Framer is the new kid on the block that has everyone asking, “Framer vs Webflow?” We asked ourselves that exact same question before migrating our custom-developed website. We eventually chose to go with Framer as it is great for design-driven websites. Vynxlabs being a website design and development agency, Framer felt like a natural choice. The original idea behind choosing Framer was the speed at which we could update our website since we would only have to worry about design and not coding. Vynxlabs is a small business, and like other small businesses, we prioritize our clients over ourselves.
Even though we didn’t have to worry about coding out new pages, we still needed to design them. Trying to design new pages in between doing client work and making upgrades to our on-platform made it a slow process—so slow that we thought to ourselves, “Why don’t we use our own website-building platform, Site Stitcher?”
We’ll compare these two tools and explain why we ultimately switched to using our own website builder instead.
Our experience with Framer
Framer is an amazing tool. There are plenty of things that we liked that made the decision to switch hard.
What we liked about Framer
Even though Framer is still considered a new tool, it has plenty to love.
Website design and creation at the same time
The best thing Framer has to offer is that you can design and create the website at the same time. Any designer who is familiar with Figma can quickly pick up Framer and start building websites at the same time that they design them within a few days or even the same day. There is no need for a developer anymore to build a beautiful website. There is no longer miscommunication between the design and how it is developed. No longer did we need to figure out if what was created in the design was possible to be made with code.
Framer is truly great for design-driven websites.
CMS Collections
First, let’s quickly explain what CMS collections are. CMS collections are, well, collections of structured data. To put it simply, you build out your own form with all the content fields you’ll need for a page.
CMS collections come in handy in almost any use case that you can think of. Some of the more obvious ones are blog posts, case studies, and services. Your templatized pages using these collections. For bigger businesses, this is great to let your content editors create new pages without them knowing how to design, or even know the tools themselves. Anytime there is a core part of your business that can be structured, a CMS collection is a great solution.
At Vynxlabs we used the CMS collections for our case studies.
Fast websites
Something that many of the popular website builders fall victim to is slow websites with bloat. The main culprit is something known as dynamic rendering, where Framer makes use of server-side rendering and caching instead.
Think about it this way. Imagine that you are going to get something to eat. Dynamic websites work like a hibachi restaurant. You visit the restaurant, sit down, and the chef cooks your food in front of you. It’s cool to see, but it takes some time. Compare this to server-side rendering plus caching. Imagine that you go to a different restaurant and order the same meal that you did at the hibachi place. The difference this time is that the moment you order, you get your meal. Now is one better than the other, not necessarily, but one is for sure faster.
In the world of websites, speed does matter, and a website that loads fast will always be more enjoyable than one that takes up many seconds to load.
Introducing Site Stitcher
At the start of this post, we mentioned that we moved onto our own website-building platform, Site Stitcher. Chances are that you have never heard of Site Stitcher, so let us fix that.
What is Site Stitcher?
We keep mentioning it, and here it goes again. Site Stitcher is our own website-building platform. It is the platform that we use when delivering websites in our hybrid service of “Website in 7 days”
Site Stitcher is created from the ground up with the busy small business owner in mind. The person who might only have 30 minutes or 1 hour free per week to keep their website updated. It is a purposefully trimmed-down version of the popular website builders you already know and probably have used. Those website builders were created so that anyone can build a website. We created ours so that swamped business owners can have an easy-to-manage website.
Some of the key features Site Stitcher has are:
- Server-side rendering and caching
- Automatic image optimization
- Visual DIY website editor
- Form Builder
- Color and font customization
- Service page management
- Blogging
- Event/marketing pages
- site-wide notification banner
- Testimonial management
- Unlimited pages
- And more…
Why we made the switch
Framer is a great tool, and it was bittersweet to migrate. We believe that we have gained more than we lost.
Efficiency
Efficiency is the main driving reason we made the switch to our own platform. With Framer you can build a truly custom website, the downside is that it is all custom. If we needed a new page, we had to design the page to be consistent with the rest of the website style. We wanted to start the blog that you are reading right now, but we would need to create the CMS collection for this and create a design to go with it. We would then need to link to the main site and also design the main blog landing page. We aren’t strangers to any of this, but it would be time-consuming and that time could be better spent marketing. Unfortunately, it doesn’t matter how beautiful a website is if no one knows that it exists.
Site Stitcher already has the blogging feature, a blog landing page section with pagination, and easy page link management. It took us less than 5 minutes to start blogging using Site Stitcher, vs the days or weeks of design and development it would have taken us to design and create our blog in Framer. Trying to keep our website up to date while juggling client work is the thing that makes this difficult.
