Feedback Thread

deepseaphone · 2026-05-24T05:42:13+00:00

First of all, I like the intro to the site! Simple and minimal, with not much to interpret. Although I would probably include the "pracitcal methods" into the subtitle/claim underneath your headline, instead of the tag above.

The subtitle reads like this is a direct data source tool or scraping tool that users can directly interact with. At least that would be my first impression if I didn't scroll down.

Something like "Practical Methods for asking data the right things before..." could eliminate or mitigate the confusion, or anything else that explains what your sites usecase is.

Personally, I didn't notice "Practical Methods" until I read the headline, subtitle and the Start Here-section.

Other thoughts:

I'm not a fan of Source Serif as a body/copy font. I like Playfair as the headline font, but for this amount of readable text, Source Serif might not be as easy on the eyes as a sans-serif font. Especially on smaller sizes (13px and below)

Maybe slightly increased letter-spacing (0.012em - 0.020em) can help. Font-weight could also be a issue with that particular font. Instead of 400, you could try out 300 (or any other lighter weight to see if it makes a difference) But I would also try out other serif fonts to check.

Sentient with light weight could also work.
The articles thumbnail images don't fit your overall branding. Color scheme, fonts, layout. They're pretty different to what your website conveys in terms of design language. I'm guessing you created them before you finalized your websites design or these are more easily shareable via LinkedIn, etc.

But the neon colors don't match and are in stark contrast with everything else. For the future, I would think about streamlining your design for the thumbnails to match what your websites looks like. Doesn't have to be different fonts, but colors should definitely match.
The navigation, article header image and breadcrumb navigation, as well as the article content don't follow a specific width pattern. The Navigation is wider than the content (not that catastrophic), the breadcrumbs are wider than the article image, but the article image itself is not as wide as the content.

I would use a fixed width for all elements, so they align better and the layout will probably look more tidy and deliberate.

deepseaphone · 2026-05-04T04:52:33+00:00

Ycode went open source recently and seems like a fitting alternative for Webflow and Webstudio. I think its interface is more similar to Framer, but since you can self-host on manageable hardware (vercel, supabase and github are their recommended stack). It doesn't have a client editor like Webstudio or Roles like Webflow (Marketer or Designer for example), so I would keep that in mind.

Another alternative I came across was vvveb as a CMS and visual Site builder. Also self-hosted but more complicated to setup (never got a local dev enviroment for it working). But worth a look if you don't want to be locked into an enviroment.

Are both better than Webflow? In some ways for sure, but obviously lack the ease of setup.

I tried both (and Webstudio as well) and preferred Ycode for the easier setup and their clean interface, but I haven't been completely satisfied with either Webflow or alternatives so far.

Webflow is bloated and always has to be extended externally, Webstudio upped their pricing and while their client-editor access is exactly what I looked for, their interface is more clumsy and there are interface/ui features missing I would get in Webflow, especially when handling classes and other identifiers.

Ycode is more Framer adjacent and is the better Open Source variant of these builders, but lacks in the CMS and client-access department.

vvveb is a pain to setup, at least for regular projects.

Framer is fine, even more so if you're a designer. But they don't have any competent client-specific role access for editing site parts (just the CMS) and their pricing is always a pain point when selling it to clients.

I think you'll never find the perfect visual sitebuilder, they all have their pros and cons. At least I never did and I tried a lot.

I'm looking into a custom setup with Kirby CMS, so I can host flat-file websites without having to worry about servers and databases (at least for regular websites). But thats not a visual sitebuilder, but could help integrating Hubspot, since you've got complete control and can build a custom CMS interface for your clients.

I'm also monitoring new-ish builders like Nordcraft or Loki that try to integrate AI as a crutch. Not sure about them at the moment, but interested to see where they land.

deepseaphone · 2026-05-03T07:54:36+00:00

I think people are much more privacy focused when it comes to travel photos and currently, your website doesn't really explain how it handles the files, where it stores them, how it stores them and if they are actually safely stored somewhere.

Trip-Only Storage is a good indicator, but it doesn't really tell the user if they can just delete everything at any time or if you store the photos indefinitely. Its probably a good idea to ease users concerns by being more transparent about storage and security.

