WordPress vs Framer vs Next.js: Which Should You Actually Build On?

WordPress vs Framer vs Next.js: Which Should You Actually Build On?

I'll get the awkward part out of the way. We sell templates for two of these three. We don't sell WordPress themes and have no plans to. So read this the way you'd read a review written by someone with skin in the game, because that's what it is.

I'm writing it anyway because the question comes into our inbox most weeks, usually phrased as "which is better," and that phrasing is the problem. Better at what? For whom? The version of the question that actually has an answer is: who's going to be editing this site in eighteen months, and what happens when that person quits?

Answer that and the stack mostly picks itself.

Start here if you're in a hurry

Non-technical team that publishes a lot, and you'll want plugins for things you haven't thought of yet? WordPress.

Designer owns the site, it's marketing, you want it live this week? Framer.

You've already got developers, and the site talks to your actual product? Next.js.

That covers maybe three quarters of people. The rest of this is for everyone else.

WordPress

Something like 42% of the web runs on it. People quote that number like it settles an argument, and in a way it does, just not the way they mean. It doesn't mean WordPress is good. It means every problem you'll ever hit has been hit before by someone who blogged about it, every agency on earth can take the project over, and your client has almost certainly used the editor before.

That last one is worth more than it sounds. I've watched a beautifully built custom site get abandoned inside a year because the marketing person couldn't work out how to add a page. Nobody puts "familiar admin panel" on a feature list, and it kills more projects than performance ever will.

What you're trading away is speed. Only about 43–45% of WordPress sites pass Core Web Vitals on mobile, which is dead last among the big platforms. Blaming WordPress for that is a bit unfair, though. It's just what happens when a system cheerfully lets you install twenty plugins that each load their own JavaScript on every single page, including the ones that don't use them. The thing that makes WordPress flexible is the same thing that makes it slow. You can't have one without the other.

Then there's maintenance, which nobody budgets for. Core updates, plugin updates, PHP version bumps, backups, some kind of firewall. About an hour a month when things go well. A ruined Thursday when they don't. Somebody has to own it, and on small sites nobody does, which is why half the WordPress sites I get sent are running plugins that stopped receiving updates in 2023.

Pick it when there's a real content operation behind the site, or a client who logs in every week, or a requirement — memberships, proper e-commerce, a dozen languages — that would take you four months to write from scratch.

Framer

Framer is a design tool that happens to publish websites. No build, no deploy, no hosting decisions. You hit publish and it's live on a CDN.

The pitch is that a designer can ship without waiting on anybody, and that part is completely true. It's also fast out of the box, which is a nicer position to be in than fast after a fortnight of work.

Where it bites you is the ceiling. You're working inside someone else's tool, and if the editor can't express the thing you want, you're not building it. There are code components, and they help, but you're patching around the edge of a canvas, not writing software. Integrations are whatever's been built for you.

It's also a subscription, and the site lives as long as you keep paying, on infrastructure you don't control. Plenty of people are fine with that. It is, though, almost exactly the opposite bargain to the one WordPress offers, and it's worth knowing which bargain you just signed.

Good fit: startup landing pages, studio portfolios, product sites with a blog bolted on. Anything where the site is marketing and a designer keeps it alive. That's the sweet spot, and it's why we ship Framer templates.

Next.js

Next.js isn't a CMS at all. That's the whole point of it, and also the catch.

There's no ceiling. Any design, any integration, any data source. Performance depends on how well you build rather than what your plugins get up to. You own the code outright, host it wherever, and nothing about it expires. If the site is genuinely part of your product — docs, a dashboard, anything behind a login — this is the only one of the three that won't eventually start fighting you.

The cost is a developer, and not just for launch week. Forever. Marketing wants a new page, so someone writes code, unless you've wired up a headless CMS, which is another decision, another integration and another monthly bill. Dependencies need updating. Builds break for reasons that have nothing to do with anything you changed.

Pick it if engineering already exists at your company, or the marketing site sits right next to a real product, or you've been burned by a platform decision once already and want the escape route to cost nothing.

The stuff people forget to compare

Who can edit it. WordPress: anyone. Framer: anyone, as long as they stay inside what was designed. Next.js: a developer, or whoever set up the CMS. For most teams this one question rules out an option immediately, and everything else is noise.

What it costs over three years. WordPress looks cheapest and frequently isn't, once you add hosting, premium plugins and the hours somebody quietly spends keeping it alive. Framer is a subscription you'll pay forever. Next.js is almost nothing to host plus developer time you might already be paying.

Getting back out. WordPress will export your content and keep your layouts locked in page-builder shortcodes. Framer gives you your content, not your site. Next.js is a folder you own. Nobody considers this at the start. Everybody considers it eventually.

SEO. Honestly, a non-issue. All three rank fine. WordPress has better plugins for it, the other two need less rescuing. Anyone telling you a platform "can't rank" is selling you something.

What I'd actually tell you

Solo founder or a small team, no developer, site is your marketing: Framer.

Content team or a client who publishes: WordPress. Budget for the maintenance, and read our speed checklist before you go live, not after.

Engineers on staff and the site sits near the product: Next.js.

The worst reason to choose any of them is that it's what you used last time. A close second is reaching for the most powerful option available for a five-page site nobody will ever log in to edit.

We sell templates for Framer, Next.js, HTML and Webflow. One payment, source files included, nothing renews. If you already know which way you're going, that's a decent place to start.