Ease of use
Something that makes Site Stitcher great is how fast you can update information and create new pages once you learn the platform. Our website migration took us less than 7 days to complete. Not only did we recreate the existing website, but we also added extra pages.
We set up our colors and our fonts. From there, it was just about putting content on the page and choosing the sections that best fit the content and information we were trying to place.
Scalability
Site Stitcher has simplicity at its core, but still has advanced features for when your business is ready. This creates the perfect combination for having a website that can grow with your business.
Creating a brand new page with Site Stitcher literally takes two clicks. From there creating a page is all about choosing the section that best suits the content you want to place on the page. There is no worrying about designing a new section or making sure that the styling matches the brand. Pages can be placed in folders to keep them organized just like your files on your computer or laptop. No matter how many pages your website has, it will still be fast because of the server-side rendering, caching, and image optimization.
Side-by-side comparison: Framer vs. Site Stitcher
Ease of use
Framer has a designer-focused interface. If you have never used a design tool like Figma, or know how to code a website, Framer could take weeks of learning the tool before you start making anything that could stand on its own. That being said, if you have used a tool like Figma or coded websites, you could pick up Framer in a few days.
Site Stitcher’s interface was created with the non-technical business owner in mind. It only takes a few hours to completely learn the tool. Someone could be expanding their website within the same day they receive it with Site Stitcher.
Customization
When it comes to complete flexibility and custom websites Framer wins hands down. Framer gives complete customization of the websites. Site Stitcher does have extensive customization, but it is more structured. You have complete freedom to choose your website’s fonts and colors. Pages are built through section components, instead of hand-creating each section like you would have to with Framer.
Site Stitcher isn’t trying to be the next Framer, WordPress, Wix, etc. With Site Stitcher you do give up some flexibility and customizability, but in return, you have a website that is many times easier to keep updated and manage.
Hosting & Deployment
Framer and Site Stitcher are very similar in this category. With Framer, hosting is included as part of the monthly plans. We host all of our Site Stitcher created sites.
Deployment (making your changes hit the live site) works similarly for both. With Framer, you can make changes to the website and publish them only when you are ready. Site Stitcher works in a similar fashion. Both Framer and Site Stitcher have the ability to turn pages into “Drafts” which means they won’t show up on the live site.
Is Site Stitcher right for you?
Every business situation is unique and we can’t possibly account for everyone. Let’s break down the common situations where Site Stitcher does make sense.
If you value simplicity over complex flexibility
The biggest about Site Stitcher could be seen as its biggest con depending on you you ask. Site Stitcher is simple. This simplicity is what empowers someone who isn’t very technical to still have to complete control over their website and its content. There is no need to talk with a developer or designer when you want to build a new page for a new service, promotion, or anything else that you can think of! Site Stitcher comes with predesigned sections that you can stitch together to build your pages. You have to try to make something look bad with Site Stitcher.
If you have an administrative assistant that manages the website
If you already have someone that is managing your website, Site Stitcher might be for you. The simplicity of the tool makes it possible to trust a non-technical employee, such as an administrative assistant, with keeping your website’s information updated, creating marketing pages, and responding to website form submissions.
Site Stitcher can take your website manager from making purely maintenance-style updates to empowering them to create marketing pages for holiday sales, events, and more!
If you are a larger enterprise and want to unify all your websites
It’s common for larger businesses and enterprises to have many different websites. Keeping information up to date on each one can be tedious if each one is built using a different website builder or template. With Site Stitcher all of those websites could be brought in under a single platform. Training and SOPs can be streamlined when you have all websites built using the same tool. You’ll have the full permissions control that you’ve come to expect with enterprise software.
How to get your own Site Stitcher website
If the simplicity and easy-to-use nature of Site Stitcher sounded like what you were missing, start a conversation with us! Currently the only way the only to get access to our platform is to be one of our clients.
All websites built as part of our website in 7 days service are built using Site Stitcher. Through our hybrid approach, you get:
- A custom website: We build out your initial website and create it with your business brand in mind. If you aren’t sure of your business brand we’ll help you create one.
- The tools to manage it yourself: Once you receive your brand new site, we give you the keys to the exact same tool that we used to build it. You will now have full control to create new pages and keep your website updated faster and easier than complicated DIY website builders.
- The support when you need it: We don’t just leave you to figure things out for yourself, we know how frustrating that is. At any time that you have a question or need help, you can send us a message and you’ll get help from a real person. We don’t use AI chatbots that only work half the time here.