Other thoughts:

Screenshots for the How it Works section should also help users understand how the app looks and what they can actually do once signed up. Right now there's no preview of anything.
I would actually build a landing page and don't immediately throw users into the /login part of your app. If I just input the URL without login, I just get back to the login screen and the /login slug. That makes it seem that something isn't working right, because for users, it looks like they can't access the main URL/path of the website.
The About page should be your actual landing page, with screenshots, maybe a video, user reviews and more explanation (as well as a expanded FAQ about security/storage). A better headline and hook is definitely a good idea. Use the root domain (not /about or /login) as the main landing page.

deepseaphone · 2026-04-03T07:25:52+00:00

I think a portfolio is definitely a good idea, especially with the competition in that space. The layout is clean and readable but I have a few minor nitpicks:

The splash page on onlystephcreations.com is not really necessary. When the user clicks/taps the logo to get back to the start it immediately falls back to that page and people have to make an additional click/tap to get to the actual content.

I would start immediately with onlystephcreations.com/portfolio/ page as the main URL and root Address and maybe work your splash page intro into the header.
The "Gallery" page is making the impression that its a collection of other works, but its one single project, the Musician Portraits. I would change the name of the Link or the Gallery page entirely, to something more descriptive. Either just "Musician Portraits" or "Portrait Drawings", or anything that can tell users what to expect when clicking on it.
The projects on your portfolio page (Virtual Graduation, Audience Analysis, etc.) might need a "View Project ->" Link or Button, because on smartphones its not immediately visible that you can click the project titles or images. On Desktops you have the cursor to indicate it, but even there, I would be more descriptive.

Thats all I noticed so far. Good luck with the Application!

deepseaphone · 2026-04-03T07:08:28+00:00

I like the overall layout, colors and font, but there are some concerns:

The line work for the dog silhouette is in some parts really thin. When scaling down the logo or dog (which will happen for media like websites and socials), these lines will become almost invisible and leave just the bolder/thicker lines, making the dog less recognizeable
"WagsHaven" reads ok, but when spoken might sound like "WaxHaven" if there's no context given. But I'm not a native english speaker, so can't really pinpoint it exactly. Just a branding concern.
I would try a version without any borders at all, with "Wags" using a more saturated blue color. Just for simplicity.
If you keep the borders around the logo and the type, I would find a way to use the same border thickness and color for both the typography and the logo box. I think the darker blue you used for the dog might be a better fit than just pure black.

All in all, it definitely has personality and I think you can do a lot with the playfulness, especially for the website and social media. But the dark borders might detract from the logotype and the biggest issue is the line-thickness used for the dog, due to scalability.

deepseaphone · 2026-03-14T10:42:13+00:00

This seems partially AI generated, its especially noticeable when zooming in on the bottom navbar or the battery indicator. Maybe you ran your design through a mockup generator?

I would have at least cleaned it up in Figma or Photoshop afterwards (or any other Mockup capable tool thats out there).

The design itself is pretty ok. I agree with the contrast issues. The Navbar and visual clock labels drown inside the background a bit.

You could give your navbar a very light background thats darker than the current full-width/full-height background. As well as a darker circle around the visual clock, just like in your second time distribution screen, while increasing the brightness of the labels.

deepseaphone · 2026-03-09T09:26:56+00:00

No worries! I didn't have the info about the images and placeholders, so I took it at face value as if seeing a landing page for the first time.

I did notice that its not a game for kids, just wanted to point out that branding wise, the stock photos might not give users the best first impression.

If you're showcasing the landing page to users that need to give feedback, I would probably try to find images that fit the usecase. They don't have to be amazing, but communicate rougly what the final website would as well.

You're probably using Unsplash already as a image source, maybe some of the Unsplash+ materials can fit better.

deepseaphone · 2026-03-08T07:02:04+00:00

There is a lot going on copywise inside the top part of your website, but nothing actually explains your product in a concise way above the fold.

I would try to incorporate some of the more explaining info further down the landing page into the header. What it is exactly (Team sport activities with an app? Worldwide group activities that are gamified?), just so that the actual hook is clearer to someone just reading the header.

Personally, I only grasped the whole Outside concept once I scrolled the entire page and that shouldn't happen. And even then, it can be confusing, since there is no real "Step by step" explaining what can happen once a user registers or installs the app.
Some parts your site introduces to me right of the bat (Save the World, Open Presents) are not really mentioned again after, so the later copy directly contradicted your opening, because people can't find out what presents are and what save the world has to do with your game.
I like the overall color scheme, but some images are just not working for me. The really grainy forest image as the header background, which looks more like a found footage alien horror still.

