Framer vs Figma Sites, and what “real HTML” means

• Figma Make is the AI feature. You prompt it and it produces a working draft from nothing.
• Figma Sites is the publishing product. It takes a Figma design and puts it on the web.
• Both are Full-seat features on a paid plan. A $3 Collab seat cannot use either, and the free Starter plan cannot publish at all.

This page compares Framer with the Sites path, because that is the like-for-like question. If you want the generator comparison instead, our Figma Make page covers it.

Every one of these tools outputs HTML. A browser cannot render anything else. So the question is never whether the output is HTML. It is whether the output is structured HTML: headings in order, landmarks present, text as text rather than positioned boxes, and images with alternatives.

Neither Framer nor Figma publishes a statement about this. Figma has no primary documentation on whether Sites output is semantic or accessible, and designers have raised the question publicly without an answer. Framer’s pricing page states nothing about its markup either.

We are not going to characterise either vendor’s output, because we cannot evidence it. The useful move is the one you can do in ten minutes: publish one test page on each, open the page source, and look for whether your headings are heading elements and your paragraphs are paragraphs. That answers the question for your work better than any comparison article, this one included.

Why it matters more than it sounds

Structured markup is what screen readers navigate, what search engines read as an outline, and what a developer inherits if the site is ever handed over. A visually identical page can be excellent or unusable on all three counts, and you cannot tell by looking at it.

Is Figma Sites better than Framer?

Not as a publishing product. Framer has shipped it longer, documents its limits and includes a CMS on the entry plan. Figma Sites wins on convenience and on cost when you already hold a Full seat, and on the number of sites you can publish.

Can I publish a Figma design without paying?

No. Figma Sites publishing is a Full-seat feature on a paid plan, so the free Starter plan cannot publish and neither can a $3 Collab seat. Framer’s free plan does publish, but only to a framer.website subdomain with a banner and no custom domain.

Is Framer cheaper than Figma?

For one site, yes: $120 a year against $192 for a Professional Full seat. It reverses quickly. Framer charges per site, so two sites is $240 while the Figma seat still covers as many as you like.

Does Figma Sites produce clean code?

Figma does not document what its published markup is, so nobody outside Figma can answer this from a primary source. Publish a test page and read the source yourself.

Can I move a Framer site into Figma, or the other way?

Not directly. Framer does not export a design file and Figma does not import one from Framer. Moving between them means rebuilding, which is why the choice is worth making carefully at the start.

Which should a freelancer with several client sites use?

On price alone, Figma, because the seat covers unlimited published sites where Framer bills each one. Weigh that against Framer’s CMS, its documented limits and its animation tooling before deciding.

There is a third shape here: publish the Figma design without needing a Full seat and without rebuilding it in someone else’s canvas. Siter.io’s plugin sends a selected frame to a canvas where you finish and publish it, from $7/mo billed yearly. Every paid plan can publish, so no seat type gates the button.

The gaps are real and worth stating here rather than burying. No CMS. No AI. Three fixed breakpoints. Prototype animations and interactions do not import, and there is no re-sync. No - the free plan builds and previews privately; publishing needs a paid plan. If you need a CMS or generated drafts, one of the two products above is the better buy, and our Framer comparison and Figma Make comparison lay out each trade.