Webflow Or Framer, Which Is The Better Tool For The Long Term?

Webflow vs. Framer: Which tool is better for long-term projects? Explore features, pros, and cons to make the right choice.

Webflow Or Framer, Which Is The Better Tool For The Long Term?

Imagine you’re a web designer. You have a solid handle on design principles and know how to code. You’ve even built a few websites using templates and frameworks. But now you’ve got a client who wants something unique that reflects their brand and stands out. You know you can build exactly what they want using custom code, but that sounds tedious. You want to find a way to create this website quickly while giving you the creative control to make it truly one of a kind. This is where Framer Design comes in. 

But wait. You’ve also heard that Webflow is excellent for this style of project, too, and you want to know which is better. This article will help you sort through the confusion and learn which is best for the long term, Framer or Webflow.

NUMI has a solution for learning about Framer and how it can help you achieve your web design goals. Framer web design offers a creative and flexible way to build sites for your clients, and this article will help you get started.

What Is Webflow?

man on a laptop - Framer Design

Webflow is a visual website builder and editor that lets you design, build, and launch your website by clicking, dragging, and dropping different elements, like pictures or text, onto a page. It combines the power of this software and helps you build a website without coding:

  • HTML
  • CSS
  • Javascript 

This allows you to focus on the front end of the design rather than struggling with complex codes. Whether you are a prolific blogger or an enterprise owner, you can create seamless websites with Webflow. Webflow is a more modern platform for website development. It’s a closed-source system, meaning the source code isn’t publicly available. Instead, access is granted through licensing, offered on a tiered subscription model.

How Webflow Empowers Designers and Agencies with Code-Free Website Creation

Since its establishment in 2012, the platform has earned widespread acclaim for its highly intuitive interface, creative freedom, and design-first approach. What does it all mean? This innovative methodology has essentially streamlined the build and design, allowing users to craft high-performing websites quickly and without limitations and showcasing its universal appeal. Among its diverse user base, Webflow is primarily embraced by:

  • Designers
  • Agencies
  • Enterprises.

Webflow also offers a CMS option for blogging and content creation, although it’s not essential for basic websites. One of the significant advantages of Webflow is that you can visually design your site without needing to write a single line of code. 

Webflow Hosting Options: Self-Hosting vs. Webflow’s CMS-Backed Hosting

As a SaaS application, Webflow is mostly self-contained. You can add features to your site by embedding code, but the core Webflow platform is all you need to build your site or hire a Webflow agency to do that for you.

Once you finish building your site with Webflow, you can either…
Export the code of your finished site and host it on any hosting provider if you have a static site.
Pay Webflow to host the site for you, which is required if you want to use Webflow's CMS for dynamic content.

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What Is Framer?

man on a laptop - Framer Design

Framer is a powerful no-code platform that simplifies the design process for creating interactive prototypes and production-ready websites. This tool particularly shines in its ability to help designers quickly go from idea to finished product, with plenty of features supporting team collaboration. Framer also has integrations with Framer AI, allowing users to build websites faster than ever. 

Framer for Interactive Prototyping

Before creating a website or app, it's essential to understand how the final product will function. This is where Framer shines. The platform allows users to create interactive prototypes that mimic the look and feel of a finished product. 

You can simulate user interactions and imagine how your designs will likely function in the real world. This is especially handy for communicating designs to stakeholders and getting feedback before going into full development. 

Framer for Website Design

In addition to prototyping, Framer excels at website creation. The tool comes with various customizable templates that help you get started on your next project. From there, you can design your site to your heart’s content using Framer’s intuitive visual editor, which supports drag-and-drop functionality. You can also add advanced interactions and animations to elevate your design and make your site more engaging.

What’s more, Framer has built-in tools to help you collaborate with your team and streamline the handoff process for developers. You can even publish your site directly from Framer, making it easy to share your designs with stakeholders or launch the site for public access.

A Detailed Look At Webflow's Features

woman on a laptop - Framer Design

Webflow Visual Website Builder: Creating Websites with Intuitive Tools

Webflow hits the sweet spot between being easy to use and powerful. It’s not just drag-and-drop; it’s a visual code editor. This means beginners can jump in and learn as they go through the building process, picking up the basics of: 

  • HTML
  • CSS
  • JavaScript

For advanced functionality beyond native features, Webflow integrates custom code. Webflow has a drag-and-drop component section with essential elements like headings and paragraphs. You can manipulate these elements like in traditional HTML, adding ID tags, assigning attributes, and styling them with CSS. 

Webflow University offers a comprehensive collection of free courses to refine your skills further. It doesn’t limit you to basic design; Webflow gives you complete design control. You can:

  • Resize elements
  • Tweak colors
  • Even bring your designs to life with cool CSS animations.

