Download Webflow Website: Full Backup With CMS Pages

There are three ways to download a Webflow website. Webflow's built-in Export Code gives you clean HTML, CSS and JavaScript, but it needs a paid Workspace plan and leaves out the content of your CMS pages. The CMS CSV export gives you the raw collection data, but not the finished pages. Crawling the published site saves every rendered page, blog posts and collection items included, as a ZIP that opens offline. If you need to download Webflow website pages exactly as visitors see them, crawling is the only one of the three that does that.

What does Webflow's Export Code give you, and who can use it?

Export Code is the button in the Webflow Designer's top bar. You click it, Webflow prepares a ZIP, and you download it. Inside are the static pages you built in the Designer as .html files, a css folder with the generated stylesheets, a js folder with webflow.js (which runs interactions and animations), and an images folder with the assets used on those pages.

The catch is access. Code export is tied to a paid Workspace plan, not to the Site plan that puts your site on a custom domain. A free Starter workspace cannot export, and paying for a Site plan alone does not unlock the button either. Plan names and what they include change from time to time, so check Webflow's current plan page before you count on it. If you only want a one-off backup, this is the first reason people look elsewhere: paying for a Workspace plan to export once is a lot of money for one ZIP.

Why are CMS and blog pages missing from the Webflow export ZIP?

Because Webflow exports the design, not the content database. Your CMS lives on Webflow's servers, and every blog post, team member or product page is generated from a Collection template when someone requests it. Export Code only writes out what exists as a static page in the Designer. In practice that means:

• Collection pages (for example /blog/my-post) are not exported one file per item. At best you get the template, without the item content.
• Collection Lists on static pages, such as "Latest posts" on your home page, come out empty.
• Localized pages from Webflow Localization are not included; you get the primary locale.
• Forms keep their markup but no longer submit anywhere, because Webflow handled the submissions.
• Site search, password protection and Ecommerce depend on Webflow's servers and do not come along.

For a portfolio site with five static pages, none of this matters. For a site with a blog, a resource library or a few hundred CMS items, the export ZIP is missing most of the site.

Native export vs CMS CSV vs crawling: which one fits your situation?

Each method answers a different need. The CSV export, found in the settings of each Collection in the CMS panel, downloads one spreadsheet per collection with every field: titles, slugs, rich text as HTML, and image URLs. That is data you can import into another CMS, not pages you can open. Crawling reads the live, published site the way a browser does and saves every page it can reach by following links.

Matched to the usual situations:

• Backup before a redesign or cancellation: crawl the published site for a complete snapshot, and export the CSVs as well so the raw content is safe.
• Client handover: a crawled ZIP shows the client their whole site offline; add the CSVs if they plan to rebuild elsewhere.
• Leaving Webflow for static hosting: crawling gives you a working site with all CMS pages. Export Code is cleaner to edit but forces you to rebuild every CMS page by hand.
• Moving to WordPress or another CMS: the CSVs are your import source; the crawled copy is your visual reference.
• Archiving a finished campaign or old site: crawling, nothing else needed.

How to download a Webflow website with all CMS pages as a ZIP

Webflow sites are a good fit for crawling. Webflow delivers finished HTML from its servers instead of building the page in the browser, so a crawler receives the same content a visitor sees, CMS items included. With Website Downloader the process looks like this:

1. Publish the latest version. A crawler sees only what is live, not unpublished changes in the Designer. Use the custom domain or the .webflow.io staging address, whichever shows the version you want.
2. Make sure CMS pages are linked. A crawler finds pages by following links. If some collection items are not linked from anywhere (no list, no menu entry), add a temporary Collection List page that links to all of them, publish, and remove it later.
3. Paste the address into the download form on the home page and start. The progress counter shows pages as they are found; you can close the tab, because the crawl runs on the server, not on your computer.
4. Download the ZIP and open index.html in a browser. Click through the blog, a few collection items and the navigation to confirm everything is there.
5. Export the CMS CSVs too if you might rebuild the site in another system later. Doing both takes a few minutes and covers every future option.

The free tier handles up to 100 subpages without an account, enough for most small business and portfolio sites. For a larger blog, the one-time Single Site option covers up to 5,000 subpages; see pricing for all plans. The general method works the same for any site and is explained in more depth in Download a Website as ZIP Online.

What still works offline, and what stops working outside Webflow?

Whichever way you get the site out, anything that needed Webflow's servers stops working. Anything that is plain files in the browser keeps working.

