15 ms·

Figma Alternatives

406 points by skilled 4y ago

redocecin 4y ago
We can try https://www.visily.ai https://www.visily.ai
pelagicAustral 4y ago
Are we already abandoning ship? I wouldn't think Adobe is going to pull the plug or anything too drastic, Right? Btw, I've been a happy Affinity [Designer, Photo, Publisher] user for many years now. Can't even believe I'm still getting updates with my years old licences. +1
- strict9 4y ago
  Just about any time a competitive product is swallowed up by a large company that product is left to wither for a year or so before riding off into the sunset.
  - parasubvert 4y ago
    That’s just not true. Slack is doing fine. Github is doing fine. Red Hat is also doing fine. Etc.
- parasubvert 4y ago
  It’s mostly independent designers that feel they can’t afford Adobe level subscriptions.
  - detritus 4y ago
    Or "Don't want to pay for", which includes me. The feature set that I use in my daily driver - Illustrator - has pretty much remained constant since CS2 or thereabouts, but I have to maintain a subscription solely to ensure that I can load files from clients without any concern about incompatability or breakage. It's quite annoying paying good money for old rope for years and years on end.
    - GlacierFox 4y ago
      You'll hate to admit it but I know for a fact that a lot of the tools introduced after CS2 have become indispensable and allow you to get work done faster and more efficiently than back in the day.
      - the_mar 4y ago
        Like what?
      - detritus 4y ago
        "For a fact"? Only if you presume to know what I do and how I work, I suppose. I'd not be so bold, personally. - ed: I wondered perhaps if Smart Guides were newer than I remembered, but nup, having checked - they were there in CS2.
  - cosmodisk 4y ago
    From western world perspective, $85/month for a whole suite of powerful apps is absolute peanuts if they are used in a professional setting. An average carpenter probably spends more on tool upgrades each year.
    - Existenceblinks 4y ago
      It's just "1 man hour" for a random experienced freelance dude. It's crazy when you think you wouldn't hire this guy for just an hour but 70 hours for just an epic feature. That's already $5950. $85 / (30 * 24 = 720) hours. Wow so cheap! Now we have some sense of how business is working.
- whywhywhywhy 4y ago
  It's the principle, this was the first time in 17 years anything threatened Adobe and honestly Figma could have destroyed Adobe within 3 years with the right focus. Figma threw every single artist and designer in the world that does 2D work under the bus when they could have saved us all and built better tools. Actually I'd go beyond saying it's the principle, actually now it's personal all the money I spent on Figma, all the hours I spent pushing Figma in organizations and building our workflows around it has just gone to strengthen Adobe's grip on my livelihood. This might sound dramatic but imagine for a moment how you'd feel if you could only work within your industry if you used VSCode, it was closed source and it cost $60 a month and the only chance of fighting against that had sided with the enemy.
  - parasubvert 4y ago
    But this is the thing, it’s not healthy to see Adobe as the permanent enemy. They are a reflection of their people and leadership and this is arguably a sign they are a changing company. Your analogy once was true with Microsoft and Visual Studio in the 90s. It was the main IDE for Windows development (there was no Linux, not really). And it was expensive. There wasn’t much competition until Java took off. These days Microsoft isn’t seen as the enemy as often. Github is doing fine for example. Companies can change.
    - BurnerBotje 4y ago
      Maybe the difference between Adobe and Microsoft is that the latter has kind of proven itself now. In the meantime is Adobe very busy trying to separate the Open Source version of Magento from the paid version, called Adobe Commerce now. There is only one mention of Magento left on the homepage, about the name change. And is a link to the free version now where to be found.
    - HelloNurse 4y ago
      Enemies are permanent until they die, not until you get tired.
    - whywhywhywhy 4y ago
- eagsalazar2 4y ago
  They will almost certainly experience a mass exodus of their top engineering, design, and leadership talent. They'll never come back from that. So it isn't that figma will turn to crap overnight, but over years it is guaranteed to rot, terrible features will start adding up, and adobe will start doing everything they can to pull you into and trap you in their expensive and crappy ecosystem. So yeah it's sort of like climate change. Probably ok for now, but you should definitely start making moves to live somewhere else in the next few years.
johnla 4y ago
I've been using Framer.
webwielder2 4y ago
Since 2012, through the eras of Photoshop, Sketch, InVision, XD, Figma, and whatever else, I've been using Antetype: https://www.antetype.com https://www.antetype.com For me, it's been a 10x tool since it was always the only piece of software that was designed from the ground up as a UI design tool, rather than being some other kind of app that was pressed into service for UI design. Auto-layout, responsiveness, and flexible components that can be edited per instance without breaking their link to the master component are all features that were present from day one rather than being awkwardly bolted on.
- psygn89 4y ago