Webflow Designer, Your Creative Canvas for Website Design

Webflow Designer acts as your central hub for website creation. Here, you can easily add new pages, define the visual style of each section, and finally hit publish to showcase your masterpiece to the world. This interface lets you smoothly integrate any code customizations you’ve made, ensuring a cohesive and visually stunning website. 

Unlike traditional design tools, Webflow offers a user interface that feels familiar to creatives who use Photoshop or After Effects. The interface bridges the gap between design and development, but it’s essential to remember that Webflow still relies on core coding principles.

Webflow CMS: A Powerful Content Management System

It is a user-friendly system for:

  • Managing
  • Updating
  • Modifying your website’s content

Webflow Designer offers the ultimate control: You can create and customize your content’s underlying data structure (CMS collections). 

Webflow Editor

It lets you leverage pre-built collections to manage and edit content easily. Imagine folders on your computer, but these folders can hold different things and automatically create web pages. That’s what Webflow CMS Collections are like. You can make a collection for blog articles, another for product listings, and even one for staff profiles. Each collection uses the same basic design layout, but the content inside each item can be unique:

  • Article
  • Product
  • Profile

These items also get their unique web address (URL). What makes these collections special are 

Data Fields and Page Visual Design

Data Fields are like fill-in-the-blank forms that let you add details about what’s inside each item, like text and images. 

The Page Visual Design 

It is the pre-designed layout of the collection, and when you publish it, it automatically populates the content with the information you entered in the Data Fields. 

Webflow takes things a step further by letting you connect these collections. Imagine linking a product listing to a staff profile if a specific staff member designed the product. This flexibility and the ability to design your data fields make Webflow a powerful tool for building websites with dynamic content.

Figma to Webflow Plugin, A Seamless Collaboration

Take your designs from Figma straight to development with the powerful Figma to Webflow plugin. This innovative tool eliminates the need for manual code conversion. While there are some limitations and best practices to follow for optimal results, the plugin has significant time savings and an efficient design-to-development workflow.

Webflow Editor, Design Made Easy

This design interface allows you to edit your website directly. While Webflow DEVsigner offers unparalleled design control, Webflow Editor shines for its user-friendliness, allowing you to manage your entire website visually. See all your pages at a glance, create new CMS pages (more on that later!), and even update SEO metadata. Your website is live when you:

  • Click
  • Edit
  • Publish

What Types of Websites Can You Build with Webflow?

The possibilities are truly limitless. You can create impactful marketing websites that convert visitors into loyal customers. You can build a site for your B2B SaaS business or establish a strong online presence for your local or international company. Webflow lets you create thriving websites to share your expertise: 

  • Online stores
  • Engaging blogs
  • Niche. 

Create gated content platforms or community hubs with user-generated content. This is just a taste of what Webflow offers.

Build Powerful Marketing Websites on Webflow

Marketing teams work best on agility. Webflow lets them do just that. Webflow allows complete design freedom to craft a website that perfectly embodies your brand and resonates with your target audience. Webflow's intuitive UI lets your marketing team easily make any edits and updates to layouts and content. Webflow's approach eliminates the back-and-forth with developers, allowing you to launch marketing campaigns quickly. 

You and your team can manage your website, freeing up IT resources and allowing marketers to focus on their core strengths. 

Webflow SEO: Optimize for Search Engines

Webflow's clean code ensures search engines can effortlessly crawl and comprehend your website's content. This means faster indexing and a greater chance of ranking your website in search results. Webflow's user-friendly content management system (CMS) allows you to tailor your content to particular search intentions. By matching user queries with relevant content, you can expect your rankings to climb. These features eliminate the need for plugins, saving time and resources like:

  • Title tags
  • Meta descriptions
  • Automatic sitemap.xml
  • 301 redirects
  • Robots.txt 

Webflow lets you take control of your website's schema markup, allowing search engines to view your content with even more precision. This can lead to richer search results and a higher click-through rate. Designing a functional internal linking system is simple with Webflow. This system guides users and search engines through your website, boosting your SEO performance. Webflow's CMS empowers you to create diverse content types with unique designs for each search intent while managing this efficiently. 

It takes seconds within Webflow when connecting to your: 

This cool integration allows you to gain valuable insights and helps optimize your marketing efforts. 

Content Beyond the Blog

Gone are the days of the blogs for SEO approach. Marketers can create unique content that resonates directly with their audience's search intent. Webflow brings a new level of creativity and control for SEO. Unlike traditional website builders, Webflow's flexible CMS lets you move beyond static blog posts and get into interactive content formats like:

  • Quizzes
  • Calculators
  • Detailed case studies

This allows you to tailor content to specific search queries, not just keywords. This increases user engagement and a higher chance of ranking for those targeted searches. Webflow empowers laser-focused audience targeting through unique design capabilities. Webflow's user-friendly CMS allows room for experimentation. Testing new content formats becomes a breeze; you can test and analyze results and adjust your strategy if needed. This agility will let your content evolve to appeal with your audience and search engines.

