Do WordPress, Shopify and Webflow work in China?

Most guides on this topic cover one platform, and they usually end by selling a fix for it. That hides the useful difference between the three.

The trouble is similar everywhere. What changes is how much of it you can reach. This guide is part of our work on putting your website in China.

Are WordPress, Shopify and Webflow blocked in China?

GreatFire shows none of the three blocked outright, but results vary by address. We read its HTTPS page for each address below on November 1, 2026. It tests HTTP separately.¹²

Address	What it is	GreatFire result	Failed tests, last 90 days	Last test
shopify.com	Shopify’s site	Not blocked 1	0 of 13	2026-11-01
cdn.shopify.com	Store files	Not blocked 2	0 of 2	2026-10-08
checkout.shopify.com	Checkout host	Not blocked 3	0 of 2	2026-11-01
myshopify.com	Default store domain	Not blocked 4	0 of 2	2026-10-09
wordpress.org	The software’s site	Not blocked 5	0 of 13	2026-11-01
wordpress.com	Hosted WordPress	Not blocked 6	0 of 18	2026-11-01
i0.wp.com	WordPress image host	Not blocked 7	0 of 2	2026-10-21
secure.gravatar.com	Comment avatars	Blocked 8	1 of 1	2026-08-31
webflow.com	Webflow’s site	Disrupted 9	1 of 1	2026-08-23
webflow.io	Default site domain	Mixed, 6 of 13 URLs intermittent 10	n/a	2026-10-13
ajax.googleapis.com	Hosted libraries	Blocked 11	1 of 1	2026-08-22

Sources also disagree. Chinafy says WordPress.com is blocked,¹⁵ while GreatFire shows 18 clean tests of the main address.⁶

GreatFire’s domain pages may explain part of that gap. They count every URL it has tested on a domain, and the picture is far less clean:

Domain	URLs tested	Blocked	Disrupted	Load normally
shopify.com 34	19	1	14	4
wordpress.org 35	30	3	20	7
wordpress.com 36	1,524	201	897	424
webflow.com 37	6	0	4	2

Read those as proof that results vary, not as a failure rate. For wordpress.com, 2 URLs had no conclusive result.³⁶

Merchants reported shopify.com and myshopify.com unreachable without a VPN in early 2024.¹⁷ One relayed a support reply saying third parties may be preventing connectivity, with no timeframe for a fix.¹⁷

So a clean result today doesn’t describe every network or every month. And none of these tests tells you whether your own pages finish loading.

Why does a reachable platform still fail?

Because connecting isn’t the same as loading. A store can answer a test while its fonts, images and scripts stall.

Not sure which problem you have? See whether your site is blocked or just slow.

The main figures we found come from Chinafy, which sells a fix, so read them with care. It tested 100 Shopify stores with WebPageTest and counted any load over 30 seconds as a failure.¹³

Test city	Loaded within 30 s	Average load time
Beijing	17%	30.0 s
Singapore	54%	12.8 s
Virginia	50%	12.5 s
London	54%	12.2 s

1. Beijing17%
2. Singapore54%
3. Virginia50%
4. London54%

Three details are worth checking. About half of those stores also failed in London and Virginia, which suggests a heavy sample before China entered the picture.¹³

The report says stores are about 4.5 times more likely to load elsewhere, while its table suggests about 3 times.¹³ It gives no exact test date.

The averages look odd too. If half the stores took over 30 seconds, the mean can’t be near 12 seconds, so failed loads may be left out. The report doesn’t say. Trust the direction, not the precise numbers.

A developer based in China described the same pattern in August 2025: stores opened, but images and fonts didn’t without a VPN.¹⁸ That’s one person’s report, not a measurement.

Two things sit behind this, on all three platforms:

• Distance. Chinafy says Shopify’s delivery networks have no mainland nodes by default.¹⁴ We found no Shopify statement on this, and the help page we read doesn’t mention China.³²
• Dependencies. Your pages call services that may be blocked or unreliable in China. Chinafy says browsers can wait 30 seconds or more on one,¹⁵ without showing its method.

