From Webflow to Tina CMS

We are the Webflow to Tina CMS migration experts

Challenges with Webflow

Key pain points

Now for the part that Webflow doesn’t put on their homepage. The pricing escalates fast. $29/month for a basic CMS plan is already painful, but enterprise plans running into $60,000+ a year for high-traffic sites? The CMS editor is the other pain point everyone loves to hate. Tiny text fields, clunky formatting, random quirks, and in some cases, hitting “save” has accidentally unpublished live articles. Yes, really. Not exactly the confidence you want from a content platform.

Then there are the technical walls. Only one designer can edit at a time. No repeater fields. CMS reference limits that force weird workarounds. And if you ever want to leave Webflow? Good luck. The exported code loses CMS features and animations, so your “no-code” site suddenly needs… code. Everywhere.

Expensive pricing tiers

Webflow starts cheap, but the moment you need CMS items, traffic, or team features, the bill jumps fast. If you want just 10 pages, go ahead. But if you need an enterprise website, we suggest reconsidering.

Outdated CMS editor interface

For all the design polish, the CMS editor feels stuck in another decade. Tiny text fields, formatting quirks, and the occasional “why did that unpublish my live page?” moment doesn't help content teams move fast.

CMS reference limitations

Complex content models often require hacks, workarounds, or custom code anyway, which defeats the “no-code” dream. It doesn't have repeaters or shallow reference depth, and collection limits add friction to what should be simple tasks.

Single-designer collaboration limit

Only one designer can work in the Webflow canvas at a time. On larger projects, this turns teamwork into a queue.

Third-party integration dependency

If you need advanced features, prepare to stitch in custom code or third-party services. The plugin ecosystem is small, so extending Webflow usually means bolting on tools outside the platform.

Limited export functionality

You can export your site, but you lose CMS features, interactions, and animations the moment you do. It’s more like a one-way door than a portable build.

Benefits of Tina CMS

Key advantages

Tina CMS has a genuinely compelling core idea: real-time visual editing backed by Git. Instead of your content living in some opaque database, every change becomes a Git commit. For developer teams that already live in Git, this feels natural. The local development workflow is solid too — you can iterate on schema and content simultaneously, merge everything in a single commit, and keep your content pipeline tightly coupled with your codebase. That's a meaningful advantage over CMS platforms that treat content as a completely separate concern.

The inline editing experience is where Tina really shines. Content editors can see their changes in context on the actual live site, which dramatically reduces the feedback loop between "I changed something" and "here's what it looks like." For marketing teams and content creators who are tired of editing fields in a dashboard and then previewing on a separate URL, this is a breath of fresh air. It bridges the gap between developer-friendly and editor-friendly in a way that most headless CMS platforms don't even attempt.

Since going fully open-source under Apache 2.0 and being acquired by SSW, the self-hosting story has improved significantly. You can run your own backend with your own database and auth, which gives you more control than relying on TinaCloud. If you're building a Next.js or React-based project and want a CMS that lives close to your code, Tina is worth serious consideration. If you want help evaluating whether Tina fits your stack, or you're looking at alternatives, we're happy to chat.

Real-time visual editing

Editors can make changes directly on the live site with instant visual feedback. This is genuinely one of the best inline editing experiences in the headless CMS space.

Git-backed content workflow

Every content change becomes a Git commit, so your content versioning, branching, and collaboration all flow through the same tools your developers already use.

Schema defined in code

Content models are defined in your codebase alongside your components, keeping your content structure and frontend tightly aligned and version-controlled.

Strong local development experience

You can develop locally with full CMS functionality, iterate on schema and content together, and push everything in a single commit. No cloud dependency during development.

Markdown and MDX support

Tina works natively with markdown and MDX files, making it a natural fit for documentation sites, blogs, and any project that already uses file-based content.

Fully open-source and self-hostable

The entire backend is open-source under Apache 2.0. You can self-host with your own database, auth, and Git provider, giving you full control over your content infrastructure.