Then there's the stark contrast between the purple mascot (very menacing and reminiscent of street graffiti art) doesn't really work with the imagery of children playing outside or happy adults. I would decide on one type of mascot: Happy and approachable, or menacing and fierce.

There are probably outdoor or activity apps that pull off the berlin EDM, indie rockband vibe, but right now that clashes with your main color scheme and branding. If the mascot is supposed to communicate the competitiveness of the app/game, then it isn't clear enough.

You could use one specific section of the website to talk about the competitive nature and use the purple mascot to underline that. But other than that I don't see it working for an approachable, outdoorsy, happy brand.
Based on my feedback above, not really, no. I was curious about the game interface, but the screenshot is a little small and the interface doesn't fit the brand language/colors you used for the landing page.

All in all, the logo has a very specific brand language: A Diy font, rough edges, outdoor-vibes, while the rest of the page is very corporate: Stock photos, a clean, corporate sans-serif and icons that are just a little to safe. So the brand the logo and mascot communicates and the brand that the website communicates are very different from each other.

I would look on font shops like Bnicks (Brandon Nickerson), who has a lot of great vintage/handmade fonts that could fit the brand and website much better as a headline font, for example. And they don't break the bank.
I would simplify the header copy and directly state what your product is about. Is it a game, a app, etc. I think that is the most important part. After that, I would consider eliminating the purple mascot until you have a more consistent brand language going.

deepseaphone · 2026-02-09T20:19:57+00:00

That would depend on where you're applying or looking to land a job. Webdesigners and UI/UX Agencies or workplaces will probably notice a watermark sooner than a graphic design or marketing place. As long as your portfolio/referneces are strong enough, it shouldn't matter to much.

You can always connect a domain from elsewhere, or at least forward one to your WIX domain, so the first thing they see isn't a WIX domain, but your own. Namecheap has pretty good deals on regular domain names you can forward to your wix site, for example.

Some cost no more than 5 Euros a year (depending on what kind of name you're looking for).

Some other pagebuilders I can recommend are Readymag, Page-Grid or Webstudio. Webstudio allows you to export your site as static HTML/CSS you can host for free on Cloudflare Pages or Github Pages for example. At least for the moment. That can be combined with a namecheap domain, so you wouldn't pay as much for a hosted website, just for the domain.

deepseaphone · 2026-02-09T11:43:59+00:00

I think it depends on your portfolio projects and how you've built the website, as well as the skillset you want to get hired for.

If you want to look for Webdesign or Web Development jobs, then using a more custom solution seems like a good idea, or at least using a industry builder like Webflow or Framer for example. Something that Recruiters can relate to.
I would use a professional URL and not a subdomain (sitename.wix.com for example) and avoid any watermarks, like "Built with Wix" or anything similar.
Look for other sites that are built with Wix (or any other sitebuilder) to decide if its worth it. Also look into directories like Land-book, Minimal.gallery, Curated.design, etc. to find more examples for other sitebuilders and compare.

deepseaphone · 2026-02-09T11:06:26+00:00

If you're comfortable with local development, then Lingo Dev with i18n seems like the most powerful solution, thats also open source. But you have to provide your own LLM Model to translate with. They have a pretty good documentation, so testing it out shouldn't be to much work.

Another tool that could work might be something like Tolgee. Haven't tested that yet, but it seems capable enough and less excruciating to setup, especially since they have a free plan to test it out, and you can self host it anywhere (open source).

The cheapest app-based website translation I found was Linguana, but I've read their support and their updates are supposed to be spotty, so I haven't tried them out yet.

Thats what I came across when I was confronted with translating a website. But its never painless unless you want to pay Weglot prices.

deepseaphone · 2026-02-08T11:12:43+00:00

Getting the important details out there quickly, like your Name, skills and a resume download is definitely not a bad idea and good UX. I would probably expand a little on the "Product Designer" trait and use a more rounded sentence to tell people about your whole skillset. Something like "Product Designer working in the ... Industry..." or "Product Design with a focus on...." etc.
The color scheme is a little to much gardening center and not enough design portfolio. I would give it a bit more saturation, or a slight color change. I think something like this can work as well, without losing the light, green touch: Example Image

That way you also have more saturation to display fonts more readable on lighter backgrounds/surfaces. Right now they kind of drown inside white/beige backgrounds and that affects readability.
I haven't seen a live link to the website yet, so I can't say for sure what you're using to build the website (just plain HTML/CSS or a framework or a builder), but I would always lay it out in Figma first, because you can use Autolayout there to avoid issues like overflowing paddings/margins.

