How Webflow uses Rootly to build a proactive reliability culture.

Webflow

x

rootly-logo
“The process we’ve created using Rootly has made way for a shift in our culture—actively making room for prevention—and that’s the real benefit of this tooling.”
Colin FitzGeraldWebflow

Colin FitzGerald

,

Problem & Incident Manager

Webflow is a website experience platform with growing operational complexity and a need for incident management that could scale with the business. In Webflow’s public Rootly story, Colin explains that incident management originally lived as more of a side responsibility for a few engineering managers, which worked when the company was smaller, but stopped being sufficient as the organization and systems matured.

Founded: 2012 in San Francisco, California, USA

Size: ~1500 employees

Rootly’s Impact

Lower

MTTR through consistent, measurable incident workflows

Greater

visibility into incident trends across teams and services

Stronger

prevention culture powered by reliable incident data and problem-management follow-through

Before Rootly, incident management had outgrown Webflow’s homegrown setup

At Webflow, incident management started as what Colin describes as a “side hustle” for a couple of engineering managers. That was workable when the company was smaller and operations were less complex. The team had a few in-house bots and basic tooling supporting the incident process, but eventually that setup stopped matching the scale and configurability the business needed. That inflection point led Webflow to formalize the role and look for a dedicated incident management platform.  

The deeper problem was not just tooling sprawl. Webflow lacked core operational data and consistency. The team did not have dependable measures for “meantime to anything,” nor a consistent way to run incidents across different responders and situations. Without that consistency, it became difficult to compare incidents, identify patterns, or make systemic improvements. Webflow also lacked high-level visibility into incident trends altogether.  

“We had reached the point where basic bots and ad hoc workflows were no longer enough. We needed something purpose-built that could scale with us and give us consistency across incidents.” — Colin FitzGerald, Problem & Incident Manager

Webflow didn’t just need an incident tool. It needed operational structure.

What made the old approach limiting was not simply that it was manual. It was that every incident could be approached slightly differently depending on who was involved. That made response less comparable, less measurable, and harder to improve over time. Colin’s description on the public page makes that clear: when the same people are not always fighting the same fires, inconsistency becomes the enemy of learning.  

That is the strategic role Rootly plays in this story. The value is not just incident coordination in the moment. It is the repeatable operational structure that makes incident data usable afterward. That framing aligns closely with the newer Rootly case study style, where the product’s value compounds through standardization, visibility, and better decision-making.  

“The biggest unlock was consistency. Once incidents started running through a more structured system, we could finally compare them, measure them, and improve the process in a meaningful way.” — Colin FitzGerald, Problem & Incident Manager

Better data changed the conversation from reaction to prevention.

This is the heart of the Webflow story. Colin says Rootly’s impact on incident response is only part of the picture. Because the process is now structured, Webflow can harvest metrics like MTTR and MTTM, actively work to reduce them, and create room for a broader prevention mindset. In other words, Rootly gave Webflow the ability to discuss measurable figures first, which then unlocked a more mature conversation about the bigger picture.  

That makes Webflow’s story especially strong for Rootly because it is not just about faster incident handling. It is about reliability maturity. The tooling created the foundation for both incident management and problem management to reinforce each other. Colin’s “hammer” analogy captures this directly: Rootly is the hammer, but the real value is the structure built with it.  

“Once we had trustworthy metrics and a repeatable process, the conversation changed. We were no longer only reacting to incidents—we were creating space to prevent them.” — Colin FitzGerald, Problem & Incident Manager

Rootly helped Webflow build a culture, not just a workflow.

The strongest angle in the public Webflow case study is cultural transformation. Rootly gave the team a way to gather and act on operational data, but the larger result was a shift in how Webflow thinks about reliability. Rather than centering incident response purely on urgent mitigation, the organization gained a framework for making prevention part of the culture.  

That is a compelling customer story because it speaks to a broader outcome than efficiency alone. Rootly reduced friction in incident operations, but more importantly, it made reliability work legible. Once measurable figures became visible and discussable, Webflow could align around reducing them and improving the system behind them.  

“Rootly became more than incident tooling for us. It became the backbone for how we think about incident and problem management as a discipline.” — Colin FitzGerald, Problem & Incident Manager

Rootly gave Webflow the foundation to scale reliability intentionally.

Webflow’s story is ultimately about moving from reactive, manager-owned incident operations to a more intentional, scalable reliability practice. The company outgrew lightweight internal tooling, needed stronger configurability, lacked incident-wide visibility, and wanted a better way to learn across incidents. Rootly gave the team that foundation.  

The result is a stronger operating model: incidents can be handled with more consistency, trends can be tracked over time, and the business can invest in prevention instead of only carrying the cost of reaction. That through-line is consistent with the newer Rootly case study direction seen in stories like KnowBe4, where the deeper win is operational resilience rather than just tactical speed.  

Quick fire round: Webflow rates Rootly

  • 4/5: Implementation speed
  • 5/5: Incident consistency
  • 5/5: Reporting and metrics:
  • 5/5: Long-term reliability impact 
  • 5/5: Configurability

Webflow’s story emphasizes that Rootly solved for scale, configurability, consistency, visibility, and prevention culture. Those are all signals of a customer getting value beyond basic incident tooling, especially around reporting maturity and long-term operational improvement.

You and your teams deserve
modern incident management.