Framer

Introduction

Framer is a cutting-edge design and prototyping tool that has taken the tech industry by storm. The company has raised $33.3M in funding through seed and series funding, and its suite of products has won several awards for their innovative features and ease of use. Framer offers a range of products, including Framer Design, Framer X, Framer Motion, and Framer Web. These tools are designed to help designers turn their ideas into real finished products, making the design process more efficient than ever before.

TLDR

Framer is a design and prototyping tool that provides an innovative way of turning ideas into real finished products. The company offers a range of products including Framer Design, Framer X, Framer Motion, and Framer Web, all of which come with AI-powered features that make the design process more efficient. Framer is also known for its integration system that allows users to create their own custom integrations for ultimate control and customization. With a variety of pricing plans, Framer is accessible to all types of users, from hobbyists to businesses. If you're looking for similar tools, Sketch, InVision Studio, Adobe XD, and Figma are some of the popular alternatives to Framer.

Company Overview

Framer is a company that specializes in creating design and prototyping tools that can be used on various platforms. They have raised a total of $33.3M in funding through a combination of seed funding, Series A funding led by Accel, and Series B funding led by Atomico. The company's major goal is to help designers turn their ideas into real, finished products by providing them with tools that are easy to use, intuitive, and powerful.

FramerJS was the company's first product, which was created in 2014. It was a framework that allowed designers to use code to create animations and interactions, and it quickly became popular within the design community. Since then, Framer has released several other products, including Framer Design, Framer X, Framer Motion, and Framer Web.

Framer Design was launched in 2017 and was the first product that allowed designers to create and prototype their ideas in a single app. It included a canvas that made it easy to visualize designs and animations, and it quickly became popular within the design community. Framer X was launched in 2018, and it allowed designers to create and use React components right on the canvas. Framer Motion, also launched in 2018, allowed designers to create complex animations with ease. Framer Web was launched in 2020 and provided designers with the full Framer experience right in the browser, making collaboration and sharing easier than ever before.

Framer's tools are used by thousands of designers and developers around the world, and the company boasts an active community, with over 50 tutorials and free templates available. Their products are suitable for agencies, startups, and freelancers, but Framer also offers specific tools for businesses in the ecommerce, entertainment, health, landing page, mini, personal, photography, podcast, portfolio, splash, sidebar, startup, and 3D industry sectors.

Framer is also known for its artificial intelligence capabilities, which allow designers to quickly generate code or animations based on their designs. The company has won several awards for its innovative products, and their pricing is reasonable and competitive in the market.

Features

Freeform Canvas for Flexibility in Design

Express Your Creative Ideas with No Constraints

Framer's freeform canvas allows you to design on a familiar, free-form canvas that doesn't impose preset layouts or box models. This enables you to design in any way you like and gives you the flexibility to create unique designs specific to your needs and creativity. If you have used design tools like Adobe XD, Sketch or Figma before, you will find that the freeform canvas in Framer is similar to them, providing freedom and flexibility to create designs without limitations.

Copy and Paste Web Designs from Figma to Framer

Framer's copy and paste feature from Figma gives designers the convenience of transferring their designs from Figma to Framer without starting from scratch. With this feature, you can easily copy your designs from Figma, transfer them to Framer, and publish your design as an actual website without any manual rebuilding or coding. This feature saves time and effort and allows you to focus on the creative aspects of your work.

Design Layouts That Adapt to Any Size

Framer allows designers to visually set up breakpoints and create responsive designs that can adapt to different screen sizes using flexible grids and stacks, absolute positioning, and side-by-side view of breakpoints. Whether you are using a desktop, tablet, or mobile device, Framer makes it easy for you to create layouts that adapt to any size without constraint.

Powerful and Familiar Tools for Ultimate Website Design

Easily Insert Pre-made Pages, Headers, Footers, and Navigation Bars for Standard Layouts

Framer provides designer-friendly tools that allow you to create stunning websites with ease. You can easily insert pre-made pages, headers, footers, navigation bars, and common layouts to form a solid foundation for your Framer site. These pre-made layouts are customizable, giving you the flexibility to tweak them to fit your creative vision and ensure they align with your brand goals. With Framer, you can create an array of standard layouts like landing pages, portfolios, and teaser pages that are minimally styled and designed to make your site visually appealing and functional.

