# Build brief — a focused alternative to Figma

> **Verdict:** Not faithfully · **Buildability:** 21/100 · **Category:** Design
> **Source:** https://www.canitbevibecoded.com/figma
> Independent editorial assessment from Can It Be Vibe Coded? Not affiliated with, endorsed by, or derived from Figma. Verify current pricing and capabilities before acting.

## Context

**Figma** — Collaborative browser-based design and prototyping tool. It currently costs $20/mo.

You can make a small drawing/prototyping tool, but Figma's moat is real-time multiplayer editing, plugin ecosystem, design-system workflows, performance, and enterprise trust.

This brief describes a focused, single-operator replacement for the part of Figma that is genuinely reproducible. It is deliberately narrower than the product it replaces, and it says so in writing. Build the useful core; do not pretend to have rebuilt the rest.

## What you are building

Build a simple canvas editor with rectangles/text/components and export, but expect it to be a toy compared with Figma.

- Generate a constrained editing workflow with reusable templates and deterministic exports.
- A responsive interface with real empty, loading, success, and error states.

## Requirements

### Functional

- Web canvas/WebGL/SVG expertise.
- Real-time collaboration backend.
- File format.
- Permissions.
- Plugin model.

### Non-functional

- Accessibility: semantic markup, labelled controls, visible focus, and reduced-motion support.
- Security: server-side secrets, validated input, and no credentials in the client bundle.
- Reliability: retries with backoff on external calls, and a clear failure state when a provider is down.
- Portability: the operator can export their data and leave without losing it.

## Implementation brief

Build me a single-player vector canvas editor, a stripped-back sketch of Figma's
core canvas. Requirements:

- A canvas editor with rectangles, ellipses, text, and frames; select, move,
  and resize with handles; fill, stroke, and corner-radius controls in a right
  panel.
- A layers list with drag-reorder.
- Export the current selection as SVG and PNG.
- Local-first: documents persist to IndexedDB, with import and export as JSON.
- Vanilla JS or Svelte on a single canvas element, pick the simpler to ship; no
  backend at all.
- No accounts, no telemetry, everything stays in the browser on my machine.
- Out of scope: multiplayer, comments, components, auto-layout, and plugins.
  Do not build any collaboration or sync layer.
- README: state that this is not a Figma replacement, the moat is real-time
  multiplayer plus the network of people already on it, and point to Penpot or
  Excalidraw for serious single-player use.

## Delivery standard

- Inspect the repository first, then write a short implementation plan before writing code.
- Deliver the smallest complete end-to-end workflow first; every primary control must work against persisted data.
- Use real validation and storage; never substitute fake dashboards, decorative controls, hard-coded success states, or mock integrations.
- Include responsive layouts plus genuine empty, loading, success, validation, and failure states.
- Keep secrets server-side in environment variables, provide .env.example, and never commit credentials or user data.
- Add structured logs around every external call and return actionable errors without leaking sensitive details.
- Write unit tests for the core logic and one automated test of the main user journey.
- Finish with a README covering setup, architecture, data location, backups, tests, deployment, and known limitations.

## Acceptance criteria

- [ ] A clean install starts the app using only the README and .env.example.
- [ ] The primary journey works from first visit through saved result, reload, edit, export, and deletion where applicable.
- [ ] Invalid input, missing configuration, provider failure, and an empty database each have a usable state.
- [ ] The interface works at 390px and 1440px, is keyboard navigable, and shows visible focus on every control.
- [ ] Tests, type checking, linting, and a production build all pass with no ignored failures.
- [ ] No part of the interface implies a live integration, security guarantee, or scale capability that was not actually built and verified.

## Non-goals

Do not build these, and do not claim to have replaced them:

- Real-time multiplayer that just works.
- Your team, who are all on Figma.
- The plugin ecosystem.
- Ten years of canvas performance engineering.
- Permissions, presence, and shared workflows are difficult to simplify.
- The value comes from the people already using it.

## What you still own after launch

- Run migrations, backups, restores, and dependency updates.
- Test the critical journey after every model, API, or hosting change.
- Monitor failures and fix the edge cases a first prompt will miss.

## Risk

**Manageable.** A personal version is realistic if you test the critical journey and keep reliable backups.

Editorial confidence in this assessment: high. No independent one-shot implementation is linked yet.

## Prior art

Working open-source software you can read, fork, or borrow from before starting:

- [Penpot](https://github.com/penpot/penpot) — open-source design tool — the serious alternative
- [Excalidraw](https://github.com/excalidraw/excalidraw) — collaborative whiteboard, open source

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