Webflow is a really nice service for designers on the web. It couples a drag and drop builder with options to add more granular configurations on elements. It really allows web designers to create beautiful websites without getting too much into the technical weeds.
That said, this ease can sometimes come at the cost of web sustainability. Webflow sites are hosted on Amazon Web Services (AWS). Although AWS has taken steps to improve the sustainability of their services, they still have a way to go. Webflow itself is also currently lacking a few optimisations that would allow designers to build truly sustainable sites.
The idea for creating optimised, low carbon Webflow sites goes back a couple of months to a conversation in the Climate Action Tech community. A post from designer Katy Jackson triggered my curiosity. Katy is focused on delivering low-carbon, sustainable websites for her clients. As part of this, she was looking for a sustainable option to host the sites she builds with Webflow.
After some back and forth, and with Katy trying other services that allow Webflow sites to be self-hosted, we jumped on a call. Chatting with her, and getting a sense of how these other services worked, I began to think “heck, I could probably spin up something that could solve this”. I had officially nerd sniped myself.
With Flowty, you still use Webflow’s design and editing tools to build, publish, and maintain sites. Flowty’s code then takes your Webflow site, runs the pages through the Eleventy static site generator, and applies a series of optimisations to the page content and assets. Flowty outputs sites as good old fashioned HTML files. This allows sites to be hosted almost anywhere. Through this flexibility, plus the optimisations applied, Flowty can help designers deliver more sustainable, low carbon Webflow sites for their clients.