Framer

Framer is a visual website builder aimed squarely at designers. Its canvas, interaction model, and keyboard shortcuts are intentionally close to Figma, which makes it a natural next step for designers who want to publish real websites without handing off to a developer.

The design canvas supports free-form layout with auto-layout stacks, component libraries, shared styles, and a rich set of built-in elements, with pixel-level control over spacing, typography, color, and breakpoints. The published output is a React application rather than static HTML, which enables smooth client-side transitions and animation. Animations and interactions such as scroll-triggered effects, parallax, entrance effects, hover states, and page transitions are all configurable from the canvas without code.

Framer CMS provides a no-code content layer for blogs, case studies, team pages, and other structured content. Items can be filtered, searched, and paginated, and the CMS is reachable through a REST API for headless use. AI features cover page generation from text prompts, image generation in the canvas, and copywriting help, so you can get a first draft of a site quickly and then refine it. Localization supports multi-language sites with separate content per locale, AI translation, and locale-aware routing.

Framer is deliberately scoped to websites and landing pages: it has no user authentication, backend logic, or relational database, so dynamic features come from external tools such as Airtable, Notion, or custom APIs through the CMS API or embeds. Published sites run on Framer's global CDN with automatic SSL, and the Pro plan adds a staging environment and branching with previews.