Overview

A couple of years ago I made the switch from Adobe XD to Figma, and the difference was night and day.

Since then I have really been enjoying using Figma, but I feel like it may lack some of the functionality of more robust prototyping tools.

To that end, I want to share with you my concise, dead honest Framer review for UI/UX design in 2022, what I like about it, and why you may want to steer clear.

The Good

Framer has some very nice advanced features like magic motion animation, live inputs, advanced interactions, and interactive components from the start.

Smart components are fantastic

Framer comes with a boatload of smart components like inputs, sliders, media holders, loaders, and more right out of the box.

You can add these to virtually any project right from the start and you’re off to the races!

These components give you a deep ability to customize their look, feel, and interactive properties, all on the right-hand panel.

You can even normally add additional content or items within the same panel, and the component is automatically adjusted to follow suit.

Magic motion kicks a$$

You also have access to magic motion which allows you a high degree of control for the animation tweening from one element to another.

You can adjust the easing, or spring to give it some bounce, stiffness, damping, mass, delay, and even check out a preview of what it will look like at the bottom of the panel.

You can check out even more about the base functionality here:

The Bad

While I really love a lot of what Framer offers out of the box, there are some glaring things that I just can’t ignore for modern UI/UX design software, especially with it being as robust as it is.

Let’s get into it.

Lacks some basic functionality

First of all, you need to be able to do basic stuff when designing, you know like creating groups?

Yeah, Framer doesn’t let you do that. You could create a component or throw them both in a frame…I guess.

But why? Why would anyone do that? To me this seems like a huge oversight, and one of many that definitely gets under my skin.

There’s also no pen tool. Small complaint I know, but it still matters.

This segues well into our next issue.

No community files

There’s no community files, and no way to import pre-builts, also there’s no support for standard UI kits.

“WHAT? NO SUPPORT FOR STANDARD UI KITS?!!! WACK!!!”

You heard me right, there is NO SUPPORT for standard UI kits as you typically think of them.

→ But they do sort of have them. They’re called “templates,” and I will admit that in some ways they are definitely better.

To be fair these templates DO let you access component-level variables, and do a lot of other really powerful things, but it definitely gets my goat that you can’t just import a design system or UI kit and run with it.

Granted, you can sort of get around this with the Figma and Sketch import, but it’s not fool-proof, and it has some issues issues.

Lack of simultaneous grids

Any modern design software should allow you to have multiple grids present on an artboard at any given time. I said what I said, start a riot.

While Figma passes this one with flying colors, Framer, not so much.

With framer, you’re allowed to have one or the other type of grid, but not both at the same time.

Can you get around this? Absolutely, you could draw rectangles and copy/paste within another frame and do all that, but WHY?

Is that seriously the standard that we’re gonna accept in 2022? I don’t think so; it’s a glaring problem, and I’m calling it out.

The Bottom Line

After all of this you may be thinking: “dang, is Framer really the right choice for me and my team?” To be honest with you, I’m not sure.

Framer has some absolutely fantastic features that really shine when it comes to making complex prototypes and leveraging code for component-based architecture.

That said, due to the lack of basic functionality, I cannot personally recommend Framer to or for UI/UX designers at this time, especially when we already have such solid options as Figma.

I reserve the right to amend this article in the future as new information comes to light, but that’s where I’m at with it right now.

What do you think of Framer? Do you use it for your own production? What do you like about it?

Let us know in the comments!