WordPress edges out Webflow for SEO in most scenarios because of its established infrastructure. You get battle-tested plugins like Yoast SEO and RankMath that handle schema markup, XML sitemaps, meta management, and breadcrumbs without custom development. WordPress also runs on any hosting stack, so you can choose performance-optimized providers like Kinsta or WP Engine that serve Canadian traffic from Toronto data centers with sub-100ms TTFB. The platform has 20 years of community knowledge for technical SEO edge cases. Webflow's advantage is cleaner HTML output and no plugin bloat—you're not loading 40+ WordPress plugins that add render-blocking scripts. Webflow's visual builder produces semantic code by default, and its CDN hosting is solid for Core Web Vitals. But you're locked into Webflow's hosting (no server-level caching control), schema markup requires custom code embeds, and advanced redirects or log file analysis gets clunky. For e-commerce SEO, Webflow's native shop is limited compared to WooCommerce's flexibility with product schema and category structures. The real differentiator is team skill and site complexity. For brochure sites under 50 pages where a designer needs full creative control and the client won't touch code, Webflow works well—we've ranked Webflow sites in competitive Ottawa real estate and legal niches. For content-heavy sites, membership platforms, or anything requiring custom post types and taxonomies, WordPress wins because you can structure URL hierarchies, manage thousands of pages, and automate schema injection at scale. Speed matters more than platform. A bloated WordPress site on cheap shared hosting will lose to a lean Webflow site every time. Conversely, a headless WordPress setup with static generation can outperform both. At Ottawa SEO, we run WordPress for our 500+ domain portfolio because we need programmatic control, custom schemas per vertical, and the ability to A/B test plugins without vendor lock-in. For clients who hate backend complexity and have straightforward site needs, Webflow is a reasonable choice—just budget for custom code when you need advanced SEO features that aren't native.