Should you build your next site in Framer or Figma Sites? Both are no-code, both feel familiar, but there are real differences worth knowing before you start. Quick disclosure: nobody paid me for this, these are my own opinions, and yes I'm a heavy Framer user, but I'll keep it fair. I'll compare across four things: design, collaboration, publishing and scaling.

Design

Both are excellent and feel very similar, with a free-form canvas and one-click publishing. Framer feels a little more alive and interactive, where Figma Sites feels more static, essentially the traditional Figma workflow with a publish button bolted on. Framer's design pages are its answer to that, letting you explore earlier in your workflow. On animation, both use the same motion library, but Framer's UX and published output edge it. If you already know Figma's auto layout, you'll pick up Framer quickly.

Collaboration

Both have real-time, multi-person editing. Figma is a bit stronger on comments and feedback, where Framer's commenting is still fairly basic. For getting multiple people into one document, both work fine.

Publishing

This is where it gets interesting. On price, Figma Sites comes with a full seat (around $20/month) and lets you publish unlimited sites, you're not paying per site. Framer starts at $14/month, but you'll usually need Pro (around $42/month) for CMS or multi-page sites, and team members are billed separately. Figma wins on price.

But on capability, Framer pulls ahead. Framer has production-ready SEO settings, Figma's are very basic. Framer's CMS is advanced with dynamic filtering and reference fields, Figma's CMS is new and missing those. And performance is the big one: Figma Sites pages feel static and slow to load, where Framer feels like a real, polished, living website.

Scaling

A great website builder has to serve marketers, not just designers, and this is where Framer wins customers. Figma Sites is fine for a simple personal build, but hand it to a marketing person and they'll struggle, no A/B testing, no native forms, limited optimisation. Framer has the features a scalable marketing site actually needs.

The verdict

Both are great at what they set out to do. Figma Sites is solid for a personal portfolio or a simple one-pager when you just want to publish something. But for marketing sites, larger sites, or e-commerce, Framer is still the clear winner. Figma is a serious competitor though, and it'll be fascinating to watch where they take it.

Going with Framer or Figma Sites? I'd genuinely like to know.