Polished Templates or Design Freedom?
Short answer: Squarespace is the quicker choice for a simple, template-based site with built-in commerce or bookings; Framer is the better choice for a distinctive B2B or SaaS marketing site that grows with CMS content, localization and testing.
TL;DR: our take:
Sam Diener
Creative Director & Co-Founder at Trueform
Framer
Framer combines a visual design canvas, structured CMS, managed hosting, and publishing in one platform. Teams can create a custom responsive experience, refine typography, layout, motion, and metadata directly on the page, then publish without handing everyday marketing changes to a development queue.
Moving over? See how we migrate sites to Framer, with a 301 redirect for every URL and zero downtime.
Primary approach
Design-first website platform for distinctive marketing experiences
Design workflow
Direct visual design, content, and publishing in one canvas
Responsive control
Fine-grained layouts and breakpoints designed around the experience
Content and commerce
Structured CMS and focused integrations for content-led websites
Publishing
Managed hosting, optimization, and publishing built in
Best for
Design-led brands that need a site to evolve with their story
What does Framer do differently from Squarespace?
Squarespace gets you started; Framer helps you stand out.
Is Framer more than a template editor?
Framer merges craft and publishing.
Build a site around your actual brand
Use reusable sections, components, and responsive layouts to make the website feel intentional at every touchpoint—not merely customized.
Turn content into a designed experience
Structured CMS collections support case studies, updates, comparison pages, and campaigns while the visual presentation stays fully editable.
Keep the momentum after launch
The same team can update messaging, publish new pages, and refine the experience as the business learns—without starting from a template again.
When to use which
Use Squarespace when:
You need a straightforward site with templates, commerce, bookings, or scheduling tools ready to configure.
Speed to a polished online presence matters more than bespoke visual direction.
Your team is comfortable working within a template and does not need frequent design-led iteration.
The site is primarily a small-business utility rather than a core brand and marketing channel.
Use Framer when:
Your website needs to express a distinctive brand, not just present information.
Campaigns, conversion pages, and product stories need regular, polished iteration.
Designers and marketers should own the presentation and publishing workflow.
You want managed hosting, performance, SEO controls, and CMS content in one focused platform.
Coming from a different stack?
Compare Framer to:
Astro
Short answer: Astro is an open-source framework developers use to build fast, content-driven sites in code; Framer is a visual platform where marketers design, edit and publish the site themselves. Choose Astro if engineers own the website, Framer if marketing should.
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Craft CMS
Short answer: choose Craft CMS when developers need a fully bespoke content model and own the templates; choose Framer when marketing should design, edit and publish pages without a release. Both can run a serious company site; the difference is who owns change.
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Sanity
Short answer: Sanity is the better fit when one content source has to feed several apps, sites and channels through APIs; Framer is the better fit when the website is the main channel and marketing should ship pages without a front-end release.
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OpenAI Codex
Short answer: OpenAI Codex helps developers write and change code; Framer is where a design and marketing team builds, edits and publishes the website itself. Use Codex for custom software, Framer for a marketing site the whole team keeps improving.
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Claude Code
Short answer: Claude Code helps developers explore, write and change code from the terminal; Framer is where designers and marketers build, edit and publish the website themselves. Use Claude Code for custom software, Framer for a marketing site your team keeps improving.
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Replit
Short answer: Replit is a browser-based workspace for building and deploying software; Framer is a visual platform for designing and publishing marketing websites. Pick Replit for an app or internal tool, Framer for a polished site your marketing team runs.
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Lovable
Short answer: Lovable turns prompts into app prototypes; Framer is built to design, publish and keep refining a company marketing website. Use Lovable to test a product idea, Framer for the site that sells it.
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Wix
Short answer: Wix makes it easy to get a site online with templates and built-in business tools; Framer is the better choice for a distinctive B2B or SaaS marketing site your team keeps shaping, testing and localizing.
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Contentful
Short answer: Contentful is a headless CMS for composable, multi-channel content and needs a separate front end; Framer combines visual design, CMS and hosting for fast, search-ready marketing sites. Miro is moving its marketing site from a complex headless setup to Framer with us.
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WordPress
Short answer: WordPress is free, open-source software you host, update and extend with plugins; Framer is a visual platform with hosting, CDN and CMS built in. Choose WordPress for full server control or a plugin-heavy setup, Framer for a fast marketing site your team edits without maintenance.
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Webflow
Short answer: both are visual builders with a CMS and hosting. Framer works like a design tool, with localization, A/B testing and analytics built in; Webflow works like a visual developer environment with CSS-level control. Gather moved from Webflow to Framer with us in two months.
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