  I've never heard of them but they seem to host a solid set of features, and being around since is 2012 is impressive. I think part of a products success is its availability on different platforms, I wonder how long they have hosted this page for? https://www.antetype.com/antetype-for-windows-web/ https://www.antetype.com/antetype-for-windows-web/
- lucideer 4y ago
  Looks great but seems to be competing with Sketch. Figma's appeal was being cross-platform; that's hard to beat.
  - sygma 4y ago
    Not to mention multi-player editing [1]. They nailed the execution and no competitor comes close [1]: https://www.figma.com/blog/how-figmas-multiplayer-technology-works/ https://www.figma.com/blog/how-figmas-multiplayer-technology...
  - yesimahuman 4y ago
    I took this opportunity to look at Sketch again and I'm shocked they still don't have a desktop version for Windows. They are stubbornly wed to their focus on a "truly native" mac app despite Figma proving over and over that cross-platform is what users actually want and need. Seems like another huge opportunity missed with Figma users scrambling for alternatives.
alistairjallan 4y ago
Icons8 Lunacy is also quite an impressive and free Figma Alternative. https://icons8.com/lunacy https://icons8.com/lunacy
- insane_dreamer 4y ago
  hadn't heard of it before but looks pretty sweet, esp since it's free
- geesejuggler 4y ago
  It opens (and saves) Sketch files as well
  - kitsunesoba 4y ago
    Might be worth pointing out that this is thanks to Sketch publishing specs[0] for their format, making it easy to write importers/exporters for. As far as I know Figma has yet to do this, so anything that reads Figma files is likely reverse engineered and prone to breakage when Figma inevitably changes their undocumented format. If I were searching for a Figma alternative, its file format being documented would be a priority because otherwise, one is subjecting themselves to some degree of lock-in. [0]: https://developer.sketch.com/file-format/ https://developer.sketch.com/file-format/
    - Icons8 4y ago
      Their specs help, but we also support their old format which was basically a dump. We had to reverse engineer it. Also, we'll import from Figma this fall. You're right, it's never easy. It's a bug valley of countless files that render a little distorted.
- AltruisticGapHN 4y ago
  My first thought is... how is this free if it's similar to FIGMA? It sounds like they have basically bundled in a lot of their own icons/svg stuff and that's their business model? But even then building such an app seems like a huge investment if it's just a platform to sell your icons. So I must be missing something. And how does it compare to Penpot?
silent_cal 4y ago
This is insane in my opinion. People are acting like Figma is now "unclean" for being associated with Adobe.
- dual_dingo 4y ago
  Adobe has a long, well documented history of screwing their users, e.g. with their switch to this stupid Creative Cloud bullshit. It's just natural and common sense to look for alternatives if you rely on Figma and don't trust them to be a viable product in the hands of Adobe.
  - marban 4y ago
    Adobe changed/is going to change a lot for the better under Scott Belsky.
    - psygn89 4y ago
      Any supporting articles that would ease minds?
  - panzagl 4y ago
    So Adobe screwed their users by making them switch to a subscription model like Figma has used from day one?
    - psweber 4y ago
      Until you need a team, Figma is free.
      - jillesvangurp 4y ago
        For now.
    - behnamoh 4y ago
      This is HN, where developers diss companies’ decisions while they would do the same. It’s actually kinda hypocritical tbh.
parasubvert 4y ago
Not a designer but an engineer that reads designs, and Figma really is a game changer. High quality collaborative designs, great UX, and rather inexpensive to users. Exactly what Adobe would need to stay relevant because they’re usually the opposite on these fronts :-) I can’t see switching being too realistic. $20 billion is a lot of money. That’s worth more than Cloudflare, Snap, Spotify, and just $3b shy of Zoom’s current market cap.
- ableal 4y ago
  For scale: EV maker Lucid is worth 24 billion, and Apple recently had twice that in cash reserve. (Looked it up because of an unfounded rumor linking both.)
- scarface74 4y ago
  Snap is losing money and doesn’t seem to have any path toward any decent profitability. Spotify is a low margin business since no matter how much it makes in revenue, it will always have to give 70% to the labels - a company with high marginal costs that scales with revenue is the opposite of a successful tech company. Cloud flare is also losing money. Why would any of these companies besides Zoom be considered a successful company that should have a high valuation?
- hn_throwaway_99 4y ago
  Yeah, I think the biggest improvement Figma made is that it made it so much easier to share and collaborate on artifacts from design with the engineering team. The previous process we used for taking Sketch designs and turning then into running apps was much more painful and cumbersome.
  - robertoandred 4y ago
    Except getting assets out of Figma is a huge pain. Trying to select the layers you need (if even possible), not being able to flatten layers into an exported image, not being able to compress the exported image...
    - 4y ago
marban 4y ago
Sketch user since day 1, love it. Affinity Designer is great too but feels bloated and less intuitive, esp. when you only create for the Web.
- evv 4y ago
