Case Study
View Case StudyTray.ai
Migrating hundreds of thousands of pages, re-platforming and extending for the leading composable AI integration platform
From Framer to Builder.io
We are the Framer to Builder.io migration experts
Last verified:
Challenges with Framer
Key pain points
Framer looks incredible until you ask it to behave like a real CMS. The moment you go beyond a tiny blog or a five-page marketing site, the cracks show fast.
The CMS is bare-bones, the editor eats half your screen. Let's not forget the slow previews, sticky panels, and random bugs that make you question your life choices.
And then there’s the pricing. The entry-level CMS plan caps you at one collection, and once you start getting traffic or adding more collections, you move into $20–$40+ per collection per month territory. Framer simply isn’t built for deep structures, complex logic, or anything resembling enterprise workflows. If you’re already knee-deep in a Framer setup and not sure whether to scale, switch, or salvage, reach out to us. We’ll help you figure out the smartest path forward (and save you from the pain).
Basic CMS
Framer’s CMS works for blogs and small sites, but anything bigger starts to feel cramped. If you are looking for complex structures, relationships, or enterprise-level content operations, you’ll hit the walls quickly.
Not built for serious eCommerce
It can handle a simple store, but anything custom, multi-variant, or large-scale becomes a hackathon. If you’re planning real eCommerce, you’ll want something sturdier.
Only friendly for designers
If you’ve never touched design tools, the UI has a learning curve, and there’s no deep tutorial to hold your hand. You’re on your own after the basics.
Limited advanced features
Things like user roles, workflows, or deep automation are difficult on Framer. Great for designers; less great for anyone who needs serious operational features.
Small plugin ecosystem
The community is growing, but nowhere near Webflow or mature CMS platforms. If you need niche integrations or extensions, expect roadblocks or custom work.
Not suited for complex or multi-language sites
As soon as you need structured data, heavy localisation, or custom code, Framer starts to feel restrictive. Headless CMS platforms handle this far better.
Benefits of Builder.io
Key advantages
Builder.io occupies a unique spot in the headless CMS landscape. It is not really a traditional headless CMS in the way that Sanity or Contentful are. It is more of a visual page builder with headless capabilities bolted on. That distinction matters because if your marketing team needs to ship landing pages fast without filing Jira tickets, Builder.io genuinely delivers on that promise. The drag-and-drop editor is solid, and the ability to register your own React components so that non-developers can compose pages from your actual design system is a legitimately powerful idea.
Where Builder.io really shines is in bridging the gap between developers and marketing teams. You build the components, register them with Builder, and then hand the keys over. Marketers can assemble pages, run A/B tests, and publish without touching code. For agencies like ours, this means fewer "can you just move this banner" tickets and more time spent on actual engineering work.
The framework support is also genuinely broad. Next.js, React, Angular, Vue, Svelte, Qwik, SolidJS, and React Native all have SDKs. If you are running a modern JavaScript stack, Builder.io probably has an integration for it. The AI features they have been shipping are interesting too, though still early days in terms of real production reliability.
Visual drag-and-drop editor
The visual editor lets non-technical users build and edit pages using your actual codebase components. It is one of the better implementations of visual editing in the headless space.
Custom component registration
Developers can register their own React, Vue, or Angular components so editors drag and drop real design system pieces rather than generic blocks.
A/B testing and personalisation built in
Native experimentation tools let marketing teams run split tests and personalise content without needing a separate optimisation platform.
Broad framework support
SDKs for Next.js, React, Angular, Vue, Svelte, Qwik, SolidJS, and React Native mean you are not locked into a single frontend framework.
Marketing team autonomy
Content and marketing teams can ship landing pages, campaign pages, and promotions independently, which frees up developer time for product work.
Structured and visual content modes
Builder.io supports both structured data models for developer-driven content and visual page building for marketing-driven content, giving teams flexibility in how they work.
Common questions
Framer to Builder.io migration FAQs
Answers to the most common questions about Framer to Builder.io migration
How much does Framer cost for a real website?