Webflow is a Speed Demon for Marketers

Ditch the frustration of slow loading times! Webflow builds your website on the rock-solid foundation of Amazon Web Services (AWS), giving you a winning combination of performance and user experience. Webflow uses cutting-edge HTTP/2 technology for secure and fast data transfer. A Content Delivery Network (CDN) ensures your content reaches users with minimal delay, regardless of location. Webflow understands the importance of the safety of your website. Advanced DDoS protection safeguards your site from malicious attacks, and scalable servers guarantee minimal downtime. 

Webflow is built with a laser focus on Core Web Vitals, the metrics that define a user's experience on your site. Webflow generates clean, optimized code that search engines can easily crawl and understand. This means fast loading times for your visitors, leading to a smoother overall experience. Webflow gives you complete control over your website's structure and content, allowing you to address any potential issues quickly within seconds. 

Webflow Ecommerce: Create a Unique Online Store 

Unlike other ecommerce builders that limit you to pre-designed templates, Webflow empowers you to design a store that perfectly reflects your brand identity. This gives you're customers a great shopping experience, setting you apart from the competition. You can meticulously design the flow of your store, tailoring every interaction point to optimize the buying journey for your customers. This level of control allows you to maximize conversion rates and turn website visitors into loyal customers. Webflow shines brightly when it comes to selling digital products:

  • Courses
  • Ebooks
  • Templates and more

Automated email workflows with download links ensure a smooth customer experience. The complete design freedom allows you to create a unique and engaging brand experience, setting your digital products apart from the competition. It's essential to consider Webflow's limitations before diving in. While it excels in design and UX, Webflow may be a better fit for some e-commerce stores. 

These are great options for many businesses, but some markets may have specific payment gateway requirements that Webflow can't accommodate. Some advanced ecommerce functionalities may require involvement from a developer to ensure a seamless experience for your customers. It's essential to weigh your design and UX needs against any potential limitations before deciding. Currently, it integrates with just two payment gateways: 

  • Stripe 
  • PayPal

A Detailed Look At Framer's Features

man on a computer - Framer Design

Interface: A Designer's Dream

Framer's interface is designed to be user-friendly, with a learning curve that’s much shorter compared to more complex platforms like Webflow or WordPress. It shares similarities with design tools like Figma and Sketch, allowing designers to easily transition from creating mockups to building functional websites. The interface streamlines the workflow, enabling users to start building within a few hours of use.

CMS: A Game-Changer for Dynamic Sites

Framer’s Content Management System (CMS) supports scalable content management, making it perfect for websites with consistent structure but varying content, such as blogs, job listings, and marketing pages. The CMS also offers advanced features like conditionals, filters, and transforms, allowing users to quickly build highly dynamic and customized sites.

Speed Performance

Framer is built with optimized, modern technologies that ensure high-speed performance out of the box. The platform’s infrastructure is engineered for fast load times, even on large websites. While mobile devices might introduce some challenges, Framer’s robust optimization can still deliver excellent Core Web Vitals scores, making it a strong choice for performance-conscious developers.

SEO Capabilities

Framer takes care of most technical SEO aspects, such as SSL certification, hosting, and XML sitemap generation, so you don’t need to worry about these manual tasks. For any additional SEO needs, Framer provides tools to tweak and optimize elements for better search engine ranking, making it a solid platform for SEO-driven websites.

AI-Powered Tools 

Framer leverages AI to simplify the web-building process, offering:

AI Website Builder

You can generate a complete website from a simple prompt, allowing you to start quickly and make adjustments as needed. 

AI Text Rewrite

If the AI-generated website copy isn’t quite right, the AI can rephrase text until it matches your desired tone and style. 

AI Translation

This tool enables easy content translation into multiple languages, expanding your reach to international audiences without hassle.

Effects & Animations 

Framer Motion, the platform's proprietary animation library, provides a simple interface for building complex animations. It stands out as one of the most influential animation tools in the market, allowing users to create dynamic, visually stunning effects without deep coding knowledge.

Localization 

Framer’s localization tools allow you to tailor your site’s design based on the user’s region beyond translating text. This feature ensures that websites are visually and contextually relevant to a global audience.

Community Support 

Framer boasts a highly engaged and active community where users can quickly seek help, share projects, and get feedback. This community-driven support adds an extra assistance layer, with multiple channels to connect with other users and the Framer team.

Additional Features 

Pre-built Elements and Components

Framer offers pre-built design elements and components that speed up development. 

Privacy-First Analytics

On the Pro plan, Framer provides built-in analytics focusing on user privacy, giving you insights into traffic without sacrificing data protection. 