  I really miss the early days of Sketch (DrawIt, anyone?) As a developer it's been a bittersweet journey to see Sketch grow to be so popular amongst designers. In 2012 I was excited to "buy" Sketch for $50, but I am less enthused to subscribe at $100/year. At this point I'm looking for a more lightweight and longer-lived solution. Figma is a nice alternative but the price is likely only going up from here.
unnamed76ri 4y ago
I only recently started learning Figma and it was for the express reason of wanting to build apps via Bravo Studio because I’m also not a programmer. Do any of these alternatives have integration with Bravo Studio?
insane_dreamer 4y ago
Miro is a good FigJam alternative, though not as disigner oriented as Figma, more for whiteboarding / diagramming.
notjustanymike 4y ago
The number of feature areas where Figma succeeded and Adobe failed is astounding. The closest analogue I can think of is SpaceX and Boeing. Figma solved online tooling, collaboration, interaction protoyping, design systems, and stakeholder review with a single product. Their renderer can handle hundreds of frames in the same screen with no performance degradation. Meanwhile Adobe continues to struggle putting together version of photoshop or lightroom on a tablet that people like.
- adrianomartins 4y ago
  Adobe it's a classic case of Sales-led-development, which started to generate a huge organisation that is very slow and far away from it's users. On the other hand you have a Figma, product-led, figuring out what's best for users, and kicking ass with a web-based solution that IS what designers/devs need. Legends!
- VyseofArcadia 4y ago
  > Meanwhile Adobe continues to struggle putting together version of photoshop or lightroom on a tablet that people like. I'm sure there's more to it than this, but Figma started with a clean slate. Having a legacy codebase means a few things, and one that doesn't get talked about very often is that there is a lot of pressure to re-use code even if it would be more difficult than a re-implementation. I've worked on legacy codebases, and it goes something like: you start working on a new feature. You realize you need to implement some extra detail you didn't think of. You mention this in standup, and your manager says something like, "oh, no problem, Steve implemented a function that does that back in '97. You should use that because the old code already handles all these edge cases." So then you spend the next 2-3 sprints struggling to get Steve's code working, because his code and your code both made some assumptions about the data model that are incompatible. It doesn't really help that Steve's code has some subtle reliance on global state, so you have to worry about saving that global state, changing it, calling Steve's code, restoring the saved state, all while praying to various gods that it doesn't break anything on another thread you didn't know about. Or it would have taken just a couple of days to reimplement it in a way that already plays ball with your data model. Sure, it's not DRY, but dogmatic DRY can be a big source of pain in legacy codebase.
moffkalast 4y ago
Anyone seen that open source version called Ligma?
- knicholes 4y ago
  Is this a "Ligma balls" joke?
  - moffkalast 4y ago
    No, I'm being completely serious
- sergiomattei 4y ago
  What’s Ligma?
hackzornews 4y ago
I think the saddest part of the Figma acquisition isn't the possible death of a tool I enjoyed using, it's the death of my interest in learning more about design. I have been an engineer for many years and started to do more design work with Figma. I even enrolled in a design bootcamp. Figma inspired me a lot and sparked an interest in design. This acquisition has killed it for me.
- redocecin 4y ago
  That’s exactly how I feel. I tried to use some Adobe’s products but I failed because all of them have a steep learning cure and their UI/UX are complicated too. By contrast, Figma made my life easier.
- whywhywhywhy 4y ago
  Despite what Adobe wants you to think, design is bigger than them. Keep at it, maybe read up on physical product design where there is less tool talk.
d_rc 4y ago
Hehe, is anyone still using InVision? (honest interest)
astonfred 4y ago
Nice opportunistic post ;-) Well done. I must admit: I still love Figma, even if they've joined the Adobe family (I've just cancelled my Photoshop subscription btw, an unrelated move).
pen2l 4y ago
I like this list, I like that Sketch is #2, and #1 is an OSS self-hostable solution, https://penpot.app/ https://penpot.app/ -- https://github.com/penpot https://github.com/penpot so we can't quite get burned like we did with Figma. From some cursory review, it seems pretty good! And there's now effort underway to be able to import Figma files. edit: okay, I've gotten signed up with penpot, made rudimentary sketches, it seems solid and promising. I'm now a fan and I think this seals the deal for me, I'm glad that it was an easy decision. And I will give them the benefit of the doubt when it's not exactly up to par because 1) they seem to be new and characterize themselves as still being in beta and 2) it's self-hostable OSS and the inherent security of this offering is something I value deeply.
- davidjgraph 4y ago
  I'm not quite sure why everyone feels OS means you'll have the app forever. This isn't true in my experience. Adobe can buy the company that is supplying the devs for penpot the same way it bought Figma. Sure the source can be reused, but you think another collection of individuals will come along and host the project in the same way? You think the codebase would be developed/maintained at all if all the original devs left? History says otherwise, from the examples I've seen.
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  - happimess 4y ago
