If you’ve been auditing competitor marketing sites recently, you’ve noticed: the bento grid is on its way out. The specific format (Apple-derived, rounded-corner cards in an asymmetric grid, each card pitching a feature with a small visual) peaked in mid-2025 and has been quietly receding ever since. By Q3 it’ll feel as dated as the gradient-mesh hero of 2022.
Three things are replacing it.
1. Long-form editorial pages
Linear, Notion, and Stripe are all trending toward long-scroll narrative pages instead of feature grids. The format is closer to a magazine essay than a product page: a 720px reading column, big typography, sectioned chapters that unfold as you scroll. The pitch is implicit: “we’re confident enough in the product to write a real piece about it, and you’re sophisticated enough to read it.”
This is going to widen the gap between teams with editorial chops and teams without. The bento grid was forgiving; the format itself did the work, you just dropped your features in. The narrative page is unforgiving. If your writing is bad, the format makes it more obvious, not less.
Watch: Linear’s “The Method,” Stripe’s redesigned /atlas page, and the new Notion product-tour pages.
2. Side-by-side comparison columns
The second pattern: a single page that compares your product to a category leader, head-to-head, in a vertical-split layout. Left column is the competitor (often de-branded as “the old way”), right column is you. Each row is a workflow or capability.
This is the comeback of an old form. SaaS in 2018 used to do this all the time, then everyone got embarrassed about it, then bento took over. It’s coming back because it works. Buyers in 2026 are flooded with feature parity claims and need a way to mentally rank options quickly. A clear “here’s what’s different and why it matters” beats a 12-card bento every time.
Watch: the new Pulumi vs. Terraform pages, Replit vs. local dev pages, anything in the dev-tools space.
3. Single-screen interactive demos
The third pattern is the hardest to do but the most effective: replace your feature grid with a single, embedded, interactive demo of the actual product. No screenshots. No video. The real UI, with real interaction, sized to fit above the fold.
This is what’s killing the bento grid. Why describe your product through a 12-card grid when you can let the user touch it? The reason it hasn’t taken over already is cost. You need a real, embeddable, demo build of your app, with sample data, that works in a browser without auth. Most teams can’t pull that off. The teams that can are pulling away.
Watch: Vercel’s new homepage demo, Cursor’s interactive editor on their landing page, and pretty much anything Linear ships next.
If you’re working on a marketing-page redesign right now and the spec calls for a bento grid: push back. By the time you ship, it’ll already feel late. Pick one of the three above based on where your team’s strengths are. Editorial chops: long-form. Strong comparison story: split columns. Real demoable product: embedded interactive.
Next Monday we’re tracking a related shift: the slow death of the “trusted by” logo cloud as a homepage element. Spoiler: nobody trusts them anymore.