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 Strapi
We are the Framer to Strapi migration experts
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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 Strapi
Key advantages
If you’re the kind of team that likes to get your hands dirty with real code instead of fighting a bloated enterprise UI, Strapi will feel like home. It’s open-source, customisable, and developer-centric. You get full access to the codebase, no licensing paywalls, and the freedom to shape your CMS exactly the way you want it.
It is flexible. You can use React, Vue, Angular, mobile apps, and smart displays to push content. And despite being dev-leaning, it still gives you GUI-based drag-and-drop schema generation, which means you can spin up content models fast without digging into JSON files every five minutes.
Node.js driven architecture
Built on Node.js, Strapi plugs straight into the modern JavaScript ecosystem. If your team already lives in JS-land, Strapi fits right in.
Seamless web technology integration
Pick your poison React, Vue, or Angular. Strapi plays nicely with all of them, making it easy to ship content.
Highly modular approach
Every part of Strapi is built like Lego. Add what you need, remove what you don’t, and customise endlessly. It’s great if you love building your CMS exactly your way instead of wrestling with rigid templates.
RESTful API flexibility
Out of the box, Strapi generates clean REST APIs that are easy to consume, easy to extend, and easy to customise. Ideal for multi-channel content delivery without rewriting half your backend.
Supports GraphQL APIs
With its GraphQL plugin, you get structured queries, reduced over-fetching, and a nicer developer experience with zero hacking required.
Flexible content management
Strapi lets you model content however you want, from simple pages to complex, relational structures. Combined with a drag-and-drop schema builder, it gives teams full control without feeling boxed in.
Common questions
Framer to Strapi migration FAQs
Answers to the most common questions about Framer to Strapi 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.
What is Strapi used for?
Strapi is an open-source headless CMS built on Node.js. Teams use it to manage content and serve it to websites, mobile apps, and other frontends through REST or GraphQL APIs. It's popular with JavaScript developers who want full control over their CMS without paying SaaS fees. Common use cases include marketing sites, blogs, e-commerce product catalogues, and multi-channel content delivery. It works well when you have dedicated developers on the team. Without them, it gets painful quickly.
How much does Strapi cost?
Strapi's Community Edition is free and self-hosted. That sounds great until you factor in hosting ($20-100+/month depending on traffic), database costs, backups, and the developer time to maintain it all. Strapi Cloud's Essential plan is $18/month per project, Pro is $90/month, and Scale is $450/month, each with higher entry, seat, and API limits. Enterprise Edition is custom pricing and adds SSO, audit logs, and review workflows. The hidden cost is always developer time. We've seen "free" Strapi setups cost $500-1,000/month in maintenance hours alone.
What are the best Strapi alternatives?
Sanity is our top recommendation for teams leaving Strapi. You get a managed platform with no server maintenance, real-time collaboration, and a content studio that non-technical editors can actually use. Contentful is another option if you want a large plugin ecosystem, though it's more expensive. If the self-hosted aspect of Strapi matters to you, Directus is worth a look. It gives you a similar open-source approach with a more polished admin interface.
Can I migrate from Strapi to a managed CMS?
Yes, and we do this regularly. We export your Strapi content types and entries through the API, then map them to the target platform's schema. Most Strapi-to-Sanity migrations take 2-4 weeks. The content itself transfers cleanly. The harder part is usually replicating custom controllers, middleware, and lifecycle hooks that teams built into Strapi. We rebuild that logic in the frontend or through serverless functions, so you're not losing functionality in the move.
Is Strapi good for production websites?
It can work, but self-hosting a CMS for production means you're responsible for uptime, scaling, security patches, and database management. Every Strapi version upgrade risks breaking custom plugins. We've rescued several production sites that went down because a Strapi update conflicted with a custom controller. If you don't have a dedicated DevOps person, we'd steer you toward a managed CMS like Sanity where infrastructure is handled for you and your team can focus on content.
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