Framer

Framer is a European website builder and design platform headquartered in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Founded in 2013 by Dutch entrepreneurs Koen Bok and Jorn van Dijk, the company began as a prototyping tool for interaction designers before evolving into one of the most innovative AI-powered website builders on the market. In August 2025, Framer raised $100 million in a Series D funding round at a $2 billion valuation, cementing its position as one of Europe's most successful technology companies. Today, Framer powers a significant share of professionally designed websites and is the platform of choice for marketing teams, designers, and startups seeking to ship high-quality web experiences at speed.

What distinguishes Framer from conventional website builders like Squarespace or Wix is its design-first philosophy combined with powerful AI capabilities. The platform bridges the gap between professional design tools like Figma and traditional website builders by offering a canvas-based visual editor that gives users pixel-level control over their designs while automatically generating clean, performant code. This approach attracts a design-savvy audience that demands both creative freedom and production-ready output, making Framer a unique player in the website builder landscape.

AI Website Generation

Framer's AI capabilities represent some of the most advanced AI-to-website technology available. Users can generate complete, responsive website layouts from simple text prompts in seconds. The AI creates full-page layouts, writes website copy including headlines, descriptions, and calls-to-action, and suggests sections based on the stated goals of the site. Unlike purely AI-driven builders that produce generic results, Framer's AI output serves as a sophisticated starting point that can be refined with the full power of the visual editor. This combination of AI speed and manual precision is what sets Framer apart from competitors that focus solely on either automation or manual design.

Recent AI updates have expanded capabilities to include AI layout creation with more varied and professional templates, SEO assistance that helps optimize titles, meta descriptions, and alt text, and intelligent content suggestions that improve copy tone and clarity. The AI features are integrated seamlessly into the editing workflow, allowing designers to invoke AI assistance at any point during the design process rather than only at the initial generation stage. For teams that need to rapidly produce landing pages, campaign sites, or portfolio pages, Framer's AI dramatically reduces time-to-launch while maintaining design quality.

Visual Editor and Design Capabilities

Framer's visual editor is often compared to Figma for its sophistication and flexibility. The canvas-based interface supports layers, components, auto-layout, and responsive breakpoints, giving designers the tools they need to create complex layouts without writing code. Every element on the page can be precisely positioned, styled, and animated using intuitive controls. The component system allows designers to create reusable design elements that can be updated globally, maintaining consistency across large sites. Variables and conditions enable dynamic content presentation, such as showing different content based on user interactions or data from the CMS.

One of Framer's strongest differentiators is its native animation engine. Designers can create smooth, hardware-accelerated animations including scroll-based effects, hover transitions, page transitions, and parallax effects without touching code. The animation tools use a keyframe-based approach that is intuitive for designers familiar with motion design tools. These animations are not just decorative; they are rendered performantly and contribute to the professional feel that makes Framer sites stand out from those built with more conventional tools.

Content Management System

Framer includes a built-in CMS that allows users to manage structured content such as blog posts, team members, product listings, and portfolio items. The CMS supports custom content types with configurable fields, making it flexible enough to handle various content structures. Content editors can work within the CMS interface without needing to interact with the design tools, enabling a clean separation between content management and site design. The CMS integrates seamlessly with the visual editor, allowing designers to create dynamic pages that pull content from CMS collections.

While the CMS is capable for most use cases, it is worth noting that Framer is still catching up to platforms like WordPress for content-heavy websites. Managing large blogs with hundreds of posts or complex content taxonomies may feel more limited compared to dedicated content management platforms. However, for marketing sites, portfolios, and business websites with moderate content needs, Framer's CMS is more than sufficient and benefits from tight integration with the design and publishing workflow.

Responsive Design and Performance

Framer generates fully responsive websites that automatically adapt to desktop, tablet, and mobile screen sizes. The responsive system uses breakpoints that designers can customize, with the ability to override any design property at specific breakpoints. This means designers have complete control over how their sites look on every device, going beyond simple scaling to allow truly optimized layouts for each screen size. The platform also supports responsive images, lazy loading, and other performance optimizations that ensure fast load times across devices and connection speeds.

Performance is a priority for Framer, with sites built on the platform consistently scoring well on Google's Core Web Vitals metrics. Framer generates static HTML at publish time, resulting in fast initial page loads. The platform handles hosting on its own global CDN infrastructure, distributing content across edge locations for low-latency access worldwide. Custom domain support with automatic SSL certificates is included, and sites can be connected to existing domains with straightforward DNS configuration.

SEO and Marketing Features

Framer provides built-in SEO tools that cover the essentials for search engine optimization. Each page can have custom titles, meta descriptions, Open Graph tags, and structured data. The platform automatically generates sitemaps and supports canonical URLs, helping search engines properly index site content. Alt text for images, heading hierarchy management, and clean URL structures are supported natively. The AI-assisted SEO features help users write better meta descriptions and identify optimization opportunities, making SEO accessible even to users without technical expertise.

For marketing teams, Framer supports custom analytics integrations, conversion tracking, and A/B testing capabilities. The platform makes it easy to create and iterate on landing pages quickly, which is essential for performance marketing workflows. Forms can be built visually and connected to popular marketing tools and CRMs. The combination of fast iteration, professional design quality, and marketing tool integration makes Framer particularly popular among growth teams at startups and scale-ups.

Custom Code and React Components

For developers and technically inclined designers, Framer supports custom code components built with React. This extensibility allows teams to add functionality that goes beyond what the visual editor provides, such as custom interactive elements, third-party API integrations, or complex data visualizations. Custom components are written in standard React with TypeScript support and can access Framer's animation and layout APIs. The component code runs in a sandboxed environment that ensures compatibility and performance.

GDPR Compliance and European Identity

As a Netherlands-based company, Framer operates under European data protection regulations including GDPR. The company's European headquarters means that corporate governance and data processing practices are subject to Dutch and EU law, providing a level of regulatory protection that US-based alternatives cannot match. For businesses concerned about data sovereignty and the implications of using platforms subject to the US CLOUD Act, Framer's European base provides meaningful legal and practical advantages. The platform includes a cookie consent banner system and supports GDPR-compliant analytics configurations.

Pricing and Plans

Framer offers a generous free tier that allows users to create and publish websites with a Framer subdomain. Paid plans unlock custom domains, additional CMS items, and advanced features. The Mini plan starts at $5 per month, the Basic plan at $10 per month, the Pro plan at $15 per month, and the Teams plan at $25 per user per month. All paid plans include custom domain support, SSL certificates, and hosting on Framer's global CDN. For agencies and freelancers, Framer offers workspace plans that provide additional collaboration features and client management tools.

Compared to alternatives like Webflow, Framer's pricing is competitive, particularly at the lower tiers. The free tier is more permissive than most competitors, making it an excellent choice for personal projects, portfolios, and experimentation. For startups and small businesses, the Pro plan provides sufficient features for professional websites at a price point that is accessible to early-stage companies. The value proposition is further enhanced by the platform's speed: what might take days in a traditional website builder can often be accomplished in hours with Framer, making the time savings alone worth the subscription cost.