    I think the difference is that if Figma's website goes offline, you lose all of your figma stuff. If penpot gets acqui-killed, then you can just clone a version that you were comfortable with and keep going.
    - davidjgraph 4y ago
      Yes, just like you can clone draw.io and run that forever. Except, until you can't. Like last week when Safari 16 broke any use of the command key on Macs and we received 5+ reports per hour until it was fixed.
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anotherrandom 4y ago
Well, there's still Gimp and Inkscape if you aren't afraid of working outside of a browser
greencore 4y ago
I don't understand business model of the company behind Penpot (Kaleidos). Their products doesn't offer anything paid but I see a button "Invest in us". For me this tells that their products will eventually become non-free and only open-source in a way that it can export SVG.
scelerat 4y ago
I really wish OmniGroup had the vision and resources to bring OmniGraffle into some kind of shared collaborative editing world, whether by developing a web app, or incorporating some kind of collaborative, versioned backend for "corporate" users. It has one of the best overall general diagramming/graph layout engines and UI of anything I've used on the desktop and web. My experience in the diagramming, layout and technical-ish drawing realm includes Figma, as well as Illustrator, Photoshop, Pagemaker, Freehand, Deneba Canvas, Mac Draw Pro. I still love Omnigraffle for flow charts, presentations, UML diagrams, and UI wireframes. It's not a 1:1 replacement for Figma, but it suits many of the same problems. But its existence as a solo, mac-only, desktop-only app relegates it to my personal projects and I can never use it fully at work.
- vxNsr 4y ago
  > mac-only I was trying to figure out why I’d never heard of Omnigraffle and then saw this. Makes sense. It’s interesting that there are so many Mac-only design tools
  - tmnvix 4y ago
    It all started with Steve Jobs' focus on typography. There's a lesson to be learned there somewhere about serving a niche and benefiting from the network effect.
xapata 4y ago
Maybe it's time to switch to 1.0? https://0ver.org/ https://0ver.org/
pentagrama 4y ago
Here are some more alternatives with comparisons between them https://uxtools.co/tools/design https://uxtools.co/tools/design Penpot should be added to this list.
wly_cdgr 4y ago
Missing both of my favorites....Framer and Justinmind
serverlessmania 4y ago
Can someone explain to me why Adobe acquisition of Figma is considered bad?
- atarian 4y ago
  Adobe has a history of using dark patterns to keep people subscribed to their products such as hidden fees for cancelling.
happytiger 4y ago
So who’s up for building a better than it was replacement dual license open source version of Figma? Ironically, we can design the whole thing in Figma.
tonybeltramelli 4y ago
We've been building this design tool (https://uizard.io/ https://uizard.io/) for developers and non-designers alike. Defo not meant to replace Figma — it's built as an easier / quicker alternative for folks that need to iterate fast.
- aaaaaaaaata 4y ago
  > So long Figma! Get Uizard Pro for free for a month with the coupon code Ligma "You son of a bitch...I'm in."
  - tonybeltramelli 4y ago
    hahaha love it! <3
ssharp 4y ago
People rave about Figma but I never really "got" it, compared to Sketch. Granted, I'm on a Mac, am only in Sketch for 2-3 hours a week, typically work alone and generally use it to re-arrange website items and hack up what a new element on a site might look like in the current site structure. The few times I've tried to use Figma, I walk away frustrated by the fact that I can't easily cut things out of an image that I've imported/pasted in. I thought I was insane at first for not being able to figure this out but after searching around, it sounded like this is a feature that is missing. The workaround is spending way too much effort making multiple copies of your image and then cropping each individual element you want control over moving. Pretty absurd but this my need here has to be an edge case, even though it doesn't seem like one. I suppose if 99% of people are designing interfaces natively in Figma and aren't using screenshots as a starting point, this isn't an issue.
- goldenchrome 4y ago
  With regards to editing an imported image, you’re looking for a bitmap editor like Photoshop. Figma is vector based and definitely made for digital experience designers who need to collaborate with large cross-functional teams.
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yellowapple 4y ago
> First and foremost, at this time – Figma will remain an independent (separate from Creative Cloud) company. That much was said in the announcement from the CEO, Dylan Field. lol yeah right.
lienhoangduy 4y ago
I've found some Figma alternatives just before Adobe acquired it and I'd tried many many tools like Miro, Whimsical, Balsamiq, etc. The first top of mind when looking for an alternative is the easy and quick wireframe tool. Then I started searching and among thousands of alternatives, this one impressed me the most - Visly. It's not a 1:1 replacement for Figma, but it helps me solve a lot of problems such as Figma did. Ready-to-use templates, UI wireframe, prototype. https://visily.ai/ https://visily.ai/
- masterchief1s1k 4y ago
  Have been passively looking for someone that recommend Visily in these design tool threads, so that I know I'm not alone. It's a pretty solid design tool with tons of AI features that managed to help a technical guy like me make stunning UI. Definitely recommend trying it out.

