Will the load time of my Webflow website be slow in China, even if I purchase a Chinese domain?

Yes, your Webflow site may still load slowly in China, even with a Chinese domain. Webflow’s hosting relies on infrastructure that is not optimized for mainland China access.

1. Webflow Hosting Is Not China-Optimized

• Webflow uses AWS and Fastly for global CDN delivery, but Chinese networks often throttle or block many non-China-based CDN providers.
• Great Firewall-related latency can significantly slow down asset delivery, resulting in longer load times inside mainland China.

2. Domain Location Doesn’t Improve Hosting Speed

• Purchasing a .cn or other Chinese domain does not change your hosting location—it simply gives you a local domain.
• The actual website assets are still hosted on Webflow servers (primarily in the U.S. or international CDN nodes), so Chinese users still face the same cross-border data issues.

3. ICP License Requirement in China

• To legally host a website in China, you need an ICP (Internet Content Provider) license, which requires the site to be hosted on a server inside mainland China.
• Webflow does not offer China-based hosting or ICP license support, so it cannot fully comply with local hosting laws for a fast, legal presence in China.

4. Workarounds Are Limited

• Using reverse proxy setups or embedding Webflow exports into a China-hosted server can improve speed, but this requires additional infrastructure and may break CMS and Webflow-native functionality.
• Alternatively, export your Webflow code and host it on a China-optimized platform like Alibaba Cloud or Tencent Cloud, but this removes Webflow’s dynamic CMS and editor features.

Summary

Even with a Chinese domain, your Webflow site will likely load slowly in China due to hosting being outside the mainland and the impact of China’s internet restrictions. To significantly improve speed and compliance, you’d need to consider exporting the site and hosting it on a China-based server with an ICP license.