Keeps working:

• Every page's layout, typography and responsive breakpoints, since that is all CSS.
• Images, background videos, embedded fonts and linked PDFs that were downloaded with the site.
• Interactions and animations in most cases, because webflow.js and the interaction data are part of the page's JavaScript and get saved with it. Test the important ones, especially scroll-based effects.
• Navigation menus, tabs, sliders and lightboxes built with Webflow's native components.

Stops working:

• Forms: they display but submissions go nowhere. On a new host you connect them to a form service or your own backend.
• Site search: Webflow ran the search index. Replace it with a third-party search or drop it.
• Password-protected pages: the protection was server-side. Those pages are not downloaded at all.
• Ecommerce: cart, checkout and inventory need Webflow's backend.
• Memberships and logged-in areas: not downloadable.
• Editing: the Webflow Editor and CMS are gone. Changes now mean editing HTML, or rebuilding in a new CMS from the CSVs.

Leaving Webflow or handing the site to a client

If you want to leave Webflow and self-host, the downloaded copy can go on any static host or ordinary web space: upload the contents of the ZIP so that index.html sits in the web root. Before you point the domain at the new host:

• Test on a temporary address first. Click through every section and every page type.
• Keep the URLs. Compare a few addresses on the old and new site. Where a path changed, set up 301 redirects on the new host so links and search rankings carry over.
• Replace forms before switching DNS, or you will quietly lose enquiries.
• Check third-party scripts such as analytics, cookie banners and chat widgets that were added in Webflow's custom code settings.
• Keep the Webflow site live until the new host is confirmed to work, then cancel the Site plan.

For a client handover, the crawled ZIP is often the most useful thing you can give: the client can open it on any computer without a Webflow account, and it documents exactly what was live on handover day. Pair it with the CSVs and, if your Workspace plan allows it, a code export or a transfer of the Webflow project itself. The same approach applies to other hosted builders; compare downloading a Wix website and downloading a Squarespace website, which run into very similar export gaps.

Large Webflow sites, password-protected pages and other limits

A few situations need extra planning:

• More pages than the free tier allows: above 100 subpages, use the Single Site option (up to 5,000) for a one-off backup, or a monthly plan if you back up several sites regularly. Premium goes up to 30,000 subpages per download. Monthly plans can be cancelled at any time.
• Password-protected pages and member areas: pages behind a login are not downloaded. Temporarily remove the password from pages you need, publish, download, then restore it, but only if the content may be visible publicly for that window.
• Content loaded by third-party scripts: embeds that fetch content after the page loads (some review widgets, external feeds) may appear as empty boxes in the copy.
• Blocked crawls: if a site refuses automated downloads, for example because of a security setting, the service reports it instead of handing you an empty archive.
• Site already deleted: if the Webflow project or plan is gone, crawling the live site is no longer possible. If the Internet Archive captured it, the Wayback Machine downloader can rebuild it from those captures; the steps are in Restore Website from Wayback Machine.

If you prefer command-line tools, wget or HTTrack can also crawl a published Webflow site; wget vs HTTrack vs Online Website Downloader compares the options. Other common questions are answered in the FAQ.

FAQ: downloading a Webflow website

Can I export a Webflow site for free, or on a Site plan?

Not with Webflow's own Export Code: it requires a paid Workspace plan, and a Site plan alone does not include it. The CMS CSV export is available without code export. To get the finished pages for free, crawl the published site; up to 100 subpages need no account and no payment.

Are localized (translated) pages included in a Webflow export?

Webflow's code export does not include pages created with Webflow Localization; you get the primary language. A crawl of the published site saves translated pages as long as they are reachable through links, such as a language switcher, on the live site.

Do Webflow interactions and animations still work in the downloaded copy?

Usually yes. Interactions run in the browser through Webflow's JavaScript, which is saved together with the pages. Test complex scroll or page-load animations after downloading, and remember that anything relying on Webflow's servers, such as forms or search, will not work.

Can I host the exported Webflow site anywhere, and is it fine for SEO?

Yes, the files run on any static host or web space. For SEO, keep the same URLs where possible, add 301 redirects where paths change, and make sure titles, meta descriptions and canonical tags came across. Switch the domain only after testing the copy.

Am I allowed to download a client's Webflow site?

That depends on your contract with the client, who owns the content and design, and the licences of any templates, fonts or images used. Downloading a site you built and the client has paid for is usually uncontroversial, but rules differ by country and agreement. This is not legal advice; if ownership is disputed, ask a lawyer before you copy or republish anything.