflow's backend services are not included. That means features powered by Webflow's servers stop working once the site is exported. For a simple marketing website with mostly static pages, exporting can work well.
For websites that rely on CMS content, lead forms, e-commerce, memberships, or frequent content updates, exporting usually creates much more work than it saves.
What Gets Exported and What Does Not?
The easiest way to understand Webflow exports is to separate what lives in your browser from what lives on Webflow's servers.
This table answers the biggest question most founders have. The design moves with you. The platform features do not.
How Webflow Code Export Actually Works
When you export a Webflow website, you receive a ZIP file containing your site's front-end code.
Inside that file, you will find neatly organised HTML, CSS, JavaScript, fonts, images, and other assets. The code is clean, readable, and ready to deploy on your own hosting provider.
At first glance, it feels like you have downloaded your entire website. In reality, you have only downloaded the part visitors see inside their browser. Modern websites have two sides. The first is the front end, which includes the layout, styling, animations, and interactive elements users see on screen. The second is the backend, which stores content, processes forms, manages users, handles e-commerce, and powers features like search.
Webflow exports the front end. The backend stays on Webflow. That is not a limitation or a bug. It is simply how the platform is designed. Webflow is more than a visual website builder. It combines design tools, content management, hosting, form processing, search, security, and performance into one platform. When you export the code, you disconnect your website from those services.
What You Keep After Exporting
The good news is that Webflow's exported code is genuinely high quality.
Your design remains almost identical to the version hosted on Webflow. Responsive layouts continue working across desktop, tablet, and mobile devices. Animations also continue to work. Scroll effects, hover animations, click interactions, tabs, sliders, accordions, and other components continue functioning because they run inside the visitor's browser through Webflow's JavaScript library.
If your project includes custom HTML, CSS, or JavaScript that does not depend on Webflow's CMS, that code is also included in the export.
For static websites, this is often enough. Landing pages, brochure websites, documentation sites, and simple marketing pages usually export with very few issues because they rely mostly on front-end code.
In these cases, you can upload the exported files to your preferred hosting provider and continue maintaining the site manually. The more dynamic your website becomes, the more limitations you begin to notice.
What Breaks the Moment You Export
This is where most founders, marketers, and agencies get surprised.
Your exported website may look almost identical to the original, but many of the features that make it useful no longer work.
The design stays. The backend does not.
If your website depends on Webflow's CMS, forms, e-commerce, memberships, or search, each of those features needs to be replaced after export.
1. CMS Content Does Not Come With the Export
This is probably the biggest limitation.
Webflow Collections are stored in Webflow's CMS. When you export your site, the collection structure may still exist, but the content itself does not.
That means pages like the following:
- Blog posts
- Case studies
- Team member profiles
- Resource libraries
- Product pages
- Portfolio projects
are not exported as fully functional pages.
Collection Lists often appear as empty sections, and Collection Template pages are not generated with their dynamic content. If your website depends heavily on the CMS, exporting removes one of Webflow's biggest advantages.
2. Forms Stop Working
Your forms will still appear on the page. Visitors can type into every field and click the submit button. The problem is that nothing happens after submission. Webflow processes forms through its own servers. Once you export the code, that backend no longer exists.
If you want forms to work again, you will need to connect them to another service that can receive and process submissions.
3. Site Search Stops Working
Webflow's search feature depends on its hosting platform. It indexes your pages and CMS content behind the scenes. After exporting, there is no search index to query.
Your search bar may still appear on the page, but it cannot return results because the service behind it is gone.
4. E-commerce Stops Working
Product pages may still display correctly. The checkout process does not. Shopping carts, payment processing, taxes, inventory management, customer accounts, and order tracking all rely on Webflow's e-commerce infrastructure. Once the website leaves Webflow, those features disappear.
If you want to keep selling products, you will need to rebuild the e-commerce functionality using another platform.
5. Memberships and Protected Content No Longer Work
Member login pages may still look normal after export. The authentication system behind them is gone. Protected pages become publicly accessible, and members can no longer sign in because there is nothing validating their accounts.
Any gated content, customer portal, or members-only area will need a completely new authentication system.
6. Redirects Are Lost
Many teams forget about redirects until after migration. If your Webflow project includes 301 redirects, they stay inside Webflow's hosting settings. They are not included in the exported files. If you move your website to another host, you will need to recreate every redirect manually.
Missing redirects can hurt SEO, create broken links, and frustrate returning visitors.
