People look for a Figma alternative for a handful of reasons: Figma's pricing keeps climbing, they want an offline or Mac-native app, they need something free, or they're refugees from Adobe XD — which has been in maintenance mode since 2024, with no new features and no standalone purchase. Whatever brought you here, the good news is that the alternatives have gotten genuinely good. The four below each solve a different limitation, from a fully open-source tool you can self-host to a design app that publishes a real website.
For reference, Figma Professional is $15/editor/month (billed annually), so "cheaper" here means cheaper than that.
| Tool | Price | Platform | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Penpot | Free | Web / self-host | Open-source, no lock-in |
| Sketch | $12/mo or $120 once | Mac | Mac-native speed |
| Framer | Free / from $10/mo | Web | Design → live website |
| Lunacy | Free | Win / Mac / Linux | Free on Windows |
For reference, Figma Professional is $15/editor/mo (annual). Prices verified July 2026 — check each provider for current pricing.
1. Penpot: Best free and open-source
Penpot is the closest thing to Figma in spirit — real-time collaborative UI design in the browser — but it's fully open-source and free, with no feature gates. Its killer differentiators: you can self-host it on your own infrastructure (a big deal for teams with data-residency or compliance needs), and it uses open SVG as its native format, so your files are never locked into a proprietary tool. It also has native design tokens and clean CSS/HTML/SVG output that developers love.
- Completely free and open-source, no feature gates
- Self-hostable for full data control
- Open SVG format — no vendor lock-in
- Native design tokens and clean CSS/HTML/SVG output
- Smaller plugin and community ecosystem than Figma
- Fewer advanced prototyping features
- Still maturing, though improving quickly
Best for: freelancers and teams who want a free, open, no-lock-in design tool — especially anyone who needs to self-host. Skip it if you depend on Figma's huge plugin library.
2. Sketch: Best for Mac
Sketch is the original Figma predecessor, and it's still excellent at what it does: a fast, native macOS app with smooth performance on large files, offline access, and a mature, focused toolset. Pricing is friendlier than Figma too — $12/editor/month, or a one-time Mac license around $120 (with a year of updates) if you'd rather not subscribe.
- Fast native macOS performance, even on big files
- Works offline — no browser dependency
- One-time license option (~$120) alongside the subscription
- Mature, polished, and focused
- Mac only — no Windows or Linux editing
- Real-time collaboration is less seamless than Figma's
- Smaller ecosystem than it once had
Best for: solo designers and Mac-based teams who value speed and offline work. Skip it if anyone on your team uses Windows or Linux.
3. Framer: Best for design-to-website
Framer blurs the line between design tool and website builder — you design visually, then publish a real, responsive, live website straight from it, no separate build step. It's the standout choice if your end goal is a shipped site (landing pages especially) rather than a mockup to hand off. There's a free tier, with paid plans from $10/month, and free custom domains as of 2026.
- Design straight to a live, published website
- Strong templates and polished animations
- Free tier plus free custom domain (2026)
- Great for landing pages and marketing sites
- More a website builder than a pure UI/UX tool
- Per-site pricing can add up across projects
- Less suited to app UI design and developer handoff
Best for: designers who want to ship a real website, not just a prototype. Skip it if you need classic UI design and developer handoff — that's Penpot or Sketch territory. (If a site is the goal, also weigh dedicated website builders.)
