I am your ordinary frustrated Webflow, who has desperately been looking for an alternative. However cliched it is to say “excited”, I am truly excited to have stumbled upon Pinegrow.
I am completely fresh here, just started exploring it and checking if it has this or that feature of Webflow. I have a lot to learn yet, but my post is about the bigger picture.
I am already assuming Pinegrow is a viable alternative. But I am quite cautious, as well.
I can remember the early days of Webflow, when its founders personally responded to user requests in the forum, when the mood was so creative and energetic, and words used to be backed by actions. I don’t want to speak where things are now, as that is painfully evident.
Over a quick glance, I can already see the good things of Pinegrow. But I can also see the bad ones, even better. Just an acquired skill, no special intention.
Therefore, I would like to ask you guys, both users and founders, and anyone else involved in Pinegrow, what is your honest opinion about the course of development of this product?
Do you think the underlying flaws of Webflow, in terms of strategy, concept, attitude, business model, etc, have been prevented in this case? What are your optimistic expectations about the product in a year or two? What are your pessimistic ones?
I know that a post like this may sound somewhat abrupt, especially given that this is the first post of a user who has not even fully tested the product. I can assure you, I am not seeking to stir up unnecessary emotions. I have just taken enough from Webflow and I want to make sure that I am not entering a similar trap.
Life is too short to waste on hypocrisy and corporate bs. At the same time a promising strategy and competent leadership, do deserve full support from their user base, in terms of feedback, suggestions, helping beginners, spreading the word, etc, besides the payment of subscription fees. I just want to make my choice.
For me Pinegrow is a sleeping giant. I used the trial back in the years that I’m a student and played with the software, it’s a huge help for projects. It truly speeds things up for Web Designing.
After I graduated 4 years ago, my path gone sideways. But take note I’ve been keeping my eye on Pinegrow. I’ve become a Graphic Designer and been employed until now. Now that I have the financial capability to support it. I used again the trial first to check the changes. It greatly improved! I’m so amazed with the software. It’s easy to use as long as you know what you’re doing (well, there’s google search to help users hehe). I’ve bought the One-time Payment offer with 35% discount after I’m done trying things out. Now I’m using Pinegrow to my first project.
I don’t know the details about the issue in Webflow as I’ve not tried it even once. But I hope you find your way here enjoyable again while taking profits.
Hello… yes… quite a widespread net you’ve cast there… good luck with that one
That will take a lot of effort from a lot of people.
So, just a quickie instead
Im not a power user etc, but Ive been with PG since V1.2 something… IM just a tinkerer really.
I was user number 11… on the slack group, when we had one.
Thats been and gone. information dissapears after message number 10,000 on that unless you pay some dumb amount of money per user … so now we have this forum.
if you check this forum and recent updates, you’ll see that the recent update alone address’s umpteen user requests.
I think Ive been on this forum something like 6 years, but a tad quiet as of late as PG is moving more in to the more capable hands of pretty experienced web devs, so… er… I ain’t answering them types of questions!
Only this week… I received a chatty email from @Matjas himself after a quick message I sent off about Licencing.
So, its active, the main dev is fun and living the dream while still doing this, you can look him up, good wholesome stuff, charity work etc.
Some Devs have come and gone to the team over the years, but the Apps dev has always been pretty consistant.
There have been consistently repeated feature requests, which you wont find implemented (ie, ftp etc , due to design constraints and non repetition of freely accessible free tools) etc, there have been flamers (VERY FEW on this forum… seriously -usually users who take umbrage at the devs *refusal to implement THEIR VERY PRECISE vision of where THEY think the app shoudl be going…er, ok then, not their App… or raging about belated updates to freely available code libraries. (ie, Bootstrap etc)… -which can also be manually updated ) and some raving fan boys (waves hands in air like I dont care)…
And through all those years, Matjaz has listened and they have made their design decisions accordingly and asked users for feedback and wherever possible implemented things.