Integrations Library

The platform supports integrations with popular services like YouTube, Mailchimp, HubSpot, Calendly, and more. 

Templates

With over 1,000 free and paid templates, Framer’s growing library offers high-quality options to jumpstart your website design. 

Real-Time Collaboration 

Framer supports multiple designers working on a project simultaneously, making it ideal for team-based workflows. 

Accessibility

The platform provides the tools to ensure your website is accessible to all users. 

Staging and Versioning

Mistakes happen, but Framer’s versioning feature allows you to revert to previous versions effortlessly. 

Code Overrides

For those needing more customization, Framer allows custom code overrides to expand its capabilities beyond the built-in features. 

Framer offers a comprehensive toolset for building modern, high-performance websites with minimal friction. Whether you're a designer looking for ease of use or a developer seeking customization options, Framer balances simplicity and power.

Webflow or Framer, How Do They Compare?

woman on a laptop - Framer Design

Framer and Webflow are two popular design and development tools, each catering to slightly different needs but with some overlap. Let’s break them down at a glance to see how they compare: 

Webflow is the clear frontrunner regarding user base, with over 720,000 websites built using the platform, compared to Framer’s 17,000+. This makes Webflow a more established player in the space, but Framer is growing, especially among designers looking for something new and sleek.

Pricing Plans: Framer and Webflow Go Head-to-Head

Webflow offers a broader range of paid plans—seven in total—split between general sites and eCommerce, allowing for more flexibility based on your needs. On the other hand, Framer keeps it simpler with three site plans. 

Both platforms offer team collaborative plans, but Webflow has more detailed options, breaking it down into:

  • Freelancers
  • Agencies
  • In-house teams

Learning Resources: Webflow Takes the Lead

When it comes to learning and support, Webflow stands out. Its Webflow Academy, marketplace, forums, and extensive libraries provide users with many resources. Framer also has a community page and learning resources, but Webflow’s ecosystem is more comprehensive.

AI Features: Framer’s Cutting-Edge Functionality

Framer has integrated AI into its platform, which gives it an edge for those looking for cutting-edge functionality. Webflow has announced AI features but hasn’t fully rolled them out yet, so it’s something to watch for shortly.

Which Platform Is Right for You?

Webflow is more mature and robust, making it great for users who need versatility and a wide array of resources. Framer is ideal for designers who want a modern, intuitive platform with AI capabilities.

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Webflow Or Framer, Which Is The Better Tool?

woman on a laptop - Framer Design

Webflow is ideal for creating a fully functional, responsive website without writing code. It offers a powerful drag-and-drop visual editor, extensive templates, and robust features for hosting, scalability, and SEO. It's perfect for designers who want pixel-perfect control over a website's look and feel without dealing with complex back-end development. 

Webflow’s hosting infrastructure also ensures fast load times and optimal performance, making it an excellent choice for live websites that need to scale over time. For businesses that need SEO optimization, Webflow also provides built-in tools where design, performance, and SEO are key. It help your site rank well in search engines. 

Best for: 

  • Business websites
  • Portfolios
  • e-commerce platforms  

Strengths: 

  • No-code design
  • Scalability
  • Templates
  • Hosting
  • SEO capabilities.  

Framer: The Best Choice for Prototyping and Animation  

Framer is great for designers who prioritize interaction design and prototyping through JavaScript. 

It allows for more advanced:

If you're focused on building highly interactive prototypes or designs that push the boundaries of user experience, Framer's flexibility with coding gives you more creative freedom. However, it’s less suited for building large-scale production websites as it lacks some of the robust hosting and performance optimization tools Webflow offers. 

Best for: 

  • Designers or developers creating prototypes
  • Interactive websites that need intricate animations and custom interactions. 

Strengths: 

  • Advanced animations
  • Interaction design
  • Coding flexibility for more complex design elements  

When to Choose Webflow  

If you want an all-in-one solution for building, hosting, and managing websites with minimal coding, Webflow is likely the better choice. It’s particularly suited for those who need a balance between creative freedom and ease of use.  

When to Choose Framer  

If you prioritize creating highly interactive designs or are comfortable coding and need more control over animations, Framer may be the better fit. It’s a tool that excels in the prototyping phase or for projects where detailed interactions are a must.  

Verdict  

Go with Webflow if your focus is building a fully functioning, SEO-friendly website. 

Go with Framer if you need a platform focused on design freedom, animations, and complex prototypes. 

Webflow tends to be the more versatile choice for complete website development, while Framer excels in interactive design and prototyping.

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NUMI helps with:

  • Product design
  • Web design
  • Framer development
  • Webflow development
  • Mobile design
  • Prototyping
  • UX design
  • All of your startup's design needs!

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