406 points by skilled 4y ago

We can try https://www.visily.ai https://www.visily.ai

Are we already abandoning ship? I wouldn't think Adobe is going to pull the plug or anything too drastic, Right? Btw, I've been a happy Affinity [Designer, Photo, Publisher] user for many years now. Can't even believe I'm still getting updates with my years old licences. +1

strict9 4y ago
Just about any time a competitive product is swallowed up by a large company that product is left to wither for a year or so before riding off into the sunset.
- parasubvert 4y ago
  That’s just not true. Slack is doing fine. Github is doing fine. Red Hat is also doing fine. Etc.
parasubvert 4y ago
It’s mostly independent designers that feel they can’t afford Adobe level subscriptions.
- detritus 4y ago
  Or "Don't want to pay for", which includes me. The feature set that I use in my daily driver - Illustrator - has pretty much remained constant since CS2 or thereabouts, but I have to maintain a subscription solely to ensure that I can load files from clients without any concern about incompatability or breakage. It's quite annoying paying good money for old rope for years and years on end.
  - GlacierFox 4y ago
    You'll hate to admit it but I know for a fact that a lot of the tools introduced after CS2 have become indispensable and allow you to get work done faster and more efficiently than back in the day.
    - the_mar 4y ago
      Like what?
    - detritus 4y ago
      "For a fact"? Only if you presume to know what I do and how I work, I suppose. I'd not be so bold, personally. - ed: I wondered perhaps if Smart Guides were newer than I remembered, but nup, having checked - they were there in CS2.
- cosmodisk 4y ago
  From western world perspective, $85/month for a whole suite of powerful apps is absolute peanuts if they are used in a professional setting. An average carpenter probably spends more on tool upgrades each year.
  - Existenceblinks 4y ago
    It's just "1 man hour" for a random experienced freelance dude. It's crazy when you think you wouldn't hire this guy for just an hour but 70 hours for just an epic feature. That's already $5950. $85 / (30 * 24 = 720) hours. Wow so cheap! Now we have some sense of how business is working.
whywhywhywhy 4y ago
It's the principle, this was the first time in 17 years anything threatened Adobe and honestly Figma could have destroyed Adobe within 3 years with the right focus. Figma threw every single artist and designer in the world that does 2D work under the bus when they could have saved us all and built better tools. Actually I'd go beyond saying it's the principle, actually now it's personal all the money I spent on Figma, all the hours I spent pushing Figma in organizations and building our workflows around it has just gone to strengthen Adobe's grip on my livelihood. This might sound dramatic but imagine for a moment how you'd feel if you could only work within your industry if you used VSCode, it was closed source and it cost $60 a month and the only chance of fighting against that had sided with the enemy.
- parasubvert 4y ago
  But this is the thing, it’s not healthy to see Adobe as the permanent enemy. They are a reflection of their people and leadership and this is arguably a sign they are a changing company. Your analogy once was true with Microsoft and Visual Studio in the 90s. It was the main IDE for Windows development (there was no Linux, not really). And it was expensive. There wasn’t much competition until Java took off. These days Microsoft isn’t seen as the enemy as often. Github is doing fine for example. Companies can change.
  - BurnerBotje 4y ago
    Maybe the difference between Adobe and Microsoft is that the latter has kind of proven itself now. In the meantime is Adobe very busy trying to separate the Open Source version of Magento from the paid version, called Adobe Commerce now. There is only one mention of Magento left on the homepage, about the name change. And is a link to the free version now where to be found.
  - HelloNurse 4y ago
    Enemies are permanent until they die, not until you get tired.
  - whywhywhywhy 4y ago
eagsalazar2 4y ago
They will almost certainly experience a mass exodus of their top engineering, design, and leadership talent. They'll never come back from that. So it isn't that figma will turn to crap overnight, but over years it is guaranteed to rot, terrible features will start adding up, and adobe will start doing everything they can to pull you into and trap you in their expensive and crappy ecosystem. So yeah it's sort of like climate change. Probably ok for now, but you should definitely start making moves to live somewhere else in the next few years.

johnla 4y ago

I've been using Framer.

webwielder2 4y ago

Since 2012, through the eras of Photoshop, Sketch, InVision, XD, Figma, and whatever else, I've been using Antetype: https://www.antetype.com https://www.antetype.com For me, it's been a 10x tool since it was always the only piece of software that was designed from the ground up as a UI design tool, rather than being some other kind of app that was pressed into service for UI design. Auto-layout, responsiveness, and flexible components that can be edited per instance without breaking their link to the master component are all features that were present from day one rather than being awkwardly bolted on.