Effortlessly Style Every Layer

Framer allows you to style every layer on your site using simple property controls, such as fills, borders, and filters, even realistic shadows. You can use text styles and shared colors to style your pages consistently throughout your entire project. This feature ensures that you have the flexibility to style your website whichever way you like, while ensuring consistency across all elements on your website.

Create Stunning Animations with Few Clicks

Framer makes it easy to create stunning animations with just a few clicks. Whether you want to move between different pages or sections of your site, manage content for blog posts, job listings, or marketing pages, or manage website settings like passwords and custom domains, Framer has got you covered. With Framer's interactive patterns, you can create stunning animations tailored to your needs and creativity on any screen size.

Makes Design Easier with Stacks and Grids

Organize and Position Elements Quickly with Stacks and Grids

With Framer, you can organize and position elements quickly using the powerful Stacks and Grids feature. Stacks are groups of layers stacked vertically or horizontally while Grids are structured patterns of layers. These components enable you to ensure seamless and responsive design adaptable to different screen sizes. Framer's Stack and Grid helps designers to create clean, organized front-end designs and simplify layout structures with ease.

Layout Pinning for Smarter Layouts that Scale

Framer's Pinning feature enables designers to create smarter layouts that scale. With pinning, you can secure elements and sections in place, ensuring that they remain fixed when the viewport size changes. You can even put absolute elements inside stacks and grids and ignore the flow of things to pin them to a specific position. This innovation ensures that designers have the flexibility they need to create websites that stand out and align with their brand's goals.

Visible Breakpoints for Responsive Design

Framer makes it easy for designers to create responsive web designs with breakpoints that adapt to different screen sizes. Framer's breakpoints are visible on the canvas side-by-side, allowing you to compare and adapt to any screen size quickly. This feature ensures that you can create dynamic, responsive, and optimized designs that align with your brand's vision and boost your business's online presence.

Integrations

Framer offers a vast array of integrations out of the box including big names like Hubspot, Formitable, and Calendly. However, for users who need a service that isn't available by default, Framer provides a simple but efficient solution. With basic JavaScript and React skills, users can create their very own integration using Framer's component system.

Create Your Own Integration

Framer's component system allows users to turn services into components that can be later reused and shared with others. However, it's essential to note that services should only be turned into components if renders provide visual control over attributes like size and position. Otherwise, users can use a custom code snippet for everything else instead of turning the service into a component. For basic integrations, users can utilize Framer's embed component by pasting the js snippet directly into it, but for total customization and control purposes, users need to write a code like the one below.

Generic Ingredients Of Integration

Framer states that every integration has the same few ingredients: firstly, identifying the page with an ID, secondly, loading a JavaScript file from the integration with functions, and finally, inserting something into the page (HTML or an iframe) with a function. Framer provides a hypothetical example of a lead form service called BokForm.com to help users understand the components of an integration better. They explain that after signing up for the service, the users will receive instructions to add the service to the site.

How to Create a Component?

To convert the received instructions to a simple component, users can go to Component → Code and click the plus to create a new component. After that, replace the code with the new code, update it for the specific case, and add it to the canvas, configuring it as needed. Framer has made the process quite simple by providing easy-to-follow tutorials and instructions.

Advantages Of Framer's Integration System

Framer's integration system is designed to provide complete control and customization to users. It offers an array of integrations out of the box and allows users to create their own integration, which further helps them tailor their designs to specific requirements. The simplicity of Framer's component system ensures that users can manage components easily without having to deal with complex codes. Plus, Framer has a vast community that facilitates the sharing of components, treatments, and other helpful utilities.

Pricing

Framer offers a variety of pricing plans to suit different needs. You can start building your site for free, then upgrade to unlock more features. Let's take a closer look at the pricing options:

Free plan: This plan is suitable for hobby projects and includes the Design Editor and Framer banner. You can build and publish your website for free, and there are no limits on the number of pages. However, you can only receive up to 1,000 visitors per month.

Yearly $5 per month per site: This plan is ideal for landing pages and includes a custom domain, a Home + 404 page, and up to 1,000 visitors per month.

Yearly $15 per month per site: This plan is great for personal sites. It includes unlimited pages, a password protect feature, up to 1 CMS collection, and up to 10,000 visitors per month. However, there is a 10 page search limit.