What can you change on each platform?

You can fix dependencies on all three. Only self-hosted WordPress also lets you change the server without a rebuild or an export.

	WordPress, self-hosted	WordPress.com	Shopify	Webflow
Choose your server	Yes	No	No, unless you go headless	No, unless you export
Remove outside scripts	Yes, all of them	Depends on plan	Apps and theme code	Partly
Host fonts yourself	Yes	Depends on plan	Yes	Yes, as custom fonts
Keep your tools if you move	Yes	n/a	Admin stays, front end rebuilt	CMS, forms and shop are lost
Mainland hosting possible	Yes, with an ICP and a Chinese entity	No	Not on the default setup	Only after export

The WordPress.com entries are our reading of how a hosted service works, not a tested result. Check your plan.

How to fix a WordPress site for China

Self-hosted WordPress is the most open of the three. The software isn’t the problem. The usual cause is what your theme and plugins add on top.

Chinafy names Google Fonts, reCAPTCHA, Gravatar, jQuery on Google’s CDN and YouTube, among others.¹⁵ Not all of these are settled: we cover where sources disagree on Google Fonts. Work through them in this order:

1. List what loads. Follow our 10-minute check, adding gravatar to the filters.
2. Stop Gravatar. Go to Settings > Discussion and clear Show Avatars.²² That removes the blocked call.⁸
3. Move your fonts. In Appearance > Fonts, WordPress downloads Google Fonts and hosts them on your site.²⁰ It covers block and classic themes from version 7.0.²⁰
4. Catch the rest. Fonts added by themes and page builders can bypass that library. OMGF finds them and hosts them locally, though deeper detection, such as Web Font Loader, is in its paid version.²¹
5. Check your forms. Chinafy warns that a form tied to reCAPTCHA can fail outright.¹⁵ See why forms fail in China.
6. Review your plugins. Chinafy names Jetpack, WooCommerce, Yoast SEO and Gravity Forms as frequent callers of outside services.¹⁵ Treat that as a list to test, not a list to delete.
7. Then look at hosting. A closer server cuts delay but doesn’t fix outside resources.¹⁵ Compare Hong Kong and mainland hosting once the pages are clean.

What you can and can’t do on Shopify

You can clean your theme and apps. You can’t choose where a standard store is served from.

Remove app scripts. Chinafy says some apps inject scripts that rely on blocked services, naming notification tools, Instagram feeds and review widgets.¹⁴ It also puts the average storefront at 30 to 80+ third-party resources.¹³ Drop what Chinese visitors don’t need.

Load fonts from Shopify. Shopify’s theme docs recommend serving fonts from its CDN, not Google Fonts, which removes the external connection.²⁴

Library fonts use the font_picker setting, and licensed fonts go in theme assets.²⁴

That removes a dependency, but it may not settle the matter. GreatFire shows cdn.shopify.com connecting,² while the 2025 forum report says images and fonts fail.¹⁸ Test your own store.

Consider a separate store. Wave Commerce suggested a China-only store, free of scripts meant for other markets.¹⁹ That was in 2018. The logic holds, but you take on a second store to maintain.

Headless is the one way to choose your host. Shopify says Hydrogen can run on other providers, through the Headless channel.²⁵

That means rebuilding your front end, and the page doesn’t say how checkout behaves from China.

Some vendors sell a layer that sits in front of a store, and their speed claims are their own. Ask for a test on your URL, and where your pages are served from. See our CDN guide.

Free check

Is your website visible on Baidu?

Enter your website. We check Baidu, access from China and how your site is set up, then email you the report.

