Figma Lab

Figma is the collaborative platform most product teams standardise on for interface design: screens, prototypes, and design systems in a browser, with several people editing one file at once and developers pulling specs and assets from the other side. Its real contribution was making design files multiplayer rather than attachments passed around.

We track it as the reference point for the whole category — it is the format everyone else exports to, and the file a client's design team will almost certainly hand you. We list it as the option when there is an existing design function to work alongside. It isn't in our own daily rotation, because our work runs from prompt to code and skips the static comp stage entirely.

Sketch remains a reasonable choice for macOS-only teams who prefer a local file model. Penpot is the one to look at when self-hosting or open-source licensing is a hard requirement rather than a preference. Framer suits you better when the design is meant to ship as the live site instead of being rebuilt. Lunacy is worth knowing for Windows-heavy teams. Figma is the safe default whenever more than one person touches the design and handoff has to be legible. It is the wrong overhead for a solo builder going straight to code, where the mockup is a step you can skip.