Even the things I have no idea about as they are beyond me. But he gets smiley faces for it on here, so yeah, that works.
you wont find a road map, dont bother asking.
the Documentation, may drive you to distraction due to varying versions and there not being a linear manual so to speak…
but lots of Tutorials etc, just maybe not where/how you’d like the order or lack thereof.
but then you have this forum too.
I recommend using the search function top right, Loupe or magnifying glass.
so, welcome aboard and carry on.
Im just another user by the way, and have been lurking for some time!
And maybe check out @fakesamgregory 's posts on here and his youtube stuff.
He’s a Webflow to Pinegrow kind of guy.
I wonder if there will be another similarly named, rhyming WebDev App coming along soon.
HI! and welcome to MonkeyBlow!
The latest and greatest web dev app from…zzzzz
Anyway, just check the forum… so these are a couple of VERY RECENT user posts…
…after YEARS of App dev… still at it, still delivering.
and
And just follow the flow in this post, between a first time poster to the forum and the Lead Dev…
and thats after umpteen years of consistent development.
Still listening to the Masses.
Let me just add a few points, as a biased founder of Pinegrow
We do have a track record of consistently improving the app, from 2014 when we launched till today. In this time span many web dev tools have come and passed. PG is still here, and the level of activity you see is not an initial burst of excitement over a shiny new tool, but a sustained level of activity 8+ years after launch.
That said, our approach protects users from getting stuck with a dead-end tool, even if PG disappears tomorrow.
PG works with standard HTML, CSS etc files. All your projects would still be here, editable and useful. Even our WP builder exports readable & editable PHP code. Only Interactions would not be editable without a visual tool, but could be replaced with plain JS GSAP code with some effort.
Thank you Matjaz, there’s nothing more reassuring than seeing the founder jump in
I have one further question - are there plans to improve the UI soon? The possibility to customize panels placement is great, but the overall feel is quite confusing (to me at least). For example, I just tinkered with the Flexbox settings, the icons are not clean and intuitive as they are in Webflow. Contrast is not good in the dark theme either and the border settings are too busy.
Maybe possibilities such as custom skins for the UI or at least a pre-selections (e.g. “Webflow feel”, “Figma feel”, etc)?
Just like moving from Windows to Mac for the first time or the other way, you will take time to get used to the various panels & controls. That said, good feedback above, suggest you create it as a separate feature request
May I ask what the flaws with Webflow are that cause your frustration? As for Pinegrow, I stumbled upon it a few years back when I was looking for a replacement for Macaw, another visual editor I used a few years back.
Here is what I LOVE about Pinegrow:
I can create my designs in pure html, css and js, or I can use Bootstrap, Foundation or Tailwind to create. (I personally do either vanilla or Bootstrap)
The ability to visually design and build by dragging elements and “components” to the page is unmatched.
Functionality to create HTML snippets and components that can be re-used is amazing
I find it immensely helpful that i can click into elements, change copy or link urls and also have that affect links across the project.
Pinegrow gives me the ability to put on my designer hat, which I can design directly in Pinegrow, or base them off of some other artifact like Figma (visually speaking), and then switch to developer mode and create real, contextual and usable frontend code, that can then be used as templates in CMS projects I do (I use Craft CMS)
On top of that the animation features and Wordpress add-ons just add to the benefits.
@ Akayy I was just curious if such changes fit into the company’s vision and strategy. If there’s a confirmation that they do, I’d make detailed requests and suggestions.
This is an extensive topic and I’d not like to digress here, but in a nutshell - they virtually stopped developing the product (quite expected with their funding rounds), while spoiling their (generally excellent) UI.
There’s also a great summary of their arrogant negligence of user requests, prepared by a competitive product: Webflow Wishlist
@Linox yes, they do, especially those changes that can be implemented by tweaking the styling of the existing UI. But, we don’t have resources to do any major UI reimplementation at this stage.
Didn’t see this before, great idea to fulfill competitor’s wishlist
And to redirect some water to our mill, looking at items on the list: being at the mercy of pure no-code tools for even the most basic features, is the biggest drawback of such tools. Whatever features PG doesn’t support, can always be implemented directly in the code.