7. The Webflow Editor Disappears
One of Webflow's biggest strengths is how easily marketers can update content without touching code. After exporting, that workflow disappears. There is no visual editor. Every content update becomes a manual code change unless you build a new content management system. For teams that publish articles, update landing pages, or regularly refresh website copy, this often becomes the biggest ongoing challenge.
Why People Export Their Webflow Websites
Despite these limitations, exporting is not always the wrong decision. There are several situations where it makes sense.
1. Compliance and Security Requirements
Some organisations cannot host their websites on third-party platforms because of internal policies or industry regulations. Healthcare companies, financial organisations, and enterprise businesses sometimes need complete control over their hosting environment. For them, exporting is often a business requirement rather than a technical preference.
2. Client Handoffs
Some agencies deliver finished HTML files as part of a project handoff. The client already has their own hosting provider and development team. In this case, exporting provides a clean package that can be deployed almost anywhere.
3. Moving to a Custom Tech Stack
Some companies use Webflow only for design. Once the design is approved, developers rebuild or extend it using frameworks like Next.js or another custom solution. The exported files become the starting point rather than the finished product.
4. Creating a Static Archive
Sometimes businesses simply want a snapshot of their website. They may be planning a redesign, shutting down a product, or preserving an old version before making major changes. A code export creates a permanent copy that can be stored or hosted later if needed.
The Biggest Mistake Founders Make
The mistake is not exporting. The mistake is expecting the exported files to be a complete replacement for the live Webflow website. They are not. The export gives you the design. It does not give you the platform. For static websites, that difference is small.
For content-driven websites, it can mean rebuilding large parts of your site before it works the way it did on Webflow.
Understanding that difference before you export can save weeks of development time and prevent expensive surprises later.
Common Workarounds After Exporting a Webflow Website
Over the years, the Webflow community has come up with several ways to work around the platform's export limitations. Some work well for specific use cases. Others add enough complexity that staying on Webflow becomes the simpler option.
Before exporting your site, it is worth understanding what these solutions actually do and what they cost.
1. Web Scraping Tools
One approach is to crawl your published Webflow website and save every page as static HTML. Tools like Wget and HTTrack can visit every published page, including CMS-generated pages, and download them as individual HTML files. This gives you something the official export does not, a complete snapshot of your live website.
The downside is that the snapshot becomes outdated as soon as you publish new content. If you update your blog, add a case study, or edit a CMS item, you need to crawl the website again and replace the exported files. For websites that rarely change, this can be a practical solution. For websites with regular content updates, it quickly becomes difficult to maintain.
2. ExFlow
ExFlow is a community-built tool designed specifically for Webflow users who need more than the platform's standard export functionality. Instead of exporting only static pages, it crawls your published website and packages CMS-generated pages into a downloadable ZIP file, helping overcome one of Webflow's biggest export limitations.
However, the output is still a collection of static HTML pages rather than a functioning CMS. Any time you update your content, publish a new blog post, or modify a CMS item, you'll need to generate a fresh export and redeploy it. While this works well for relatively static websites, it can become an ongoing maintenance task for businesses that publish content regularly.
3. Udesly
Some businesses prefer to continue designing in Webflow while hosting their website on another platform, and that's where Udesly comes in. It converts exported Webflow projects into themes for platforms like WordPress and Shopify, allowing businesses to preserve much of their original design while managing content in a different CMS.
The trade-off is that every major design update typically requires another export, another conversion, and another deployment. For teams that frequently redesign landing pages or update their website structure, this repetitive workflow can quickly become time-consuming.
4. A Headless Webflow Setup
Larger organisations often take a completely different approach by using Webflow purely as a content management system while serving the website through a custom-built frontend. Developers typically use frameworks such as Next.js, Gatsby, Astro, or Eleventy to pull content from the Webflow CMS API and generate the final website.
This approach offers complete flexibility, better control over performance, and custom deployment workflows, but it also requires significantly more engineering effort. For companies with dedicated development teams, the additional complexity can be worthwhile. For smaller businesses, however, it is usually far more expensive than simply continuing to host the website on Webflow.
Replacing the Features That Do Not Export
Once you move away from Webflow, you're not just exporting your website; you also lose access to many of the platform's built-in features. Replacing that functionality typically means integrating several third-party services, each responsible for handling a different part of your website. While this provides flexibility, it also increases the number of tools you need to manage.