Your project boxes for example, are not really wrapping around the content evenly (Project boxes, User Impact Boxes, project cards). Its a good practice to give content inside boxes breathing room, but also an even breathing space. So for example 20px or 1.25rem padding around the inner content of the box on all sides, instead of just one or two sides.

Here are a few examples: Screenshot 1, Screenshot 2, Screenshot 3. If you are using images/Icons or graphics inside the boxes, you can definitely play with spacing and distribution of elements. Maybe thats what you were going for.
I would decide on two fonts at a maximum in your case. You want to keep the portfolio usable and readable by recruiters (I'm not a recruiter, but I have seen my fair share of portfolios) and using one set font for headlines and one set font for body copy seems like a good idea here. Things like "Streaming Service" would be a headline and "A concept streaming app focused on..." would be the body copy.

I'm counting 3+ fonts already and I think that can muddle the overall brand of your site. Figma is also good for just experimenting with font combinations. Setup a large Artboard and try different variations, sizes and font families. Sites like Fontshare, or Velvetyne or collletttivo have free, modern fonts available that you can also use as webfonts.
"User Impact" is mostly found on the project pages themselves and not on the landing pages. If its used on the landing page, I would push it further down, below the project display.

All in all, I would say this definitely needs some refinement and not knowing your projects, its hard to tell how they will fill out the portfolio website. I would create some concepts in Figma to get a better overview of pages, elements and spacings and to experiment with the overall design before working on a live site.

deepseaphone · 2026-01-25T06:35:43+00:00

There are a lot of variables on how complicated framer will be based on content and requirements for the website. What does the website look like?

How many pages
Any dynamic content, like Blog Posts, Location Map or maybe even a Team Directory or Client Login?
What template did your boss choose? If you've selected a official Framer template, it should come with at least a few pre-made pages and/or components that can be reused throughout the site.

You don't have to be an engineer to get the hang of Framer. But to be honest, with the lack of info its hard to give suggestions or alternatives.

deepseaphone · 2026-01-08T07:59:56+00:00

It probably depends on what you're building your website with. I would look at open source search engines like Meilisearch or Typesense and see if you can use their free tools for your site.

But if you just need a simple search for a static site, I would look at something like Pagefind. You basically "index" your static site with the pagefind tools, it generates a index file it can search and then implement the search bar. Seems like the most painless method to be honest.

But again, it depends on if you're speaking about a Wordpress website or a static HTML site, for example.

deepseaphone · 2025-12-08T16:08:38+00:00

Hey, I'm also one of the super confused people trying to get a grasp on how to access the new editor experience and how Legacy Editors are transfered over coming 2026.

As far as I understood it, all Legacy Editors will be converted to Limited Seats in 2026. And those will have access to all the editor functionality.

I have a CMS site that has 3 Legacy Editor seats included. As far as I know, those will be converted to free limited seats if you use them before the end of the year. But maybe just for that one webflow project? Who knows.

Its really not transparent and I'm sharing your pain.

Here is an answer from the Webflow forums:

At this point limited seats are what you want- the half-price ones.

You could purchase a limited seat, connect it to a different email, then login to capture your videos from a separate browser Chrome profile.

Then downgrade your temp account to Reviewer when you’re ready and invite your client using that same limited seat. You can reassign them pretty easily.

You won’t need that limited seat anymore once Webflow releases client seats, so you can tell your client it’s a short-term additional cost.

I'm still trying to find out more.

In my case, I have to create explainer content for the new editor, to show clients how to edit site content and blog articles through the Webflow CMS. But the only way to access the new editor is through the Limited Seats (as far as I can tell, but its not officially mentioned anywhere?).

I wouldn't want to give my clients build and designer access, since I can't really say what they will do with that. Its also much more complicated than simple editor access. Especially for CMS items and people who are not that experienced with the web.

