Framer is still alive and well… and it’s a game-changer

A love letter to my prototyping tool of choice.

Earlier, this week, this post came across my feed: “Framer is Dead.”

Impossible. I've been using it non-stop for the past month.

Sadly, this post has gotten some traction, and I've seen it pop-up on several round-ups.

Two weeks ago, Framer launched a new home page design and Smart Components, with Variants coming out of Beta. Looking at new features alone, it's very much alive and well.

The leading case this post made was that Framer was at fault for moving toward React. In doing so, it's alienating designers that aren't code-savvy. Or, on the opposite end of the spectrum, over-empowering UX engineers who over-value the code.

Then, as if to drive the nail in the coffin: “Framer used to be about playing around. Now it's about building things.” — Frankly, I'm not sure why “playing around” and “building things” have to be mutually exclusive.

Are we talking about the same product?