1. Forms
Because Webflow's form backend is no longer available after exporting, many businesses switch to services such as Formspree, Basin, or Netlify Forms. These platforms handle form submissions independently and can forward leads via email or connect with CRMs and other marketing tools through integrations.
2. Site Search
Website search also needs to be replaced after export. Many teams rely on services like Algolia or Google Programmable Search, which build their own search index and display results separately from Webflow while providing functionality similar to the platform's native search feature.
3. E-commerce
If your website sells products, you'll also need an alternative e-commerce solution. Services like Snipcart and Foxy allow businesses to keep their existing frontend while handling product management, checkout, payments, and order processing independently of Webflow.
4. Memberships
For websites with gated content, customer portals, or user accounts, platforms such as Memberstack and Outseta are common replacements. These services provide authentication, account management, subscriptions, and protected content without relying on Webflow's backend.
Who Should Export a Webflow Website?
Exporting can be an excellent decision for some businesses, while creating unnecessary complexity for others. The right choice depends largely on how your website is used today, how frequently it changes, and who will be responsible for maintaining it in the future.
Exporting Makes Sense If...
Exporting is a good fit if your business has compliance, security, or data residency requirements that require self-hosting, or if you're handing off a completed website to a client with their own hosting environment and development team.
It also makes sense when you use Webflow primarily as a visual design tool before rebuilding the production website with another framework, or when you simply need a static archive before a redesign or migration. In these situations, exporting provides flexibility without creating significant operational challenges.
You Should Probably Stay on Webflow If...
If your website relies heavily on Webflow's CMS for blogs, case studies, landing pages, or other dynamic content, staying on Webflow is usually the more practical option. The same applies if you publish content regularly, collect leads through forms, run an e-commerce store, use memberships, or allow your marketing team to make updates without involving developers.
For most B2B SaaS companies, these are everyday requirements, which is why many businesses ultimately decide that the convenience of having hosting, security, performance, backups, and content management in one platform outweighs the benefits of exporting.
The Real Question Behind "Can We Export the Website?"
When founders ask whether they can export their Webflow website, they're often trying to solve a much bigger problem than the export itself. In most cases, the question isn't about downloading the code. It's about reducing costs, gaining more control, or improving website performance. Understanding the real motivation behind the question is far more important than the export process itself.
"We Want to Reduce Costs"
Reducing costs is one of the most common reasons businesses consider exporting their Webflow website. While Webflow's hosting plans may seem expensive at first, replacing the platform usually means paying separately for hosting, forms, search, e-commerce, memberships, and ongoing developer support. Once these additional services and maintenance costs are factored in, the expected savings often disappear, making self-hosting more expensive than continuing to use Webflow.
"We Want More Control"
Some businesses simply want complete ownership of their website's codebase and infrastructure. Webflow supports this by allowing you to export your frontend code, giving you full control over the visual layer of your website. What it doesn't provide is the backend that powers features like the CMS, forms, e-commerce, and memberships. While owning your code offers greater flexibility, it doesn't replace the platform and infrastructure that make those features work.
"Our Website Feels Slow"
Performance concerns are another common reason businesses explore exporting their website. In reality, most Webflow performance issues have very little to do with Webflow hosting itself. They're typically caused by oversized images, excessive third-party scripts, poor font loading, unnecessary animations, unused assets, or inefficient page structure. These problems can almost always be resolved through optimisation, and for most companies, improving the existing website delivers better results than rebuilding it on another platform.
The Bottom Line
Yes, you can export a Webflow website, and the technical process is relatively straightforward. The more important consideration is understanding everything that comes after the export. If your website is largely static, exporting can be a practical solution.
However, if your site depends on Webflow's CMS, forms, e-commerce, memberships, or other dynamic features, you'll need to replace much of the functionality that made the platform valuable in the first place. For most B2B companies, remaining on Webflow is ultimately the simpler and more cost-effective option. The real question isn't whether you can export your website. It's whether exporting actually solves the problem you're trying to fix.
Your Website Works. Your Positioning Might Not.
Choosing to stay on Webflow is often the right call, but it won’t fix conversion issues on its own. Many B2B SaaS sites look great and perform well, yet still fail to turn visitors into leads. The real issue is usually unclear messaging, not the platform.
If your positioning isn’t clear, even a well-designed site won’t connect with the right audience. Visitors need to quickly understand what you do and why it matters. That’s where Minute Creative helps; we help refine positioning and messaging so your website actually converts.
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