BuildRocket LabsCustom website vs Framer template.
We can answer this one from experience: BuildRocket Labs started on a Framer template, and we left. Measured this week on our own sites, the old Framer build scores 56/100 on mobile with a 5.7-second largest paint — the custom rebuild measures 94/100 mobile and 99/100 desktop.
That's not a knock on Framer — it got us live in a weekend, and for a while that was exactly right. Templates are how you get a presentable site fast when design and code aren't your trade.
The ceiling arrived later: performance we couldn't engineer past, a design that looked like every other agency on the same template, and a monthly platform bill for a site we didn't fully own. We rebuilt from scratch — this site is the receipt, and every number on it is measured live.
Full transparency: until our DNS cutover completes, buildrocketlabs.com still serves that old Framer build. You can run both through PageSpeed Insights yourself today — we did.
[ published 2026-07-18 · updated 2026-07-18 ]How do they actually compare?
measured speed
Our Framer build: 56/100 mobile, 5.7s LCP (PSI, 2026-07-18)
Our custom rebuild: 94/100 mobile, 99/100 desktop (PSI, 2026-07-18) — vitals measured live on the homepage
time to launch
Days — genuinely fast, the template's real superpower
Typically 2–4 weeks kickoff to launch, live preview within days
design ceiling
The template's ceiling — and everyone else bought it too
Engineered from scratch; the design system is yours alone
ownership
Platform subscription — stop paying, site goes dark
You own the code and can host it anywhere, forever
cost shape
Lower up front, subscription forever
One-time build from published ranges; hosting is yours (often near-free)
performance engineering
You get what the platform ships — tuning has hard limits
Every millisecond is ours to engineer; we publish the telemetry
Who should NOT hire us
- You need a site live this week — buy a good template today and rebuild when it starts costing you leads.
- Your budget is under our published Launch tier (₹35,000 / $1,500) — a template is honestly the better spend.
- You want to visually redesign pages yourself every weekend — a builder's drag-and-drop freedom fits that better than a design system.
Common questions
q01Is Framer a bad product?
No — it's excellent at what it's for. We used it, it got us live fast, and for early-stage or this-week deadlines we still point people to templates. We left because our positioning is measured performance, and the template put a ceiling on it.
q02Why is a custom build faster than a template?
Nothing ships that we didn't put there: no builder runtime, no unused scripts, images engineered per breakpoint. Our rebuild's 94–99/100 PageSpeed scores are measured — the same test on our old Framer build returned 56/100 mobile.
q03Can you migrate a site off Framer or a template?
Yes — that's literally the project we did for ourselves. Content and SEO carry over, the design gets rebuilt properly, and the before/after is measurable.
Want the custom side of this table?
Every project gets a fixed written proposal before any payment. 50% to start, 50% at launch.