User Accounts v. Memberstack

When it comes to membership capability, most Webflow designers are confronted with a key decision-

“Will Webflow's native User Accounts feature be adequate for their project, or do I need a more robust 3rd party platform like Memberstack?”

Ideally this would be a simple decision but there are a lot of variables here- security, cost, simplicity, extensibility, personalization, user data storage, gating specifics, authentication method, partial gating previews, API differences.  

You will also want to consider other aspects of your site, like whether you'll ever have a product store.  The choice you make should reflect both your immediate needs and also your future goals for your project.

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Key Decision Points

Here's a rundown on some of the key decision points.

Notes

As a broad comparison-

If you want something simple that you can switch on, and has solid server-side gated access, but is a "black box" with little extensibility, go with WUA.

If you are ok with learning / managing a second system and paying an additional separate fee, Memberstack will generally give you more flexibility and it has a strong support community. It's better for personalization, displaying user info in relevant places, and customization. Overall it's a much more developed platform, but it's not directly integrated which means separate UI's, separate billing, and client-side gating on your Webflow-published content.

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