Webflow's User Accounts has great potential, but in its current native form it is a very limited system.
For example...
Webflow's User Account Limitations
Personalization;
- No access to the currently logged-in user's information
- No access-group gating for elements
- Stale data. The users access groups and settings are based on what they were at the point of login. The user must log out to refresh these.
Marketing & promotion;
- No ability to partially-preview gated content before purchasing a membership
- No ability to share gated content in an SEO-friendly view for promotion
Billing;
- No ability to connect it to external billing platforms.
- No support for metered billing, based on usage by user.
Security;
- No ability to immediately revoke access. Even deleting a user's account
- No ability to change email address
Administration;
- No ability to manage users or access groups through the Editor
- No ability to dynamically migrate live user accounts from another platform.
- No ability to bypass or change the sign-up process
Why use Webflow then?
If we're going to extend Webflow's User Accounts infrastructure substantially, why bother using Webflow User Accounts at all?
It's certainly possible to replace the authentication, user data storage, admin, API, etc, however Webflow already provides;
- A designer-integrated admin capability
- A basic set of screens and processes for sign-up, log-in, and account management
- An integrated model for [ page level ] access-group gating
- An API for accessing all of the User data
- A subscription billing mechanism, as an option
All built into the Webflow platform as part of the base subscription, and the actually provide a solid foundation for a real membership site, which we can build on.
What we can add
We are constantly adding new capabilities, but here is our current central set of capabilities.
- Full access to the current User's data throughout the site, for personalization - including User info, custom user data, access groups and UserID.
- Element-level gating by access-group
- Improved security, including the ability to cancel user access immediately.
- Partial-content previews and SEO previews of gated content
- Possibly improved billing options, and integrations with other systems for the access-group determination.