psygn89 4y ago
I've never heard of them but they seem to host a solid set of features, and being around since is 2012 is impressive. I think part of a products success is its availability on different platforms, I wonder how long they have hosted this page for? https://www.antetype.com/antetype-for-windows-web/ https://www.antetype.com/antetype-for-windows-web/
lucideer 4y ago
Looks great but seems to be competing with Sketch. Figma's appeal was being cross-platform; that's hard to beat.
- sygma 4y ago
  Not to mention multi-player editing [1]. They nailed the execution and no competitor comes close [1]: https://www.figma.com/blog/how-figmas-multiplayer-technology-works/ https://www.figma.com/blog/how-figmas-multiplayer-technology...
- yesimahuman 4y ago
  I took this opportunity to look at Sketch again and I'm shocked they still don't have a desktop version for Windows. They are stubbornly wed to their focus on a "truly native" mac app despite Figma proving over and over that cross-platform is what users actually want and need. Seems like another huge opportunity missed with Figma users scrambling for alternatives.

alistairjallan 4y ago

Icons8 Lunacy is also quite an impressive and free Figma Alternative. https://icons8.com/lunacy https://icons8.com/lunacy

insane_dreamer 4y ago
hadn't heard of it before but looks pretty sweet, esp since it's free
geesejuggler 4y ago
It opens (and saves) Sketch files as well
- kitsunesoba 4y ago
  Might be worth pointing out that this is thanks to Sketch publishing specs[0] for their format, making it easy to write importers/exporters for. As far as I know Figma has yet to do this, so anything that reads Figma files is likely reverse engineered and prone to breakage when Figma inevitably changes their undocumented format. If I were searching for a Figma alternative, its file format being documented would be a priority because otherwise, one is subjecting themselves to some degree of lock-in. [0]: https://developer.sketch.com/file-format/ https://developer.sketch.com/file-format/
  - Icons8 4y ago
    Their specs help, but we also support their old format which was basically a dump. We had to reverse engineer it. Also, we'll import from Figma this fall. You're right, it's never easy. It's a bug valley of countless files that render a little distorted.
AltruisticGapHN 4y ago
My first thought is... how is this free if it's similar to FIGMA? It sounds like they have basically bundled in a lot of their own icons/svg stuff and that's their business model? But even then building such an app seems like a huge investment if it's just a platform to sell your icons. So I must be missing something. And how does it compare to Penpot?

silent_cal 4y ago

This is insane in my opinion. People are acting like Figma is now "unclean" for being associated with Adobe.

dual_dingo 4y ago
Adobe has a long, well documented history of screwing their users, e.g. with their switch to this stupid Creative Cloud bullshit. It's just natural and common sense to look for alternatives if you rely on Figma and don't trust them to be a viable product in the hands of Adobe.
- marban 4y ago
  Adobe changed/is going to change a lot for the better under Scott Belsky.
  - psygn89 4y ago
    Any supporting articles that would ease minds?
- panzagl 4y ago
  So Adobe screwed their users by making them switch to a subscription model like Figma has used from day one?
  - psweber 4y ago
    Until you need a team, Figma is free.
    - jillesvangurp 4y ago
      For now.
  - behnamoh 4y ago
    This is HN, where developers diss companies’ decisions while they would do the same. It’s actually kinda hypocritical tbh.

parasubvert 4y ago

Not a designer but an engineer that reads designs, and Figma really is a game changer. High quality collaborative designs, great UX, and rather inexpensive to users. Exactly what Adobe would need to stay relevant because they’re usually the opposite on these fronts :-) I can’t see switching being too realistic. $20 billion is a lot of money. That’s worth more than Cloudflare, Snap, Spotify, and just $3b shy of Zoom’s current market cap.

ableal 4y ago
For scale: EV maker Lucid is worth 24 billion, and Apple recently had twice that in cash reserve. (Looked it up because of an unfounded rumor linking both.)
scarface74 4y ago
Snap is losing money and doesn’t seem to have any path toward any decent profitability. Spotify is a low margin business since no matter how much it makes in revenue, it will always have to give 70% to the labels - a company with high marginal costs that scales with revenue is the opposite of a successful tech company. Cloud flare is also losing money. Why would any of these companies besides Zoom be considered a successful company that should have a high valuation?
hn_throwaway_99 4y ago
Yeah, I think the biggest improvement Figma made is that it made it so much easier to share and collaborate on artifacts from design with the engineering team. The previous process we used for taking Sketch designs and turning then into running apps was much more painful and cumbersome.
- robertoandred 4y ago
  Except getting assets out of Figma is a huge pain. Trying to select the layers you need (if even possible), not being able to flatten layers into an exported image, not being able to compress the exported image...
  - 4y ago

marban 4y ago

Sketch user since day 1, love it. Affinity Designer is great too but feels bloated and less intuitive, esp. when you only create for the Web.