Your websiteCheck my site

What Webflow allows, and what export costs

Webflow gives you the fewest options, and its own help center flags China. It warns that sites may not load as expected there, because of an access restriction it says it doesn’t control.²⁶

Its advice, as shown in search results, is to avoid third-party services, or to export the site and host it on a CDN in China.²⁶ We couldn’t open the page itself, so check the wording.

Stay on Webflow hosting if you can. First remove what your pages add:

• Google Fonts. A forum user, seen in search results, reports that Webflow injects webfont.js from ajax.googleapis.com with any Google Font, with no setting to change it.³⁰ GreatFire shows that host blocked.¹¹
• The fix for fonts. A commenter on Webflow’s wishlist said in 2019 that a custom font removes the googleapis.com references.²⁹ Users have asked for a switch since 2018, and the request shows no reply from Webflow.²⁹ Check your published page after the change.
• Video. Chinafy reported in 2021 that YouTube and Vimeo embeds don’t play.¹⁶ See fonts, YouTube and embeds in China.

Export only with your eyes open. You get static files, and you lose a lot.

Kept

• HTML
• CSS
• Interaction JavaScript
• Images

Lost

• CMS content
• Ecommerce
• User accounts
• Logic
• Forms
• Site search

VS

Page sources: Webflow help, Goodspeed

Webflow’s docs, seen in search results, say CMS, Ecommerce and user account content aren’t included, and that forms and site search stop working. Password-protected pages also lose their protection.²⁷

Goodspeed adds that new posts won’t appear in the exported copy.²⁸

Check your plan first. Webflow’s docs in search results limit export to Workspace plans,²⁷ as does a 2021 wishlist request,³⁸ while Goodspeed says a paid Site plan.²⁸

A CDN in mainland China also needs an ICP, according to Cloudflare.³¹ For a small site that rarely changes, that may be workable. For a site run on the CMS, it’s close to a rebuild.

Should you change platform for China?

Not as a first step. We found no independent test comparing these platforms from the mainland, so nothing shows that moving will make your site faster there.

What’s documented is control, not speed. Self-hosted WordPress gives you more of it, and that only helps if someone uses it.

Your situation	Sensible next step
WordPress site, no Chinese entity	Clean the pages, then consider Hong Kong hosting
WordPress site, Chinese entity	Clean the pages, then look at an ICP and mainland hosting
Shopify store, some Chinese buyers	Remove apps and outside fonts, then test checkout
Shopify store, China is a main market	Compare a separate store, headless and local marketplaces
Webflow site, light CMS use	Remove Google Fonts and embeds, then test
Webflow site, heavy CMS use	Stay and test before you price a rebuild

Chinafy says Tmall and JD.com need a Chinese entity or a local partner, plus platform fees and onboarding of several months.¹⁴ So a marketplace isn’t a quick alternative either.

How to test your own site

Test the journey, not the home page. A platform’s main domain tells you little about your store.

1. Use your real address. GreatFire and similar tools test one exact URL.¹² Try your custom domain and any default myshopify.com or webflow.io address too.
2. Test without a VPN. A VPN shows you a page your buyers may never see. Merchants in 2024 only had access with one.¹⁷
3. Walk the full path. Check a product or service page, then your form, cart and checkout.
4. Repeat it. One result on one day can mislead. Run it at different hours.

Our guide to testing whether your site is accessible in China lists the tools, and the China-ready website checklist covers the rest.

The bottom line

Your platform is rarely what blocks you, and changing it rarely comes first. Clean what your pages load, then test the full journey from China.

Webflow and Shopify limit where you can go after that. If you need a specific server, that’s the moment to weigh a move.

How Index in China can help

Our offer for Chinese search engines covers localizing your site into Simplified Chinese, indexing it on Chinese search engines and sending a monthly report on Chinese traffic.

In a 30-minute call we look at your site, your market and what getting indexed would take. Local legal questions go to a local adviser. Book a 30-minute call.

Book a 30-minute call

Monthly report BaiduIndexed Bing ChinaIndexed SogouIndexed