Framer Vendor Lock-In Explained: Why You Can't Leave (And How To)

What vendor lock-in actually means in Framer

Vendor lock-in is a simple concept: you build something on a platform, and then you cannot take it with you when you leave. In traditional software, lock-in usually means migration is painful but possible. In Framer, lock-in means something more absolute.

Framer does not export code. There is no "Download as HTML" button. There is no "Export to ZIP" option. There is no API endpoint that returns your site's source files. Your website, the one you spent weeks or months designing, exists only on Framer's servers. If you stop paying, it disappears. If Framer changes its pricing, you pay the new price or lose everything. If Framer shuts down a feature you depend on, you adapt or start over.

This is not a theoretical risk. It is the architecture of the product. Framer is a visual editor that renders your design into code on their infrastructure. You never see that code. You never touch it. You never own it.

That Reddit post captures the tension perfectly. Framer is genuinely good at what it does. The design experience is fast, fluid, and beautiful. But the moment you want to leave, you discover that "good design tool" and "good business decision" are not always the same thing. For a deeper look at all the ways this plays out, see our complete guide to Framer's limitations.

The three ways Framer locks you in

Lock-in in Framer is not a single problem. It is three problems that compound on each other, making the exit cost higher than most people realize when they sign up.

1. No code export

This is the big one. When you build a site in Framer, you are arranging visual components in a proprietary editor. Framer compiles those components into HTML, CSS, and JavaScript behind the scenes, but it never gives you those files. Your design exists only as a Framer project. You cannot download it, copy it, or move it to another hosting provider. If you want the same site outside of Framer, you have to rebuild it from scratch, or use a third-party export tool.

2. Proprietary CMS

If you use Framer's built-in CMS for blog posts, product pages, or any structured content, that data is locked in too. There is no CSV export. There is no API that lets you pull your content out in bulk. There is no integration with external CMS platforms. Every blog post, every collection item, every piece of content you entered manually into Framer's CMS lives only inside Framer. Moving it means copying and pasting, one item at a time. For sites with dozens or hundreds of CMS entries, this alone can take days. We wrote a full breakdown of this problem in our Framer CMS export guide.

3. Domain dependency

When you connect a custom domain to Framer, your DNS records point to Framer's infrastructure. This is standard for any hosted platform. But when combined with no code export and no CMS export, it creates a complete dependency chain. Your domain points to Framer. Your site only runs on Framer. Your content only exists in Framer. Cutting the cord means your domain points to nothing until you rebuild elsewhere.

What happens when you want to leave

Here is what the actual experience looks like. You have been using Framer for six months or a year. Maybe you have outgrown it. Maybe you need features it does not support. Maybe the pricing went up and you are looking at alternatives. You decide to move your site somewhere else.

Step one: you look for an export button. There is not one.

Step two: you search Framer's documentation. You find nothing about exporting code. You find articles about publishing, about custom domains, about team plans. Nothing about leaving.

Step three: you Google "how to export Framer site." You find Reddit threads full of people asking the same question. The answers are some combination of "you can't" and "try FramerExport."

Step four: you realize the scope of what you are facing. Your design cannot be exported. Your CMS content has to be manually copied. Your forms, integrations, and analytics need to be reconfigured on whatever new platform you choose. Your redirects, your SEO settings, your custom code embeds, all of it needs to be rebuilt.

That second post had 108 upvotes. It resonated because the frustration is universal. You do not feel lock-in when you sign up. You feel it when you try to leave. And by then, you have already invested the time, the content, and the design work that makes leaving expensive.

The practical options at this point are limited. You can screenshot your pages and try to rebuild them manually in another tool. You can hire a developer to recreate your site from scratch. Or you can use an export service that extracts your site's HTML, CSS, and JavaScript from the published version. Each option has trade-offs, but only one lets you keep your actual design.

The real cost of lock-in

Lock-in is not just an inconvenience. It has real, compounding costs that affect your business in ways that are easy to underestimate when you are starting out and easy to feel when you are stuck.

The comparison below is not hypothetical. These are the actual differences between staying on Framer and owning your code.

Consider the pricing angle alone. Framer's Pro plan costs $20/month, or $240/year. Their Mini plan is $10/month. These are not outrageous numbers. But when you own your code, you can host a static site on Vercel or Netlify for free. That is $240/year versus $0/year, every year, for as long as your site exists. Over five years, you save $1,200. And you get better performance, more control, and no risk of your site vanishing because you forgot to renew a subscription.

The performance angle matters too. Framer injects its own runtime JavaScript into every site. You cannot remove it. You cannot optimize it. You cannot lazy-load it differently. When you own your code, you control every byte that loads. You can strip out unused CSS, defer non-critical scripts, and optimize images exactly how you want. For businesses that depend on fast page loads, this is not optional. It is essential.

And then there is the existential risk. What happens if Framer gets acquired? What happens if they discontinue a feature you rely on? What happens if they double their prices? When you own your code, the answer to all of these questions is: nothing. Your site keeps running exactly as it is, wherever you choose to host it.

The exit strategy: export to code

There is exactly one way to break free of Framer's lock-in without rebuilding from scratch: export your published site to clean HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.

This is what FramerExport does. It takes any published Framer site and extracts the underlying code, preserving your design, your layout, your animations, and your static content. The output is a standard web project that you can open in any code editor, deploy to any hosting provider, and modify however you want.

Here is what the process looks like:

1. Export your site. Enter your Framer URL into FramerExport. You get back a ZIP file with clean HTML, CSS, and JavaScript files.
2. Deploy for free. Upload the exported files to Vercel, Netlify, or GitHub Pages. All three offer free hosting for static sites. Your site is live in minutes.
3. Point your domain. Update your DNS records to point to your new host instead of Framer. Zero downtime if you plan the switch.
4. Customize with AI. Use tools like Cursor or Claude to modify the exported code. Add features, fix styles, integrate new services. You have full code access now, so anything is possible.

The export preserves what Framer does well (the visual design, the layout system, the animations) while removing what it does poorly (the lock-in, the runtime overhead, the lack of control). You keep the design you built. You lose the dependency you did not want.

For a detailed walkthrough of the export process, including what gets exported and what you need to handle manually, read our step-by-step export guide.