Figma

Figma is the leading browser-based interface design and prototyping tool used by designers, product managers, and engineers to collaborate on user interfaces in real-time. Founded in 2012 and acquired by Adobe in a $20 billion deal (later abandoned due to antitrust concerns), Figma is used by over 4 million users across organizations including Airbnb, Microsoft, Dropbox, and Twitter/X. Figma's architectural breakthrough was moving the entire design canvas to a browser-based WebGL renderer with live multiplayer collaboration — similar to Google Docs for design. Multiple team members can work on the same file simultaneously, leave comments on specific elements, and hand off design specs to engineers without exporting assets or writing documentation manually. FigDev mode (formerly Inspect) gives engineers a pixel-perfect spec view of any component: CSS/SwiftUI/Kotlin code snippets, asset export, spacing values, and color tokens — all auto-generated from the design. Figma Variables (2023) added design token management natively into the tool, enabling teams to bind color, typography, and spacing tokens directly to components for consistent system-wide theming.