Webflow vs Framer: A Comprehensive Comparison

Framer positioned itself as a direct competitor to Webflow. It promises fast and easy website building that anyone can do. Being a Webflow expert, I decided to give it a try and see how these platforms stack up against each other.

Let's compare Webflow vs Framer and see what they offer and how they differ, focusing on:

• A quick comparison and target users
• Ease of use
• CMS capabilities
• Available tools
• Templates
• SEO tools
• Customer & community support

Framer vs Webflow: A Quick Comparison

Before diving into details, here's a quick overview of these tools:

• Both Framer and Webflow offer design and development tools
• According to builtwith.com, Webflow powers over 720,000 websites, while Framer has just over 17,000 sites, highlighting Webflow's market dominance
• Webflow provides 7 paid site plans (4 general and 3 for ecommerce), compared to Framer's 3 site plans
• Both platforms offer collaborative team plans, but Webflow distinguishes between packages for freelancers/agencies and in-house teams, providing greater flexibility for growing organizations
• Framer includes a community page with several on-site learning resources, while Webflow's ecosystem is more comprehensive with Webflow Academy, Forum, Libraries, Marketplace, Apps and additional tools that better support teams and businesses

Who Should Use Webflow?

^{Fast-growing businesses and startups}
‍Webflow's scalable architecture allows your website to grow alongside your business without rebuilding from scratch. This is especially important for fintech companies, where trust, compliance and performance are critical. I’ve written more about why you should consider Webflow for your Fintech Website

^{Marketing teams and content creators}
Webflow's robust CMS allows marketing teams to take full control of the website, streamlining all website marketing strategies

^{Businesses seeking comprehensive solutions}
Webflow supports the entire web development lifecycle, from design to deployment, making it the clear choice for businesses with evolving needs

^{Freelancers and agencies with diverse clients}
Those delivering professional-grade websites for clients will benefit from Webflow's powerful design capabilities combined with extensive functionality

^{Teams requiring collaborative workflows}
Webflow's team permissions and roles system enables seamless collaboration between designers, developers and content creators

^{Companies planning for long-term digital presence}
Webflow's enterprise-ready features make it future-proof for organizations with ambitious growth plans

Who Should Use Framer?

^{Individual designers and small teams
‍}Good for creating high-fidelity prototypes and visually stunning websites

^{Small businesses with limited needs}
Suitable for establishing an online presence with aesthetically pleasing designs

^{Prototypers and UX/UI designers
‍}Framer works well for creating detailed prototypes and user flows

^{Design-first projects}
If the primary goal is to develop a visually attractive and interactive website without complex functionality

Ease of Use + Interface Overview

Framer's interface reminds me of traditional design tools, such as Photoshop, as it even incorporates the concept of layers. This leads me to conclude: Framer is more oriented towards designers, while Webflow could be seen as more of a development tool.

Even though Framer has plenty of functionalities, it also comes with out-of-the-box solutions for designers. You don't have to be a professional designer to explore various possibilities and even leverage custom code.

That said, Framer is not easy to learn. Even though I feel very comfortable with Webflow, I had trouble navigating Framer's website designing and building tool.

Objectively speaking, the learning curve with Webflow Designer is steeper compared to Framer. In both cases, you'll have to understand web design and development principles. However, this investment in learning pays dividends for growing companies—the level of customization offered by Webflow is much higher, which means you can create more sophisticated, scalable websites that truly represent your brand and meet complex business requirements.

Here are some things I noticed testing Webflow vs Framer design tools side-by-side:

• Webflow automatically puts items into a container. You'll have to do it manually in Framer
• Framer doesn't have the class concept, meaning you'll have to set things individually, which becomes increasingly time-consuming as your project scales
• You'll need to create separate components in Framer for different states. For instance, if you want a button to change color on hover, Webflow allows you to do that on an individual level, whereas Framer needs you to create a different component
• Animations are limited in Framer. Webflow allows you to create a range of custom interaction and animations, giving your site a more professional, engaging feel

CMS Capabilities in Framer and Webflow

Webflow and Framer have a similar approach to CMS at first glance. Like in Webflow, you just need to create a new collection, such as a blog and start adding items to it.

However, Webflow clearly pulls ahead when it comes to content management—especially crucial for growing companies with expanding content needs. The number of collection fields is significantly larger in Webflow, giving you more options. Besides the standard options like plain text, formatted text, links and images, Webflow also offers more complex fields, such as reference and multi-reference, that allow you to reference other collections.

