CodeDesign.ai vs. Framer AI: A Dev’s Honest Weekend Experiment

Let’s be real for a second. If I see one more "AI Website Builder" on Product Hunt promising to replace my entire engineering team, I might scream.

We’ve all been burned before. You try a new tool, it looks amazing in the demo video, and then 20 minutes in, you realize it spits out "spaghetti code" that you can never actually use in production.

But I kept hearing about CodeDesign.ai and Framer AI, and the curiosity got the better of me. So, this weekend, I decided to actually put them to the test. Not a marketing test but a stress test.

I sat down with a pot of coffee and a goal: Build a real landing page, try to break the tools, and see if I could actually get the code out.

Here’s exactly what went down.

 The "Too Long; Didn't Read" (TL;DR)

If you're in a rush, here is the cheat sheet.

The Deep Dive: What it actually feels like

The "Framer" Experience: Beautiful, but a Walled Garden

Framer is undeniably cool. It feels like Figma came to life. I typed in a prompt, and boom-gorgeous gradients, perfect typography, smooth animations.

But then I tried to look under the hood.

If you are a developer, looking at Framer's output is frustrating. It’s what I call "Div Soup." It’s a maze of absolute positioning and wrappers. It looks great on the screen, but you can't just hand that code to your backend engineer and say, "Hey, hook this up to our database."

Framer is a rental. You are renting their pixel space. The moment you stop paying, your site is gone.

The "CodeDesign" Experience: The Pleasant Surprise

CodeDesign felt different. It felt... logical.

I asked for a SaaS landing page, and it gave me semantic HTML. It used <section> tags. It used Flexbox.

But the moment that sold me was the Export button.

I clicked it, expecting a mess. Instead, I got a ZIP file with clean, componentized React code. I could literally open it in VS Code, run npm install, and start coding custom features immediately.

The "Escape Hatch" Test: Deploying AI Code to AWS

Talk is cheap, right? I wanted to prove that CodeDesign wasn't just a toy.

So I tried something you absolutely cannot do with Framer: I took the AI-generated code and deployed it to an enterprise cloud provider (AWS) in under 5 minutes.

Here is the exact workflow I used. It felt like a superpower.

Phase 1: The Heist (Getting the Code)

1. I built a quick "Cybersecurity Landing Page" in CodeDesign.
2. I hit the Export Code button in the top right.
3. I chose React (Vite).
   • Result: A clean folder with App.jsx, main.jsx, and a package.json. No proprietary junk.

Phase 2: The Setup

I opened my terminal (I use iTerm, but whatever works).

Bash

git init

git add .

git commit -m "Initial commit from CodeDesign AI"

# Pushed this to a private GitHub repo

Phase 3: The Launch (AWS Amplify)

This is the "magic" part. I didn't touch a server.

1. I logged into AWS Amplify.
2. Clicked "Host Web App" -> selected GitHub.
3. Connected my new repo.
4. Amplify automatically saw it was a Vite app.
   • Build Command: npm run build
5. I clicked Deploy.

The Result?

4 minutes and 12 seconds later, my site was live. Global CDN. Free SSL.

And the best part? It’s my code now. If I want to cancel my CodeDesign subscription tomorrow, my site stays up. I own it.

Try doing that with Framer. (Spoiler: You can't. You have to keep paying them.)

The Money Talk

Let’s talk about your wallet.

Framer operates on a "Rent" model.

• You pay per site.
• You pay for bandwidth.
• If you want to move, you have to rebuild from scratch.

CodeDesign operates on a "Buy/Build" model.

• You use the AI to do the heavy lifting (the 80% grunt work).
• You export the code.
• You host it on Netlify, Vercel, or AWS for pennies (or free).

So, which one should you use?

Look, I’m not saying Framer is bad. It’s an incredible design tool.

Use Framer if:

• You are a designer building a portfolio.
• You need to impress a client with visuals today.
• You don't care about the underlying code or database connections.

Use CodeDesign.ai if:

• You are building a business.
• You are a developer who hates writing boilerplate HTML/CSS.
• You want to own your asset and avoid vendor lock-in.
• You care about clean code and SEO performance.

My final verdict?

I’m keeping CodeDesign in my toolbar. The ability to spin up a UI in 60 seconds, export the React code, and deploy it to AWS implies I can ship side projects faster than ever before. And honestly? That feels pretty good.

 Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Is the code from CodeDesign actually usable, or is it just "spaghetti"? A: It’s actually usable. Unlike other tools that give you a mess of absolute positioning, CodeDesign gave me clean, semantic React code (Vite). I could read it, edit it in VS Code, and understand exactly what was going on.

Q: Can I really host the site for free? A: Yes, if you use CodeDesign. Once you export the code, it’s just a standard React app. I threw mine on AWS (you could use Netlify or Vercel too) and didn’t have to pay a dime for hosting. With Framer, you have to keep paying their subscription to keep the site online.

Q: Why can't I just export code from Framer? A: You technically can’t because Framer is built like a "walled garden." Their code relies heavily on their proprietary wrappers. Even if you scraped it, it would be a nightmare to maintain. You’re essentially renting their platform.

Q: Did you have to rewrite a lot of the AI code? A: Surprisingly, no. The structure was solid. I tweaked a few styles to match my taste, but the "bones" of the site—the Flexbox layouts and component structure—were good to go right out of the box.

Q: Which one is better for SEO? A: In my experience, CodeDesign wins here because you control the HTML tags. You can ensure you’re using proper <section> and <h1> tags. Framer is fast, but having full control over the source code always wins for technical SEO.