Open source alternatives to Figma

What Figma does

Figma is a hosted design platform that runs in the browser and as a desktop app. Figma Design is where teams draw interface screens with layers, vectors and text, turn repeated elements into components, define styles and variables, and use auto layout so frames resize with their content. Screens become interactive prototypes, and Dev Mode lets developers inspect designs and code properties. The same plans now bundle FigJam for whiteboarding, Figma Slides, Figma Draw, Figma Make for turning prompts into code, Figma Sites and other products, with AI features measured in AI credits.

Why people look for an alternative

• Seat-based plans. Paid plans charge per seat, with separate Full, Dev and Collab seat types, and AI credits are allotted per seat with extra credits sold as an add-on. The free Starter plan gives limited access.
• Data location. Figma’s privacy policy says personal information is transferred to, processed and stored in the United States. Localized file hosting in other regions (including the EU) is available only on the Enterprise plan, and it excludes comments, file names, thumbnails, plugin data and other non-file data.
• Proprietary file format. Local copies are saved in Figma’s own .fig format, without version history or comments, and can only be opened by Figma.
• No self-hosting. Figma runs only on the vendor’s cloud, so design files for unreleased products sit with a third party.

What to compare in an alternative

1. Components and libraries. Reusable components, variants and shared libraries for colors and type are what make a design system work.
2. Layout model. How frames adapt to content: auto layout in Figma, flex and grid layouts in tools built on CSS concepts.
3. Prototyping. Linking screens, overlays and transitions, and whether you need logic and variables.
4. Developer handoff. Inspecting measurements, exporting assets and reading code properties.
5. Collaboration. Multiple editors at once, comments, and whether these work on a self-hosted install.
6. Moving your files. Whether existing Figma files can be imported and what is lost on the way.

Which one to choose

Penpot is the open source tool that truly replaces Figma’s main job. It has boards, components and variants, shared libraries, design tokens, flex and grid layouts based on CSS, prototypes, comments and real-time co-editing, and it can be self-hosted with Docker or used on the developers’ cloud. Its team maintains a Figma plugin that exports files for import; shapes, components, auto layout and libraries come across, while prototype interactions do not. Single sign-on and organization management belong to a proprietary Enterprise layer.

If your main need is testing prototypes with users rather than polished visual design, Quant-UX adds usability tests, heatmaps and session recordings and can import from Figma. For quick wireframes on the desktop, Pencil offers ready-made UI stencils, and for illustration and vector work alongside interface design, see Graphite.