evv 4y ago
I really miss the early days of Sketch (DrawIt, anyone?) As a developer it's been a bittersweet journey to see Sketch grow to be so popular amongst designers. In 2012 I was excited to "buy" Sketch for $50, but I am less enthused to subscribe at $100/year. At this point I'm looking for a more lightweight and longer-lived solution. Figma is a nice alternative but the price is likely only going up from here.

unnamed76ri 4y ago

I only recently started learning Figma and it was for the express reason of wanting to build apps via Bravo Studio because I’m also not a programmer. Do any of these alternatives have integration with Bravo Studio?

insane_dreamer 4y ago

Miro is a good FigJam alternative, though not as disigner oriented as Figma, more for whiteboarding / diagramming.

notjustanymike 4y ago

The number of feature areas where Figma succeeded and Adobe failed is astounding. The closest analogue I can think of is SpaceX and Boeing. Figma solved online tooling, collaboration, interaction protoyping, design systems, and stakeholder review with a single product. Their renderer can handle hundreds of frames in the same screen with no performance degradation. Meanwhile Adobe continues to struggle putting together version of photoshop or lightroom on a tablet that people like.

adrianomartins 4y ago
Adobe it's a classic case of Sales-led-development, which started to generate a huge organisation that is very slow and far away from it's users. On the other hand you have a Figma, product-led, figuring out what's best for users, and kicking ass with a web-based solution that IS what designers/devs need. Legends!
VyseofArcadia 4y ago
> Meanwhile Adobe continues to struggle putting together version of photoshop or lightroom on a tablet that people like. I'm sure there's more to it than this, but Figma started with a clean slate. Having a legacy codebase means a few things, and one that doesn't get talked about very often is that there is a lot of pressure to re-use code even if it would be more difficult than a re-implementation. I've worked on legacy codebases, and it goes something like: you start working on a new feature. You realize you need to implement some extra detail you didn't think of. You mention this in standup, and your manager says something like, "oh, no problem, Steve implemented a function that does that back in '97. You should use that because the old code already handles all these edge cases." So then you spend the next 2-3 sprints struggling to get Steve's code working, because his code and your code both made some assumptions about the data model that are incompatible. It doesn't really help that Steve's code has some subtle reliance on global state, so you have to worry about saving that global state, changing it, calling Steve's code, restoring the saved state, all while praying to various gods that it doesn't break anything on another thread you didn't know about. Or it would have taken just a couple of days to reimplement it in a way that already plays ball with your data model. Sure, it's not DRY, but dogmatic DRY can be a big source of pain in legacy codebase.

moffkalast 4y ago

Anyone seen that open source version called Ligma?

knicholes 4y ago
Is this a "Ligma balls" joke?
- moffkalast 4y ago
  No, I'm being completely serious
sergiomattei 4y ago
What’s Ligma?

hackzornews 4y ago

I think the saddest part of the Figma acquisition isn't the possible death of a tool I enjoyed using, it's the death of my interest in learning more about design. I have been an engineer for many years and started to do more design work with Figma. I even enrolled in a design bootcamp. Figma inspired me a lot and sparked an interest in design. This acquisition has killed it for me.

redocecin 4y ago
That’s exactly how I feel. I tried to use some Adobe’s products but I failed because all of them have a steep learning cure and their UI/UX are complicated too. By contrast, Figma made my life easier.
whywhywhywhy 4y ago
Despite what Adobe wants you to think, design is bigger than them. Keep at it, maybe read up on physical product design where there is less tool talk.

d_rc 4y ago

Hehe, is anyone still using InVision? (honest interest)

astonfred 4y ago

Nice opportunistic post ;-) Well done. I must admit: I still love Figma, even if they've joined the Adobe family (I've just cancelled my Photoshop subscription btw, an unrelated move).

pen2l 4y ago

I like this list, I like that Sketch is #2, and #1 is an OSS self-hostable solution, https://penpot.app/ https://penpot.app/ -- https://github.com/penpot https://github.com/penpot so we can't quite get burned like we did with Figma. From some cursory review, it seems pretty good! And there's now effort underway to be able to import Figma files. edit: okay, I've gotten signed up with penpot, made rudimentary sketches, it seems solid and promising. I'm now a fan and I think this seals the deal for me, I'm glad that it was an easy decision. And I will give them the benefit of the doubt when it's not exactly up to par because 1) they seem to be new and characterize themselves as still being in beta and 2) it's self-hostable OSS and the inherent security of this offering is something I value deeply.

davidjgraph 4y ago
I'm not quite sure why everyone feels OS means you'll have the app forever. This isn't true in my experience. Adobe can buy the company that is supplying the devs for penpot the same way it bought Figma. Sure the source can be reused, but you think another collection of individuals will come along and host the project in the same way? You think the codebase would be developed/maintained at all if all the original devs left? History says otherwise, from the examples I've seen.
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- happimess 4y ago
  I think the difference is that if Figma's website goes offline, you lose all of your figma stuff. If penpot gets acqui-killed, then you can just clone a version that you were comfortable with and keep going.
  - davidjgraph 4y ago
    Yes, just like you can clone draw.io and run that forever. Except, until you can't. Like last week when Safari 16 broke any use of the command key on Macs and we received 5+ reports per hour until it was fixed.