Framer's free plan is heavily restricted (2 pages, framer.site subdomain, Framer branding). The Mini plan is $5/month (billed yearly), Basic is $15/month, and Pro is $30/month. Where costs escalate is the CMS. The basic CMS plan limits you to 1 collection, and adding more collections pushes you into $20-$40+ per collection per month. For a site with a blog, case studies, and a team directory (three collections), you're looking at $90-$150/month before any custom domain or analytics add-ons. That's not cheap for what is essentially a visual website builder. Compare that to a headless CMS on a free tier plus $20/month Vercel hosting, and the math starts working against Framer quickly.
Can you move a Framer site to a headless CMS without losing the design?
Yes, and we've done this for several clients. The design itself translates well to a modern frontend because Framer sites are essentially CSS layouts with animations. We rebuild the visual design in Next.js (or whatever framework fits), which usually produces a faster, more performant version of the same site. CMS content exports from Framer's collections through their API, though the data structures are simple so the migration is straightforward. Animations need manual recreation using a library like Motion for React, but the results are typically better than Framer's output. The whole process takes 4-8 weeks for a typical marketing site.
What are the best alternatives to Framer for a growing company?
It depends on what you're outgrowing. If you want to keep the visual editing experience, Webflow offers more CMS depth and ecommerce capabilities, though it has its own scaling limitations. If you want full control, a headless CMS (Sanity is our pick) paired with Next.js gives you unlimited flexibility in content modelling, design, and performance. Builder.io is worth considering if your marketing team needs to build pages independently, though the vendor lock-in is a concern. For most growing companies, we recommend the headless CMS plus custom frontend route because it scales without platform ceilings and your design is never limited by what a visual builder supports.
When should you stop using Framer and switch to something else?
Three signals tell you it's time. First, your CMS needs exceed what collections can handle. If you need relational content, structured data beyond flat lists, or more than a handful of collection types, Framer's CMS will hold you back. Second, performance. Framer sites can get sluggish with heavy animations and large pages, and you have limited control over optimisation. Third, development workflows. If your team includes developers who want version control, CI/CD pipelines, and the ability to write custom logic, Framer's no-code environment becomes a constraint. We've migrated Framer sites for companies that hit all three of these walls simultaneously, usually around the 20-30 page mark with 3+ content types.
Can you migrate from Builder.io without losing your page designs?
Yes, but it takes work. Builder.io's visual editor stores page compositions as JSON that references your registered components. Those component registrations are tightly coupled to Builder's SDK, so you can't just export and import elsewhere. What you can preserve is the design itself. We extract the page structures, map them to equivalent components in the new system, and rebuild the composition layer. The visual output stays the same. Typical timeline is 6-10 weeks depending on how many page types and custom components are involved. The biggest time sink is usually recreating A/B test variants and personalisation rules that lived inside Builder's platform.
What does Builder.io actually cost?
Builder.io's free tier gives you 1 user and basic features, which is enough to evaluate but not to run a real project. The Growth plan starts at $49/month and includes more seats and content types. Beyond that, pricing gets opaque. Teams needing roles, scheduling, and higher API limits are pushed toward custom Enterprise plans that typically start in the $500-$1,000/month range. We've heard from freelancers and small agencies who were caught off guard by charges after exceeding limits on the Growth plan. Builder.io also charges per "impression" on higher tiers, which means your costs scale with traffic in ways that aren't always predictable.
How does Builder.io compare to a traditional headless CMS?
Builder.io is a visual page builder first and a CMS second. That distinction matters. If your primary goal is letting marketing teams build landing pages without developer involvement, Builder.io does that well. If you need structured content modelling, editorial workflows, multi-language support, or content that powers more than just web pages, a traditional headless CMS is a better fit. Builder.io's SDK embeds deeply into your frontend code, which creates vendor lock-in that most headless CMS platforms avoid. We typically recommend Builder.io only when the use case is narrow: high-volume landing page creation for marketing teams. For everything else, a headless CMS with a proper content model gives you more flexibility long-term.
What's the main risk of building on Builder.io?
Vendor lock-in. Builder.io's SDKs are woven into your component rendering layer, which means migrating away requires rebuilding how your pages are composed and rendered. That's not a content migration, it's an architecture migration. With a typical headless CMS, your content is accessible through standard APIs and your frontend is independent. With Builder.io, the two are intertwined. We've worked with teams who spent months extracting themselves from Builder.io because every page template needed to be recreated outside the platform. If you're evaluating Builder.io, go in with eyes open about the exit cost.
Get in touch
Fill out the form below and we'll get back to you
