Hosting Scripts: A Webflow Limitation

Webflow does not allow access to the hosting server, or provide any ability to upload script libraries into your website hosting environment.

This means that for larger, complex libraries, you're forced to host those scripts elsewhere.

What we're Exploring

PHASE - Basic Setup

1. The feasibility of hosting scripts elsewhere, and integrating that into a standard Webflow site.
2. Using it to provide enhanced functionality.
3. Overcoming HTTPS configuration limitations
4. CORS & Cross-site scripting

PHASE - Advantages

1. Cookie-sharing support
2. Benefits or need for shadowing the server on a subdomain to allow for certain cookie-access functionality
3. Bundling and delivering into the page using Webpack or other solutions

PHASE - NPM

1. Ability to use 3rd party NPM modules
2. NPM-based updates
3. Using CJS style modules from Node.js
4. Merging CJS and ESM module types via NPM
5. Transpiling to /dist browser-ready code

PHASE - Usefulness

1. Testing various applications
2. Photo Gallery
3. Chat Application
4. Instagram Integration
5. Plug-in Architecture
6. Server-Side v. Client-Side functionality

PHASE - Bundling, Packaging, Scaling & Practicality

1. Ease of developing / building / hosting in such an environment
2. GTM-style script integration, site-wide

PHASE - SaaS Productization & Deployment

1. Practicality of delivering this as a service to other sites
2. Creating SSL certificates for js.* shadow domains
3. Providing administrative access to a "shadow server instance" including
4. SSH
5. FTP
6. Console access for configuration & compiling