Yearly $25 per month per site: This plan is suitable for bigger sites and includes analytics, staging, redirects, up to 10 CMS collections, and up to 100,000 visitors per month. There is also a 25 page search limit. You can optionally add editors to collaborate on paid sites.

Yearly $20 per month per editor: This plan is when you need custom limits and app features. It includes a team workspace, the ability to collaborate on paid sites, custom code across team projects, and a 7-day version history. There are also unlimited viewers included.

Yearly $15 per month: There is also the option for a mini site for $5 per month, basic site for $15 per month, or a pro site for $25 per month. Additionally, if you need multiple editors, you can add them for $20 per month each.

All paid plans include features such as onboarding, launch support, SEO & performance audit, a Slack channel with Framer, no hard hosting limits, reverse proxy support, premium infrastructure, custom application limits, a business contract, centralized yearly billing, confidentiality agreement, and advanced security.

If you are unsure which plan to choose, Framer also offers a free trial with no credit card required. You can publish for free and have unlimited projects with the free plan. Furthermore, Framer offers a refund policy that guarantees a refund within a certain timeframe if you are not satisfied with your purchase. You can easily manage your invoices and charges within your account settings. Paid plans are billed when moving from a Prototyping to a Site plan.

FAQ

1. What is Framer?

Framer is a company that specializes in creating design and prototyping tools that enable designers to turn their ideas into real, finished products. The company's tools are used by thousands of designers and developers worldwide and come with artificial intelligence capabilities that allow designers to quickly generate code or animations based on their designs.

2. What products does Framer offer?

Framer offers several products, including FramerJS, Framer Design, Framer X, Framer Motion, and Framer Web. FramerJS was the company's first product, launched in 2014, which allowed designers to create animations and interactions using code. Framer X was launched in 2018 and allows designers to create and use React components on the canvas. Framer Motion, also launched in 2018, enables designers to create complex animations with ease. Framer Web, launched in 2020, provides designers with the full Framer experience in the browser, making collaboration and sharing easier than ever before.

3. Who can use Framer's products?

Anyone can use Framer's products, whether you are an agency, start-up, freelancer, or business owner in the ecommerce, entertainment, health, landing page, mini, personal, photography, podcast, portfolio, splash, sidebar, startup, and 3D industry sectors. Framer offers specific tools for each of these sectors and has an active community with over 50 tutorials and free templates available.

4. What makes Framer's tools unique?

Framer's tools are unique because they are easy to use, intuitive, and powerful. They allow designers to create and prototype their ideas in a single app, making the design process more efficient. Additionally, the tools come with artificial intelligence capabilities, making it easier for designers to convert their designs into code or animations. The company's pricing is also competitive, making it accessible to anyone, regardless of the size of their business or project.

5. How has Framer been funded?

Framer has raised a total of $33.3M in funding through a combination of seed funding, Series A funding led by Accel, and Series B funding led by Atomico. The company's innovative products have won several awards, including the 2019 Fast Company Innovation by Design Awards and 2020 Webby Awards, cementing its position as a leader in the design industry.

Alternatives

If you're looking for alternatives to Framer's AI design tool, here are a few options:

Sketch

Sketch is a digital design tool for Mac users that allows users to create and edit UI designs with ease. It offers a simple and intuitive interface that enables users to create professional designs. While it does not offer AI-powered features, it is widely used by graphic designers and user interface designers around the world.

InVision Studio

InVision Studio is another popular design tool used by designers around the world. While it is not an AI-powered tool, it offers an intuitive interface and a range of features that allow users to create optimized UI designs. One of its key advantages is its compatibility with prototyping tools, making it a great option for UI designers who need to create interactive prototypes.

Adobe XD

Adobe XD is a design tool created by Adobe that offers a modern, intuitive interface that is easy to use. It allows users to create designs, wireframes, and prototypes with ease. While it does not offer AI-powered features like Framer, it is known for its wide range of features and tools that enable designers to create high-quality UI designs.

Figma

Figma is a cloud-based design tool that allows teams to work collaboratively to create high-quality designs. It offers a powerful range of features that allow designers to create UI designs, prototypes, and animations. While it does not offer AI-powered features like Framer, it is known for its robust design collaboration tools.