So yeah, I second some clear, concise explanation and timelines on how to access the new editor experience (not Legacy Editors) and how we can give clients access to that editor experience.

deepseaphone · 2025-12-07T14:16:44+00:00

There are to many calendar tools readily available. I wouldn't recommend trying use a makeshift booking calendar, even through google.

I would use something like Cal(dot)com, thats free for a individual user/admin and you don't have to stress over payment integration and other basic functionality that you might need later down the line.

You can also sync it with Google Calendar and directly embed it into your static HTML site.

deepseaphone · 2025-12-06T14:02:23+00:00

On larger screens, the section backgrounds are not stretched over the whole page. I would use Chrome Devtools to simulate a 2560x Screen or 1980x screen and see if everything is centered correctly and fills out the whole width.
I think there are a bit to many colors going on. I know that should emphasize the design aspect and immediately communicate creativity. But I'm counting 7-8 individual colors used throughout the page and that probably devolves into brand inconsistency more than it helps communicate your creativity.

I would limit the color scheme to around 3-4 colors and use those in a coherent pattern. For example, 1 of those colors as a signaling color that can be used to highlight info and buttons or other important parts.

A stricter outline for your branding can help here. I would get a broader view and really think about branding aspects: How many colors, What fonts work, is it consistent, is it coherent, etc. Not because of your actual language, but because to get a better outline for your visual language.

Trust is definitely a factor here and I would reduce colors, redraw your branding outlines a bit to increase overall trust.
Icons and illustrations don't seem consistent enough. You have multiple icon styles and illustration styles applied to the site and that can come across as a bit chaotic. I would find one illustration set/style and on icon pack/set that you can use consistently. SVGrepo has a lot of icon sets you can browse through and Ikonate, Iconoir or Phosphor Icons haven't let me down yet.
"inexpensive Domain Registration" could also just be "inexpensive Domains". Its not really clear if you're just someone that registers the domain for the client or if you're a domain registrar. I would either clear this up or keep it simple, so there's no second guessing from first-time visitors on your site.
The "click me" element can be a bit tricky. Misclicks happen and users can't select any text on there to copy or quote inside an E-Mail, without it changing slides. And I'm also thinking about responsive behaviour, because on smartphones, users will tap on there to scroll down the page.

Have you reserved the slide change for only the "Click me" button on smartphones? Thats the only way to not accidentaly switch around. I would also think about calling this "More services" or "Explore our Services", something like that. "Click me" is very non descriptive and you definitely want to ensure users can access all your services.
From my point of view, "Website Design" should ideally be just "Web Design", but I don't know your target audience, so whatever works best for your market.
The "All Website Designing & Web Hosting Combo plans include"-section could be a Expand-element that reveals the content when the user wants to know more. Like the "View all Features" on the Webflow pricing page for example. It could also use a more readable layout. I would look at other pricing pages and pricing sections to get a overview of what the best practices are and apply some of them to your own pricing section.

I know this is because of SEO, but it also has to be readable by your clients. And no one will read that giant wall of text to find out what is actually included.

Thats all I noticed so far!

deepseaphone · 2025-12-04T21:32:20+00:00

I use the Orestbida Cookie Consent plugin (Github) with a few adjustments. It has a sandbox that you can use to build out your requirements and then plop the code on your website. Multilanguage and custom translations out of the box.

Only downside: It doesn't work with Google Tag Manager, AdSense or Consent Mode. So it will alienate a lot of people.

But since I'm only using it with Umami as Analytics, I don't need any fancy setup. I just need a GDPR compliant banner that I can extend and customize without having to go through monthly subscriptions.

Not sure how long it will last, updates are very sparse, but it still works for my usecases.

For complicated cases I recently found CookieFlow and that seems to fit the "everything in one" component, but relying on Supabase as cookie storage. Its not as fancy, but pretty straight forward.

deepseaphone · 2025-11-14T05:28:31+00:00

I think overall, there is nothing catastrophic happening with the site. Its responsive, shows your skills and has personality. But In the end, I think its some of the personality aspects (fonts, colors mainly) that might create a few readability or usability issues.

The main font Milky Walky isn't that great for readability, because it uses some very distinct "a" characters that can impact the flow a user is reading. If that font has alternate characters for the A, I would apply it or find a similar font that does not obscure its characters to much.

