People Are Leaving Webflow and Framer. Here’s Why I Left Too.
Nelson Abalos Jr.3 min read ·
I’ve built websites for 30 years, from GeoCities to Webflow to AI. Why I finally left Webflow, and why the real work now starts after launch.
People are leaving Webflow and Framer. I get it. I had to do a lot of reflecting on why I needed to leave too.
Thirty years of asking how to build a website
I started building websites at 13 as a hobby. At 21 it became my career. I’m 44 now, and my tool history reads a bit like a museum tour:
AOL member pages
GeoCities
FrontPage + Access
WordPress
Dreamweaver + Flash
Sublime Text
Webflow
Building with AI
Every jump felt big at the time. Each one made building a little faster and a little less painful.
Webflow was the hardest jump
Leaving Webflow was the hardest one. It connected me with an incredible community and taught me how to be a livestreamer. (If you heard our Webflow Conf recap, you know how much we loved that world.) I’m grateful for that, and it stays with me.
Every tool was solving the same problem
Looking back at that list, every tool on it was answering the same question: how do you build a website?
AI has mostly solved that. A design file, a screenshot, even a drawing on paper can become a working site. When building isn’t the bottleneck anymore, a better builder isn’t what you need.
The real work starts after launch
The real work is everything that happens once a site is live:
SEO, which now also means AEO and GEO: being found and cited by AI answers, not only by Google.
Content that gives people a reason to find you and come back.
Campaigns that bring the right people to the right page.
Keeping the site growing instead of letting it sit still after launch day.
I spent decades on the build. Now I finally get to learn the bigger part.
Tools come and go
Tools come and go, but the fundamentals and experience stay forever.
That’s what real seniors in a craft still provide: knowing what good looks like, spotting what a fast first draft missed, and knowing what to do next. We wrote more about that in AI Gets You 80% There. The Last 20% Is the Job.
Full transparency
I now work at Fimo.ai as Community Manager. It focuses on that bigger part of a site’s lifecycle: keeping growth autonomous and giving you more autonomy over your client websites. If you want to see it, message me on LinkedIn for a personal demo, or join the Discord.
Where are you in this transition?
Still in Webflow or Framer, already building with AI, or somewhere in between? Tell me in the original LinkedIn post. And if your site is built but not growing, talk to us.