Introduction
Moving from Webflow to Framer is a rebuild rather than an import. Your content can come across through CSV, but layouts, interactions and CMS structure are redesigned. Done in the wrong order it costs you search rankings; done in the right order it costs you a weekend.
One thing worth checking before you start: Framer runs a switch program for teams moving over, and for approved switches it covers the first full year on an eligible plan plus AI credits, for up to three sites. If you are moving a client site, that changes the math.
This is the sequence we use, and the parts people underestimate.
What Actually Transfers
Content transfers, design does not, and the CSV route is less automatic than it sounds. You build the collection and its fields in Framer first, then import the Webflow CSV and map each column to a field. Reference fields need the referenced collection created and imported before the one that points at it, and slugs, dates, formatted text and images all want checking afterward.
Comes across | Gets rebuilt |
|---|---|
CMS content, once you have built the collection and mapped the columns | Every page layout |
Images and media, re-uploaded | Interactions and animations |
Copy and metadata | Class based styling, replaced by styles and components |
URL structure, if you choose to keep it | Forms and their destinations |
Keep the URLs
This is the decision that protects your traffic. Every URL you change needs a redirect, and every URL you change without one becomes a 404 that used to rank. The cheapest migration keeps the existing paths exactly as they are.
If paths must change, map old to new before you build, not after. Retrofitting a redirect map onto a live site is how pages get missed, and the ones that get missed are usually the ones nobody thought were earning anything.
Rebuild Structure First, Design Second
Model the CMS before touching a layout. Collections, fields and the relationships between them decide what the site can do, and getting that right first mean the design work happens once. We wrote up the reasoning in Framer CMS Explained.
Only then build the page layouts, working from the largest breakpoint down.
The Parts People Underestimate
Forms are the classic one. A Webflow form posts somewhere, and that destination has to be rewired rather than recreated. Interactions are the second: complex Webflow animations often do not have a like for like equivalent, and the honest answer is usually a simpler version that performs better anyway.
Before You Switch the Domain
Publish to the free framer.website domain first and check every important page against the old site side by side. Then switch DNS.
If the site is large, Framer documents a page by page route as well: Advanced Hosting multi site rules with match pages first, so Framer serves the routes you have finished and falls back to Webflow for everything else. That beats a big bang switch when there are hundreds of pages, and it means the thing you missed keeps working while you find it.
If you are rebuilding anyway, starting from a template that already has the collections and components modeled is faster than reproducing your old layout section by section, and components are what stop the new site drifting the way the old one did.
