Shopify, Webflow, WordPress: how we actually pick

Three CMS, three sets of clients. Half the prospects who reach out have already picked the wrong one for what they actually need. Here is how we make the call.

Webflow

We default to Webflow for brand sites. The kind where the team needs to add a project, edit a hero, change a quote, without waiting on a developer. The CMS is structured enough for content with depth (events, properties, posts). The visual builder is fast enough that we don't waste hours fighting the platform. The speed out of the box is fine for SEO.

A few examples from our own portfolio:

• Iconic House, luxury villa rentals across Europe. Three languages, custom booking integration with Smoobu, fifty plus properties managed by the team without a developer in the loop.
• The Culpeper Family, a London hospitality group. Their marketing team rolls out new property pages and event listings weekly.
• Double Dimanche, a hospitality and restaurants group. Private events, press, gallery and reservations all live in the same Webflow backend.
• Atlantic Yacht, luxury yacht charter. Editorial pages for each yacht, multilingual content, lead capture forms tied to a custom CRM.

Webflow is wrong when the project is transactional and the checkout matters more than the brand. That is Shopify territory.

Shopify

For brands that sell. The boring stuff (payments, shipping, taxes, inventory, fulfillment) is solved. The team can ship product drops weekly without us in the loop. The Shopify Plus path is real when growth comes.

A few examples from our own portfolio:

• Archiduchesse, a French socks brand. We rebuilt the theme from scratch. Editorial product pages, custom merch zones, a checkout that doesn't fight you. They ship product drops every week now.
• L'Île Bleue, a French lifestyle brand. Editorial collections, custom landing pages for capsule launches.
• Lolo Jamon, a Spanish hospitality brand. Shopify handles ticketed events and merch alongside their restaurants.
• Bouquetier, floral and interior decoration e-commerce. Catalog of one-off objects with stock managed by the founder herself.

Shopify is wrong when the shop is a footnote and the rest is editorial. A Webflow site with a small shop integration does that job better.

WordPress

Unfairly dismissed in 2026. Still the right answer when the project needs a deep API integration (Mindbody, Resamania, HubSpot, custom CRMs), or when the editorial team is large and needs roles, scheduling, approvals.

A few examples from our own portfolio:

• Annette K., a premium fitness club in Paris. WordPress with Resamania booking integration.
• Maison Intègre, a Mali-based design house selling artisanal bronze objects. WooCommerce was the right call: shipping logic and customs requirements were too specific for Shopify apps.
• Hima Jomo, a young perfume brand. Drop-based releases on a minimal admin footprint.
• Riise, Dynamo and Punch, a fitness client whose booking lives in Mindbody. WordPress is the only platform with a stable, mature Mindbody bridge.

WordPress is wrong when the team is small and has no developer on hand. The maintenance overhead eats the budget.

The questions we actually ask in the brief

Will the team need to update the site weekly without a developer? If yes, Webflow.

Is the site primarily about selling products? If yes, Shopify.

Is there a custom API integration that needs real backend logic? If yes, WordPress.

When two answers agree, the choice is easy. When they conflict we run a thirty minute scoping call and weigh the tradeoffs in context.

On future-proofing

Clients ask which CMS will last the longest. We have migrated sites across all three platforms in the past two years. A well-structured site migrates in weeks, not months. The platform matters less than the content model and the design system.

If you want a second opinion on your stack choice, get in touch at bonjour@dellamattia.com.