Staging and Versions

Learn how to use your base domain as a staged preview to help you test your sites in a real-world environment.

When you click "Publish" in Framer, a new version is always generated. You can view all these versions in Site Settings under Staging & Versions.

Click on the version ID to open the version link in a new tab. You can view a detailed overview of the version's status, publisher, and publish timestamp. These versioned links are static and will remain unchanged, staying tied to the specific version regardless of future publishes.

Staging

When publishing a website, Framer automatically generates a domain for you consisting of a random string of letters. This is called the Base Domain. You also have the option to add a second Custom Domain, which you can learn more about in this article. You can only use the staging feature if you have a Custom Domain connected.

By default, the base and custom domains will always point to the latest published version. However, if you want to test your websites in a real-world setting before deploying them to the custom domain (the version customers are more likely to see), you can enable staging and use the base domain as your staged preview.

To do this, go into the Staging & Versions tab and select the Enable Staging option.

By doing this, you will be presented with the option to explicitly select a version for the custom domain. Your base domain will always point to the latest version, so you can validate the version before you deploy it to the custom domain.

Testing

Once you have staging enabled, you will notice that you only have the option to update the Base Domain from the publish layer. Publish to this link as many times as you need until you are happy with the results. Then, go back to the Staging & Versioning tab and click on the Deploy button next to the version you wish to deploy to your Custom Domain.

If you make a mistake, you can always deploy a previous version and rollback your changes until you are ready to deploy again.