A working, on-brand 404 page is an easy thing to overlook after a Framer export — the site "works" without it (most links won't 404 in normal use), which is exactly why this gap often goes unnoticed until a real visitor hits it.
What Framer provides by default
Framer supports a custom 404 page you design in the editor, served automatically by Framer's hosting whenever a request doesn't match a real page. That's a hosting-level behavior tied to Framer's own infrastructure.
Why this needs explicit setup after export
Static HTML hosting generally needs an explicit 404 page configured at the hosting level — most static hosts (Netlify, Vercel, Cloudflare Pages) look for a specifically-named file (commonly 404.html) and serve it automatically for unmatched routes, but only if that file exists in your deployed output. If your export didn't specifically generate one from your Framer site's custom 404 design, visitors hitting a broken link get the hosting platform's own generic error page instead of your branded one.
Next.js has its own built-in convention — a not-found.tsx (or 404.tsx depending on router version) file that Next.js automatically uses for unmatched routes. If your export didn't specifically create this file from your Framer 404 design, you'll get Next.js's default generic not-found page.
How to check if this is missing on your export
Visit a deliberately broken URL on your exported site (something like yoursite.com/this-page-does-not-exist) and see what renders. If it's a generic, unstyled error page rather than your Framer-designed 404, that's the gap — worth fixing, since it's a small, mechanical thing to add once identified.
Why it's worth the ten minutes to fix
A broken link happens more often than site owners assume — an old bookmark, a typo in a shared URL, a page you renamed without a redirect (see our post on redirects after migration). A branded, helpful 404 page (with a link back to your homepage or search, ideally) keeps that moment from being a dead end that reflects poorly on an otherwise polished site. It's a small detail, but it's exactly the kind of small detail a genuinely thorough export process should carry forward rather than silently dropping.