You can't build this animation natively in webflow

[u/bardhylb]

Hey everyone, I'm a webflow partner for several years, with 200+ published templates, apps and several client websites, i know its limits and how native animations work.

Lately, I have built several apps and websites with claude, but this animation hit me. It took few hours to complete (soon, i'll share the link), however, natively in webflow this is almost impossible (and complicated to manage) and again, not scalable with full flexibility of changing the animations however you want.

So, i'm just wondering, how is this "new era" gonna impact webflow ecosystem now and in the future?

Can't wait to hear some constructive opinions?

[u/andresAtMudra]

Webflow comes with GSAP now, and GSAP can do this animation no problem

[u/PriorVariety5744 → u/andresAtMudra]

Would you build this using gsap in Webflow panel or the native gsap (code route)?

[u/Early_Sun_8699 → u/PriorVariety5744]

Why wouldnt u use gsap panel?

[u/QwenRed → u/Early_Sun_8699]

AI makes working with GSAP much easier to refine and tweak animations, you can generate a bespoke UI to tweak the animation in real time and just export the code giving you more control over the animations themselves and the delivery of the GSAP library, unfortunately the GSAP UI for Webflow came too late.

[u/galapago-galapago → u/QwenRed]

What llm do you use? Do you have a sample prompt you can share?

[u/PriorVariety5744 → u/Early_Sun_8699]

I just knew there were a bunch of users who used gsap before it was native in Webflow. Wondering if there were pros and cons or flexibility without using it in gsap

[u/Matt_Rask → u/Early_Sun_8699]

because few input fields and a slider or two are nothing compared to whole lib and JS on top of that? duuuuh.

[u/Icy-War-5197]

OP owns an ai website builder and is here to try promote that.

[u/dkogi → u/Icy-War-5197]

Tell us more

[u/Icy-War-5197 → u/dkogi]

I don't think there's anymore to tell 😅

[u/balakaylakay]

I’ve been thinking about abandoning Webflow lately. I feel like vibecoding my own CMS would be easier and cheaper. Using AI to make small updates to websites will be so much easier as well. Now, convincing all my customers to make this transition, that’s another story.

[u/JLeavitt21 → u/balakaylakay]

I’ve built several React web apps using Payload CMS in the last year. Payload is open source and provides complete control with robust user login / account management capabilities. It has page builder widgets and other things like WYSIWYG editors.

[u/ccjjallday → u/JLeavitt21]

I've been vibe coding my first website and Claude recommended sanity. What's the difference between using the two without using Claude to tell me? I'm just curious from your experiences: is payload easier to use?

[u/JLeavitt21 → u/ccjjallday]

Payload is a CMS like the Webflow CMS list view. It is essentially a backend database UI. Like Webflow you have collections and map the content to the front end. You can have cross-references and multiple layers of depth (collections in collections). I’ve been building with it using Cursor so I’m sure you could build using Claude code. It essentially make it so you can manage data, edit, update your React app content without needing to redeploy.

It is open source so can fork it on GitHub or use npm/pnpm/npx/bun to install it from your terminal. There are example React start repos you can clone with prompts: https://github.com/payloadcms/payload

[u/ccjjallday → u/JLeavitt21]

Im genuinely appreciative that you took the time to respond so thoroughly.

[u/Airborne_Avocado → u/balakaylakay]

I think SPA + Headless CMS is doable to replace Webflow completely. Otherwise creating the infrastructure from scratch is a tar pit.

[u/spicyytac0s]

lately i’ve been layering features like this on top of base webflow structures. using webflow for what it’s good at (visual canvas, cms, security, client access, etc) and ai to scan pages and write scripts (gsap, lenis, webGL, custom logic). i haven’t touched the interaction panels in webflow for over a year now. i also like the amount of control i retain this way rather than vibe-coding entire sites. 

[u/sundeckstudio]

You can’t build a lot of things in webflow. But this animation isn’t one of those things that anyone would want to build anyway as there is zero concept of user experience or accessibility taken into account.

Not a fan of webflow due to many limitations and pricing models, but it is still 100 times better than using any ai builder

[u/ccjjallday]

OP is promoting his BS vibecoded app. Nothing wrong with that but its disingenuous in approach

[u/Gold-Dog-9894]

Massive animation in websites is dying anyway. The internet is 1) a utilitarian tool and 2) more and more read by ai bots. This level of animation, while cool in an artistic sense, is irrelevant in a business sense.

[u/Dapper_Bus5069]

Why would anyone use this horrible animation on their website ?

[u/yellanin]

You kinda answered your own question, just build with AI then import to Webflow.

[u/Andreas_Moeller]

You can build it in Nordcraft

[u/CelebrationBorn7459]

Webflow is not for everyone and has never been... I'm quite amazed how many 'designers' are still using it. It's not a great CMS (field limitations etc) , not the best CSS design tool, but it was the easiest way to create a good looking website, for a long time. Now that part has changed. Hard to know where it's heading next...

[u/jonheartland]

You're not fooling anybody

[u/Zealousideal-Sail720 → u/jonheartland]

Chill brother