Figma vs Zeplin

If you already have Figma, there’s no reason to shell out money for Zeplin. If Figma can accomplish everything, there’s no reason to utilize any other tool for design handoff.

The quick answer is because Figma alone makes it difficult to execute design handoff and communicate design intent to those who aren’t designers. There must be constant manual intervention and improvisation. By combining Figma with Zeplin, multidisciplinary teams can work more cohesively and produce higher-quality products more quickly.

Some groups also fail to recognize the significance of the design handoff because they believe it just affects the designer and the developer. As such, Zeplin considers design handoff to be a part of Design Delivery, a crucial phase in the product development process that lies between the Design Creation and Develop phases and encompasses more than just specifications.

While Zeplin was made specifically for the goal of design handoff, Figma is more suited to creating a rocky transition for your product team during and after Design Delivery.

Let’s compare the two popular design delivery tools, Figma and Zeplin.

Various uses for various platforms – Figma or Zeplin

Which is better, Figma or Zeplin, and why? We’ve all heard the common defenses of one platform over another when comparing Figma vs Zeplin, but how well do we understand the nuances between the two? I’m not referring to the mechanics of making an instance of a component or the positioning of assets on the screen. I’m referring to the most notable distinctions between the two systems, the ones that will make or break the decision for some users.

The Design Delivery System Figma

Figma makes it simple to experiment with and iterate on a product design vision thanks to its endless canvas and designer-focused UI. And Figma makes it easy for designers to do what they do best—turn ideas into visually great designs—with features like keyboard shortcuts and rapid actions, templates, libraries, auto-layout, widgets, and more.

A crucial aspect of design delivery and the product development process in general is inviting others who aren’t designers to work with you on the designs.

Figma can be used for everyday chores like as communicating design intent to developers and other stakeholders, transferring assets, and handing over design specifications, but the process is neither elegant nor efficient. Zeplin really excels in this area.

Design delivery tools Figma and Zeplin

Zeplin is more inclusive, accommodating not only designers but also engineers and the rest of the product team. Getting everyone on the same page as you work towards a product deadline is a lot less of a hassle thanks to the Zeplin workspace, which unites everyone under a similar language with regard to designs and gives a clear project structure.

Think of how much time your team could save by eliminating all of the “busywork” associated with design delivery. Maintaining a large number of files and preparing designs for developers and stakeholders.

• Training team members who aren’t designers on how to use the Figma platform
• Enforcing Figma’s rules and access controls to prevent unauthorized edits or fees.
• Sorting out the never-ending stream of design file comments
• Using Zeplin as an add-on to Figma allows you to set these aside.

Zeplin helps product teams improve team alignment, which leads to faster, higher-quality product releases. It’s superior to use Figma with Zeplin.

Engineers require unrestricted time for design. However, developers require pixel-level precision. In terms of process, every department or team is different. Why not use a more general-purpose tool instead of Figma, which is geared at designers?

For this reason, combining Figma and Zeplin yields the best results.

With a Figma + Zeplin workflow, designers can take advantage of Figma’s robust set of tools for design exploration while Zeplin eliminates the three biggest bottlenecks in product design teams’ ability to work together effectively:

• The importance of knowing what to construct
• Disorganization and lack of framework
• An intimidating office environment

See how a Figma and Zeplin workflow might improve these conditions.

Figma is a piece of software for creating and modifying vector prototypes. The majority of its applications can be found in UI/UX design for digital mediums. Figma Incorporation is credited as the creator of this program. 2016 saw its debut. It has powerful drag-and-drop tools for creating various artworks like logos, symbols, pictures, etc. It supports numerous OSes and may be downloaded for use on machines running Windows, Linux, macOS, and more.

Benefits of Using Figma

As a web application, it does not necessitate any storage on the user’s local machine. The editor is well-organized and the user interface is straightforward. It features a built-in function for group work, so people from various departments can contribute to the same project at the same time. Frames and files can be securely shared with authorized staff members. Slack is a tool for facilitating communication inside a team.

Constraints/Defects in Figma

There is no offline mode or functionality available for it. It is very time-consuming to upload files to Figma. It’s not going to run smoothly without a graphics card.

Zeplin is a platform for UI/UX designers to collaborate and showcase their work to one another. Company co-founders Pelin Kenez, Berk ebi, Merih Akar, and Ismail Ceylan created Zeplin in 2014. It works with both Mac OS X and Windows.

Zeplin’s Benefits

It’s a safe and simple way to exchange files with others. It is compatible with files created in other programs like as Adobe XD, Sketch, etc. It’s a convenient way to sort designs and artwork by name or tags.

Zeplin’s drawbacks include its complicated and difficult-to-learn user interface and the absence of an alert notifications function.

Design intent made crystal clear

How many meetings, Slack exchanges, and emails must be sent before everyone knows what to construct? The answer is “too many” if you’re solely utilizing Figma for design delivery. However, in Zeplin, all designs are locked to prevent developers from messing with the wrong designs.

Figma becomes the repository for active designs, while Zeplin serves as the authoritative guide to what should be built.Without having to sift through comment threads in Figma, everyone can grasp design intent thanks to Zeplin’s Version History with Commit Messages, which details exactly what changed and why.

Carefully planned layouts

Zeplin’s user interface is clean and straightforward, making it accessible to everyone in the team without any prior training. That’s true, there will be no more introductory classes or written guides for using Figma.

Team members from product managers to quality assurance specialists to business analysts to executive stakeholders can all contribute to the design process when using Zeplin as the central repository for the team’s work.

Improvements to the development process

While it’s true that you may use Figma alone to get drawings ready for developers to work on, doing so is like choosing to climb the stairs instead of the elevator to the top of the Eiffel Tower. A better question is why you wouldn’t use the elevator. The elevator gets you there quickly without draining your strength before you can get to work. The equivalent for your product team would be the experience of visiting the sites in the centre of Paris.

By exposing related components, code samples, styleguides, links to Github and Storybook, and more, Zeplin integrates your Figma designs into your developers’ actual process and workflow. This means less time spent on investigation and more time spent shipping high-quality goods.

Some of the characteristics that make Zeplin so appealing to programmers (and project managers) are summarized here.

Designs can only be accessed in their locked state, eliminating the question “Is this the final version?”

• Platform-specific requirements, resources, and snippets of code

Storybook and JIRA integration, as well as IDE (Xcode, Android Studio) export.

Improve your team’s design system’s cohesion and the discoverability of previously-coded features with global styleguides and connected components.

• Filterable, categorized, and pinned comments and annotations

During development and QA, you may use the transparent pop-out comparison function to make sure everything appears and acts as planned.

Do You Think Figma Is Better Than Zeplin?

If you’re looking for a design tool, Figma is preferable to Zeplin. There’s really no comparison because Zeplin isn’t meant for designing.

When it comes to developer handoff, Zeplin is superior. The built-in handoff tools in Figma are helpful, but Zeplin offers a wider range of features.

Figma and Zeplin can be used in tandem to create the perfect development workflow for the majority of projects.