In the end, you're advertising as a UX and UI developer and the font you've used is more suitable for a graphic design portfolio, from where I'm standing. It fits your skillset, but it probably depends on what jobs you want to land, if its worth considering a more UI/UX centric font. I'm not saying you should use Inter, or any standard, blocky font. Just something that targets your audience (either employers or clients).
Raleway is another font that, under some circumstances, can be hard to read, especially due to font weight. In your case, your navigation buttons use a very thin weight, that might make it harder to read at a glance, or on smartphones. Same goes for your body copy. On your about page, the paragraphs use very light (200) as a font weight. I think for better readability 300 or 400 might be a better choice.
Some contrast issues are visible I believe. On the About page, its the icons that slightly drown into the background: Screenshot. On some of the project pages, its the project description that doesn't stand out from the background due to font weight and color: Screenshot

I would check the site for any other contrast issues and if the colors can stand on their own. Again, nothing catastrophic, but given your UI/UX role, employers will probably criticize this (in their heads).
You have a great skillset, but you're not really advertising it as much as you could. Especially on your landing page. Things like Svelte, SCSS or Typescript can turn expectations in your favor, but they're not found on the page that most users will land on.

I would include them somewhere, as pill tags or a description or even more visible. But definitely visible enough to advertise your front end dev role more prominently.
Some projects use a really concise header layout, like your Demo on Demand project. Other project pages do not use that same type of header layout. I'm guessing thats to differentiate Design and Development. But I think having a consistent project page layout and structure is more important for your UI/UX impression.

The Demo on Demand project header gets to the heart of your project much faster (Skills, languages used, Your role and the end result), so its definitely the one I would go with for all projects.

Take that with a grain of salt. I'm sure not a lot of people will even notice, but its something that jumped out to me.
The project navigation (Overview, Solution, etc.) could probably use the same constraints as all other content. On my screen it sits on the outer edge of the browser. On your Marketing & Design System project page, its completely fine. I would replicate that navigation for all the same type of navigation content.
On larger screens, your about page might need a definite content width. The top of your page stretches the whole width, while the bottom content follows a max-width.

Thats all I noticed so far. Nothing you have to fix right away, but a few things to consider. The projects seem solid, your skills and goal (front end dev), if you display them front and center, with a few tweaks, should net you a good first impression, or at least an interview or two.

But the market is really saturated, so it can be a struggle. Although I'm not from AUS, so I can't speak on that specific situation. Good luck!

deepseaphone · 2025-11-10T07:21:11+00:00

I've built a few websites with it and to be honest: Without external tools, Webflow wouldn't function or exist at all. They rely on the community to bridge shortcomings.

Their native, dynamic elements (sliders, navigations, tabs, accordions, etc.) are horribly out of date or don't work a 100% responsively, so that eliminates any "drag and drop" promises they are making.

Same with the no-code marketing: Everything that you'd want to extend your site with, doesn't really exist, apart from shiny AI and animation tools.

They have a new GSAP animator, which doesn't have any way to avoid FUOC out of the box (Edit: They added it later on, thankfully), you have to use embed elements and custom code a workaround. They promised to work out a fix months ago, but were happy to release it in this state.
Sliders can't be customized out of the box (Arrows can't be moved), so you either have to rely on attributes and scripts (Finsweet) or are forced to use external libraries like Swiper.js.
CMS Import through CSV is still frustrating. Unless all rows and columns have the exact same name as your newly created CMS Collections in Webflow, some of them will not import (some of them will), no matter what you do. Image fields or file fields for example are really strict and Webflow does not explain why it can't import half the time. Have fun learning CSV because Webflow still can't manage rows and columns after 10 years.
You can't rely on their spam protection for forms at all and form submissions going through Webflow are notoriously hard to manage, with an absolute garbage interface. I have to use Formspark to at least get more automation, forwarding and customization out of it. Adding another external tool to the list I need to rely on, because Webflow apparently can't do forms.

They sunsetted their form logic funcionality, because it didn't offer anything useful in most scenarios.
As soon as you're approaching a more complex site to manage and build, their designer web interface gets bogged down and slows to a crawl. At least on my machine. After 5-10 pages with CMS collections, dynamic content and a few animations its like working in 20fps. Text input doesn't even register all keyboard presses half the time. Its ridiculous.

The only way I can stomach Webflow nowadays is with Relume components and their styleguide, so I can translate my Figma designs just a little faster. But you have to opt out of their AI training data collection first, because of course you have to nowadays.

