Figma alternatives that can actually open your .fig files

Lists of "Figma alternatives" usually compare feature checklists. For a team with three years of design history, the checklist matters less than a blunt question: what happens to our files? This overview sorts the field by that criterion first.

The migration question, made concrete

Your design history is stored as .fig files — Figma's own format, containing your components, their overrides, auto-layout constraints, styles and variables. Any alternative falls into one of three buckets:

1. Native .fig support. The tool opens the file itself. Your files open as editable documents; components stay components, styles stay styles, auto-layout keeps working. This is the bucket Tuvi is in: you upload the .fig you already have — older and newer variants alike — and it opens in the browser with nothing converted and nothing redrawn.
2. Converter-based import. A plugin or service translates the file into the tool's own format. Quality varies with the converter's coverage and it silently drops what it does not understand — worth testing with your gnarliest real file, not the demo one.
3. SVG/image import only. You export flattened artwork from the original tool. Layout, components and text editability are largely gone; you keep pictures and re-draw the rest.

What else genuinely differs between alternatives

Once migration is answered, four axes separate the serious options:

• Collaboration model. Real-time multiplayer with comments is the baseline your team already expects; check whether it holds up with a full team in one file. Tuvi runs real-time co-editing with in-context comments on every plan, including the free one.
• Developer hand-off. Inspection plus code generation shortens the designer-developer loop. Tuvi's Dev Mode generates code in seven formats (CSS, React, Tailwind, SwiftUI, UIKit, Compose, Android XML) from the selected element.
• Automation. If design files feed pipelines — rendering previews, batch exports — a command-line tool (CLI) matters. Tuvi ships one alongside the browser editor.
• Pricing shape. Per-editor seats are the norm; the differences are in free tiers and annual discounts. Tuvi: free personal drafts always, free Starter team (3 editors, 1 project), $12/seat Professional, $45/seat Organization, 20% off yearly — and viewers never need a paid seat.

Honest gaps to check before switching to anything

Every alternative — Tuvi included — trails the incumbent somewhere. For Tuvi the open list is: no plugin API yet, no whiteboard/slides surfaces, slow opening of very large (100 MB+) files, and simplified rendering of text and images in browsers without modern graphics support (all tracked on the public roadmap). Other tools have their own lists; insist on seeing them written down.

A practical evaluation plan

Pick your most complex real file. Import it into the candidate. Then run one sprint's worth of workflow: edit together, hand off one component to a developer, export what you need. If the tool cannot survive that week, no comparison table will save it; if it can, you have your answer without betting the team.