How to migrate from Wix or Squarespace to Framer or Webflow (2026)

Wix and Squarespace are very good at one thing in particular: getting a site live quickly, without help. That is genuinely useful when you are starting out. The friction comes later, when the site needs to do more than simply exist, and the design, page structure, or SEO controls will not stretch as far as you need.

If that is where you are, moving to Framer or Webflow is a sensible next step. Just go in with the right expectation. This is not a transfer. Both Wix and Squarespace are closed, hosted platforms, so you rebuild the site and bring your content across. Below is what actually comes with you, what has to be recreated, how to keep the rankings you have earned, and how long it realistically takes.

What migrating from Wix or Squarespace actually means

On a self-hosted platform, you can take your files and your database and move them somewhere else. Wix and Squarespace do not work that way. Wix is explicit about it: because the platform is software as a service, your site has to run on Wix's own servers, and Wix confirms that external hosting is not supported. Squarespace is similar in practice, offering an export of certain content types rather than a copy of your site.

So a migration comes down to three jobs. You rebuild your pages and design in the new tool, you move your content into the new CMS, and you preserve your existing URLs so that visitors and search engines still find you. The third job is the one that protects your business, and it is the one most often rushed.

What carries over, and what you rebuild

Here is the honest picture for each platform.

The short version: your words and your images travel, your design does not.

The export limits worth knowing before you start

Squarespace is refreshingly direct about this. Its own documentation states that not everything will export, because many features rely on the platform's JavaScript and CSS. Squarespace's export guide lists what makes it into the XML file: layout pages, one blog page including its posts, text blocks, and image blocks. It also lists what does not: style settings, custom CSS, drafts, audio blocks, video blocks, product blocks, dropdowns, content in page-specific headers and footers, and any blog page beyond the first one. If you run more than one blog, you have to choose a primary blog and export only that.

Wix takes a different approach. There is no single site export, but you can export structured content piece by piece, including CMS collections as CSV files and your product list, though digital products are not supported.

The practical consequence is a planning one. Budget your time for rebuilding, not for importing. On most service business sites, the content move is the quick part.

Framer or Webflow: which one fits

Both are strong choices, and they are built for slightly different jobs.

Choose Framer if your site is primarily a marketing tool: a services site, landing pages, a portfolio and a blog. It is the faster of the two to design in, and it suits work where the visual craft is the point. Content comes in via CSV import into the CMS.

Choose Webflow if you have more content and more relationships between it, such as case studies linked to services linked to industries. Its CMS handles reference fields on import, and you can bring items in with a CSV import. Note the practical ceiling: the maximum CSV upload size is 4 MB, and how many items you can hold depends on your site plan.

Stay where you are if your site is genuinely doing its job, your only complaint is cosmetic, and you have no budget for a rebuild. Replatforming will not fix a positioning or copy problem.

If you are weighing up the same move from WordPress instead, we have covered both routes in detail: migrating from WordPress to Framer and migrating from WordPress to Webflow.

The migration process, step by step

This is the sequence we follow, and it scales from a five-page site upwards.

1. Inventory every URL. List every page and post, then cross-reference Google Analytics and Search Console to see which pages actually earn traffic and which hold backlinks. That list is what you protect.

2. Export what you can. Pull the XML or CSV files out now, while the old site is still live, and keep them somewhere safe.

3. Map old to new. Write down your current sitemap with each page's title, meta description and slug, then design the target sitemap beside it. Every change you make in that second column is a redirect you will owe.

4. Rebuild the foundations first. Set typography, colour styles and reusable components before you build pages. It keeps the new site consistent and quick to edit later.

5. Move the content. Import your CSV files into the CMS, then clean up the formatting. Expect to fix broken embeds and stray markup by hand.

6. Build the redirects. In Framer, this lives under Site Settings then Redirects, and it supports wildcards, capture groups and slug matching so you can handle a whole blog folder in one rule. In Webflow it sits under Site settings then Publishing then 301 redirects, and you can bulk import the whole list from a CSV.

7. Carry over on-page SEO, test, then switch. Reproduce titles, meta descriptions, headings, alt text and Open Graph tags. Test on staging, keep it out of the index, then point your domain across early in the week and monitor.

One detail catches people out. Framer's redirects only cover sub-paths on your current domain, so if you are also changing domain, you handle that redirect at the old domain's host first.

Protecting your rankings

Add your redirects before the domain cutover, not after. That single sequencing decision prevents most of the traffic loss you hear about.

Beyond that, keep things stable. Google's own site move guidance is clear that redirecting old URLs to their new equivalents and keeping content consistent is what carries your authority across. If you want to rewrite copy, restructure navigation and change your URL scheme, stagger that by four to six weeks after launch. Change one thing at a time, and you can tell what caused any movement. Change everything at once and you cannot.

Expect some short-term fluctuation regardless. That is normal, and it usually settles within a few weeks.

How long it takes

For a small service business site, roughly ten to twenty pages plus a blog, a focused migration takes two to four weeks including design. Larger sites take longer, and the audit and redirect mapping almost always take more time than the build.

What stretches a timeline is rarely the technical work. It is decisions: which pages to retire, what the new structure should be, and who signs off on the copy.

Frequently asked questions