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anotherrandom 4y ago

Well, there's still Gimp and Inkscape if you aren't afraid of working outside of a browser

greencore 4y ago

I don't understand business model of the company behind Penpot (Kaleidos). Their products doesn't offer anything paid but I see a button "Invest in us". For me this tells that their products will eventually become non-free and only open-source in a way that it can export SVG.

scelerat 4y ago

I really wish OmniGroup had the vision and resources to bring OmniGraffle into some kind of shared collaborative editing world, whether by developing a web app, or incorporating some kind of collaborative, versioned backend for "corporate" users. It has one of the best overall general diagramming/graph layout engines and UI of anything I've used on the desktop and web. My experience in the diagramming, layout and technical-ish drawing realm includes Figma, as well as Illustrator, Photoshop, Pagemaker, Freehand, Deneba Canvas, Mac Draw Pro. I still love Omnigraffle for flow charts, presentations, UML diagrams, and UI wireframes. It's not a 1:1 replacement for Figma, but it suits many of the same problems. But its existence as a solo, mac-only, desktop-only app relegates it to my personal projects and I can never use it fully at work.

vxNsr 4y ago
> mac-only I was trying to figure out why I’d never heard of Omnigraffle and then saw this. Makes sense. It’s interesting that there are so many Mac-only design tools
- tmnvix 4y ago
  It all started with Steve Jobs' focus on typography. There's a lesson to be learned there somewhere about serving a niche and benefiting from the network effect.

xapata 4y ago

Maybe it's time to switch to 1.0? https://0ver.org/ https://0ver.org/

pentagrama 4y ago

Here are some more alternatives with comparisons between them https://uxtools.co/tools/design https://uxtools.co/tools/design Penpot should be added to this list.

wly_cdgr 4y ago

Missing both of my favorites....Framer and Justinmind

serverlessmania 4y ago

Can someone explain to me why Adobe acquisition of Figma is considered bad?

atarian 4y ago
Adobe has a history of using dark patterns to keep people subscribed to their products such as hidden fees for cancelling.

happytiger 4y ago

So who’s up for building a better than it was replacement dual license open source version of Figma? Ironically, we can design the whole thing in Figma.

tonybeltramelli 4y ago

We've been building this design tool (https://uizard.io/ https://uizard.io/) for developers and non-designers alike. Defo not meant to replace Figma — it's built as an easier / quicker alternative for folks that need to iterate fast.

aaaaaaaaata 4y ago
> So long Figma! Get Uizard Pro for free for a month with the coupon code Ligma "You son of a bitch...I'm in."
- tonybeltramelli 4y ago
  hahaha love it! <3

ssharp 4y ago

People rave about Figma but I never really "got" it, compared to Sketch. Granted, I'm on a Mac, am only in Sketch for 2-3 hours a week, typically work alone and generally use it to re-arrange website items and hack up what a new element on a site might look like in the current site structure. The few times I've tried to use Figma, I walk away frustrated by the fact that I can't easily cut things out of an image that I've imported/pasted in. I thought I was insane at first for not being able to figure this out but after searching around, it sounded like this is a feature that is missing. The workaround is spending way too much effort making multiple copies of your image and then cropping each individual element you want control over moving. Pretty absurd but this my need here has to be an edge case, even though it doesn't seem like one. I suppose if 99% of people are designing interfaces natively in Figma and aren't using screenshots as a starting point, this isn't an issue.

goldenchrome 4y ago
With regards to editing an imported image, you’re looking for a bitmap editor like Photoshop. Figma is vector based and definitely made for digital experience designers who need to collaborate with large cross-functional teams.

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yellowapple 4y ago

> First and foremost, at this time – Figma will remain an independent (separate from Creative Cloud) company. That much was said in the announcement from the CEO, Dylan Field. lol yeah right.

lienhoangduy 4y ago

I've found some Figma alternatives just before Adobe acquired it and I'd tried many many tools like Miro, Whimsical, Balsamiq, etc. The first top of mind when looking for an alternative is the easy and quick wireframe tool. Then I started searching and among thousands of alternatives, this one impressed me the most - Visly. It's not a 1:1 replacement for Figma, but it helps me solve a lot of problems such as Figma did. Ready-to-use templates, UI wireframe, prototype. https://visily.ai/ https://visily.ai/

masterchief1s1k 4y ago
Have been passively looking for someone that recommend Visily in these design tool threads, so that I know I'm not alone. It's a pretty solid design tool with tons of AI features that managed to help a technical guy like me make stunning UI. Definitely recommend trying it out.