Website Builder or Component Manager?

[jogoeire]

Hey Guys,
I’ve gotten a bit confused about how i’m expected to use Builder when it comes to it working with my main website

Option 1: Builder can build my website:
When I try out Builder.io it seems I can build entire pages. So, I should build my website in Builder!

Option 2: Builder is just for components
When I read the marketing it says things like Work with any site: Add custom landing pages to any site, regardless of how it is set up. Builder works seamlessly with any site set up, e-commerce platform, and third-party apps. or even Plug visual editing into any website or app. I don’t quite get if you are saying here to A) Upload a Builder site adjacent to my own site … or B) Upload Builder components to my site repository and just update their content in Builder.io.

I have tested the app extensively and it seems a good website builder with a good marketer workflow. The Plug visual editing into any website or app hasn’t quite clicked with me unless you mean it in a very generic sense – “webapps can be uploaded to servers. job done”. Builder seems standalone rather than a plugin.

Here’s another way of asking it. From what I understand from testing … a component could not render its data without being part of a Builder.io page in the first place… since data connections seem to be added at a page level. So I couldn’t port a component into a different app without it breaking it? So pages are a fundamental element of builder.io, which implies the user must create entire pages.

I really like Builder by the way. The case of data composability and headless CMS is great. I think I just got stuck on the Marketing schpiel about “integrating with your current website”. Maybe if I had an example of how your best customer brings Builder.io into the mix?

From reading the Everlane case study it seems they built their entire site in Builder. But then I don’t get the workflow for how they would add features like “Multilingual” to their site. I’d assume these are added outside Builder, and they have safeguards not to break Builder pages… since Builder is providing part of the API layer.

Everlane Case Study - Builder.io

I’d love to hear your opinions on how I should think about Builder.io when I already have 3 sites with 10’000 pages.

Kind Regards. Robert

[ancheetah]

Hello, thanks for your feedback! While we have experimented with offering hosting in the past, we have learned that the best way to use Builder is within your tech stack so you can access all our features and capabilities. This is how Everlane uses Builder to create all sorts of awesome content! Here is a diagram that gives an overview of how an integration would look:

You also don’t have to create entire pages - Builder has other models, such as sections and data models, that you can learn about here. All of these models can connect to your data as well.

Check out this guide to learn more about how Builder works. If you want to know more about how the end-to-end setup works you can read this great blog post about integrating with Next.js. Hope this helps!

[jogoeire]

That does help! Thanks a lot for your reply.