Free alternative

Free alternative to Framer

Framer costs €15 a month. Plasmic does the same job for free, in open source: you install it on your machine or a small server, and you stop paying.

Public entry price, taken from Framer’s website (framer.com). Over a year, that is €180 that stays in your pocket.

What replaces Framer

The main alternative

Plasmic

🟡 Intermediate⏱️ ~30 min to installSave €15/mo

Plasmic is a visual editor for building websites and web apps with the mouse, like Framer, but open source: more than 7,000 stars on GitHub, an MIT licence for its tools and AGPL for the editor itself, and a company behind the project. You place your blocks on the page, set the desktop and mobile versions side by side, add animations and interactions, and you can import a Figma mockup or paste HTML. A built in CMS, with no limit on collections or entries, handles your content: blog, product pages, testimonials. The free plan is genuinely usable, with no time limit: unlimited projects, publishing on your own domain with their hosting, 3 collaborators, and exporting your site as React code to host wherever you want. Its limits: a Plasmic badge on the sites they host, no custom favicon, 14 days of version history, no AI, and no multilingual site, which is reserved for the Scale plan at 399 dollars a month. According to their plan grid, the badge only applies to their hosting: by exporting the site to Vercel, Netlify or your own server with Dokploy, you avoid it without paying. For developers, Plasmic goes further than Framer: you drag your own React components into the editor and embed the pages in an existing app. On the other hand, the editor runs on their cloud: the code is open and a Docker setup exists for development, but no official guide helps you host it yourself in production. And Framer stays ahead for heavily animated marketing sites, as Plasmic itself admits on its comparison page.

Loucash’s verdict on Plasmic

7/10

Yes, Plasmic really is open source, and its free plan is the most generous I have seen for a site builder: your own domain, an unlimited CMS and code export, without paying. Framer does not even let you connect your domain on its free plan. What I like: you are never locked in. You publish with them to move fast, then you export the site and host it on your own server the day you want to take back control. Why 7 and not more: the editor is more technical than Framer, built to work with developers, and the animations go less far. The Plasmic badge stays on the sites they host, multilingual costs 399 dollars a month, and the editor itself runs on their cloud: the code is open, but no official guide helps you host it yourself.

Who it is for: You want a marketing site or a small web app on your own domain with no subscription, and the option to take your code one day. If your site relies mostly on spectacular animations, or you want the simplest possible tool, Framer is still the best choice.

See the full page →See the tool ↗

Plasmic versus Framer: the match

  • Price

    Plasmic

    €0, with no time limit

    Framer

    €15/month (Basic)

  • Your own domain

    Plasmic

    Included, even for free

    Framer

    From Basic

  • Sites

    Plasmic

    Unlimited projects

    Framer

    One plan per site

Framer ↗

The prompt that installs Plasmic

Paste this prompt into Claude: it checks the repository, asks you its questions and installs the tool step by step.

Aide-moi à créer mon site avec Plasmic, l'éditeur visuel open source qui remplace Framer (dépôt GitHub plasmicapp/plasmic, site plasmic.app). Je crée d'abord mon compte gratuit sur studio.plasmic.app. Ensuite, guide-moi pour partir d'un modèle ou importer ma maquette Figma, régler la version mobile et brancher le CMS pour mes contenus. Montre-moi comment publier le site sur mon nom de domaine avec l'hébergement Plasmic, et explique-moi les limites de l'offre gratuite (badge, 3 collaborateurs, 14 jours d'historique). Si je veux un site sans badge et totalement à moi, crée un projet Next.js avec l'outil officiel create-plasmic-app, relie-le à mon projet Plasmic (paquet @plasmicapp/loader-nextjs, ou génération de code avec @plasmicapp/cli), puis déploie-le sur mon serveur avec Dokploy ou sur Vercel, avec un nouveau déploiement automatique à chaque publication dans Plasmic. Explique chaque étape simplement, je débute.

Review the GitHub repository and check whether it is safe to install given my machine and my infrastructure. Ask me as many questions as possible, using widgets, to clarify my request and be as precise as you can.

Frequently asked questions

Is Plasmic really free?
Yes. Plasmic is open source: the code is public and installing it costs nothing. At most you pay for hosting if you put it on a server, often a few euros a month. Framer, on the other hand, costs €15 a month.
Do I need to code to install Plasmic?
No. The level is intermediate and the install takes about 30 minutes with the prompt from the page: Claude does the work, you answer its questions.
How is it different from Framer?
Plasmic does most of what Framer does, without a subscription, and your data stays with you. The point by point comparison is on the page.
Do I own my data?
Yes. With an open source tool installed on your side, your files stay on your machine or your server. Nobody can close your account or change the price.

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