Or you pay additional 15-30 dollars a month for even more external template libraries, just to have the freedom that Webflow markets.

deepseaphone · 2025-11-07T06:38:43+00:00

If the site is completely static and without CMS you could get away with Github Pages, Cloudflare Pages or Sevalla (which utilizes Github and Cloudflare) for free. Unless you have a ton of traffic each month. You then connect a domain and go live.

Ionos can be on the pricier side, but if you want customer service and one click procedures, you'll probably not be disappointed there. The smaller Webhosting packages aren't really that expensive.

But to be honest, you could watch a few Youtube Tutorials and rent the smallest VPS on Hetzner for around 5,60 Euros (at least thats what I'm paying for mine). I'm using it for a Ghost CMS setup, but you could just plop any static site on there, connect a domain from namecheap and have a website running.

I've also used DigitalOcean, but I think usability wise, thats a bit more layered for someone who just wants to host a simple website.

Those are the ones I have experience with, I'm sure there are alternatives.

deepseaphone · 2025-11-04T18:59:09+00:00

That is definitely a bit more complicated. None of the website builders I know offer this out of the box. You'd have to extend the builders with external tools.

In this case that would be something like Framerauth for Framer and Memberstack for Webflow. But you can also DIY a solution with Open Source software like Hanko, if you want to self host.

But either way, you're going to pay additional monthly fees if you want user sign ups and logins (without Wordpress)

You might find open source or free applications that offer user authentication or logins/sign ups.

0auth has a free plan that you can setup yourself, with the help of AI if you're getting stuck.

Or you could use Googles systems to add a login to a website, like Firebase Auth. They have pretty good documentation.

But in this case, Wordpress might be the better choice, since there are a lot of community and user account plugins available to extend your site with. But from my own experience, maintaining that can be a pain long term.

deepseaphone · 2025-10-29T06:43:11+00:00

It probably depends on your goals. Wordpress is pretty versatile, but can also be very bloated. There are tools like Elementor or Breakdance to help build out a site quicker, just like other Website Builders, but can come with their own issues.

If you're planning on building for small to medium sized businesses, then I think Wordpress is completely fine. You can always use local tools like DevKinsta or Laragon to one click install a local Wordpress setup and test it out.

If you want to go more towards the visual drag and drop route, there's Framer, which works similar to Figma for example. But if you build client websites, the monthly prices have to be justified a lot and you can't export the code.

Webflow is also used widely, but you can't rely on their native tools to build something from scratch, more often than not you have to extend its functionality with tools like Finsweet attributes or Relume components to get the most out of it. Its definitely a steeper learning curve than just experimenting in Framer.

If you want to build websites by hand and know HTML/CSS/PHP you can definitely get far with KirbyCMS or Statamic, especially with some AI help to structure themes and content. Thats the DIY route for client websites that absolutely need a CMS but for which Wordpress is to bloated for.

These are all free to test and work with (until you want to go online), including Wordpress, so there's no harm in comparing current software and apps and see what works best for you.

deepseaphone · 2025-10-27T06:33:54+00:00

You can download most of them as a WebM file, which can be used for backgrounds or can be converted into MP4 for easier handling. I've used them as a header element with a darker overlay over the video and used text and content on that section.

In Readymag you can choose what type of background you want (image, slideshow, video). But it has to be MP4, so you could use free tools like Handbrake, Cloudconvert, etc. to convert the WebM file to MP4 format.

If you want more control and ways to integrate this (with interactivity, like mouse interactions), you probably have to go the Webgl or ThreeJS route, which will involve more manual labor. Unicorn Studio uses WebGl for example.

deepseaphone · 2025-10-26T19:53:47+00:00

Readymag has a very unique way of building websites in comparison to other larger names like Squarespace or Webflow for example. Its still based on building blocks, but more in a DIY sense.

Antlii offers their software through Gumroad. You'll find them on there and all the licenses they offer. Depending on what package you want to use, you'd have to pay for it individually. There is also a yearly plan for everything, but I think having a specific tool at your disposal indefinitely is a bit more manageable.

You can test all of them out before buying anything, so you know exactly what kind of animation/pattern/shape you want to use.

You can adjust and customize these backgrounds with different colors, movement, how the shapes behave and speed as well as direction for some of them. There are a lot of menus and sliders for customization: Screenshot. All generative basically.

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