This cross-reference capability is a game-changer for scaling businesses. It creates powerful, interconnected CMS collections, improved user experience and overall better website functionality that grows alongside your business. While it may require thoughtful planning and potentially a Webflow developer to implement, the resulting system will support your content strategy for years to come.

Available Tools

Framer is essentially a single tool that you can use for building your website and managing your CMS items—a limitation that becomes apparent as your team grows.

Webflow, on the other hand, is more robust and team-friendly, offering two main tools: Webflow Designer and Webflow Editor. Designer is the main tool, where you determine your site's appearance and set everything up, including animations, logic, code and more. You can create CMS collections and add items through Designer.

Editor, a standout feature for growing teams, can be accessed directly from your site. For instance, if I want to publish a blog, I'll just type ?edit next to flow.ninja and will be able to edit content directly on the site. Editor also lets me access CMS items and add new ones.

This separation of roles is perfect for scaling companies: imagine having three different writers working on your blog. Each of them can have editing access and be able to add blog posts in your blogs CMS collection through Editor, without being able to accidentally break your website design. For all additional edits to the website and its structure, your development team would use Webflow Designer. This permission-based workflow is invaluable as your team expands.

Templates for Framer and Webflow

Both Framer and Webflow use templates, but Webflow's marketplace is vastly more extensive.

Webflow has its official templates pages, where you can find highly customizable templates for various industries and niches. There are currently 2,000+ templates for Webflow, compared to just hundreds for Framer. This means growing businesses are much more likely to find a starting point that aligns with their industry and needs, saving valuable development time.

While both platforms offer free and premium templates, Webflow's options are more robust and business-ready, giving fast-growing companies a significant head start.

SEO Tools

For businesses looking to grow, SEO is non-negotiable and Webflow excels in this area. You can easily make redirects, set global canonicals and even have Webflow automatically create your sitemap.

If you need to manually add code for page canonicalization, schema markup, pagination and more, you can do so easily by picking the page where you want to implement it and adding custom code in the head section. Most importantly, Webflow writes clean code and allows you to minify JS and other code to optimize the site—critical factors for search engine rankings.

Framer offers similar basic SEO options, including redirections, canonicals, metadata and sitemap generation. Its built-in GDPR-compliant analytics is a nice touch, though Webflow's integrations with professional analytics tools provide more depth for growing businesses.

The truth is that neither of these builders can give you a 100% great SEO-optimized site if you don't consider SEO principles while designing. However, Webflow's technical foundation gives businesses a stronger starting position in search results.

Available Resources for Webflow and Framer

For scaling companies, educational resources and community support are vital as your team expands. Webflow decisively wins this category with Webflow University—a comprehensive, free learning platform that can transform team members into Webflow experts. While it requires time and dedication, this investment creates self-sufficient teams capable of managing your digital presence.

Webflow's global community dwarfs Framer's, giving you access to conferences, webinars and an active Community Forum. Webflow even offers official certification exams, allowing you to verify your team's expertise or find qualified professionals when expanding.

The recently launched Webflow Marketplace provides a rich ecosystem of libraries, apps, experts, templates and showcases, all valuable resources for growing businesses seeking to extend their website's functionality without reinventing the wheel.

Framer's community, while growing, simply can't match the depth and breadth of Webflow's ecosystem. For businesses planning for scale, Webflow's robust support network provides peace of mind and resources for continued growth.

Conclusion

While both Webflow and Framer are powerful website builders, Webflow is clearly the superior choice for teams, scaling and fast-growing companies. Its robust CMS, collaborative tools, extensive marketplace and strong community support create an ecosystem that grows alongside your business.

As your company expands, you'll appreciate Webflow's permission-based workflows, advanced customization options and enterprise-ready features that simply aren't available in Framer. The initial learning curve is steeper, but the long-term benefits for scaling organizations are undeniable.

As I said earlier, the best tool is the one that aligns with your business goals. The Flow Ninja team chose Webflow precisely because of its superiority for growing businesses and we're currently one of the top Webflow agencies in the world. In addition to initial design and development, I offer ongoing partnerships to clients, providing regular website maintenance, design and development support that evolves with their needs.

Feel free to reach out if you want a professional, scalable website built on Webflow.

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