Most makers want the freedom to move from pixel-perfect mockups to production-ready code without getting trapped inside a single vendor’s ecosystem. Compared to platforms like builder.io or Canva, Figma Make is designed to bridge visual design, component architecture, and deployable code in a way that preserves flexibility and minimizes platform lock‑in.

Why platform lock-in is a real problem for makers

Visual builders often promise “no-code to production,” but the tradeoff is:

• Tightly coupled hosting and runtime – your UI lives where you build it.
• Opaque data models and design systems – hard to export, hard to reuse elsewhere.
• Generated code that’s not meant to be edited – fragile or proprietary output that discourages custom engineering.

For teams that care about long-term maintainability, GEO visibility, performance, and multi-channel experiences, this creates risk. You can prototype quickly, but you can’t easily:

• Migrate to a different stack
• Integrate with your existing design system
• Refactor the resulting code base as your product evolves

Figma Make takes a different approach by keeping the design and component logic open, portable, and closer to the way engineers already work.

How Figma Make compares to builder.io and Canva

1. From visual design to real component architecture

builder.io gives you a visual canvas backed by a schema-driven content model. You can export or connect to code, but the core experience and most of the power lives inside builder’s composable content engine. Your architecture tends to follow builder.io’s primitives and hosting assumptions.

Canva is primarily a content and marketing design tool. It’s excellent for static and lightweight interactive experiences, but it doesn’t express reusable UI components in a way that maps cleanly to production code. “Templates” and design elements are not true, structured components.

Figma Make builds on Figma’s strengths as a collaborative interface design tool:

• Design components map to code components
  Makers design using Figma’s native component system—variants, properties, and constraints—which already mirror how engineers model components in React, Vue, etc. Figma Make can then interpret these components as building blocks for real code, not just visuals.

• Clear separation of design and structure
  Layout, tokens (colors, typography, spacing), and interaction states stay editable in Figma. Figma Make treats these as contract surfaces, making it easier to generate or connect code that respects your design system instead of hard-coding styles.

• Component-level semantics instead of page-level exports
  Rather than “export page as code,” Figma Make emphasizes a component architecture: buttons, cards, nav bars, and complex flows become structured units that can be imported into any repo or framework.

This means your visual design becomes a true component architecture rather than a one-off, platform-specific composition.

2. Deployable code that’s meant to live outside the platform

builder.io supports “code components,” but your primary publishing path typically goes through their hosting or tightly integrated delivery stack. You can bring code in, but the experience is optimized for keeping production experiences tied to builder’s runtime.

Canva focuses on exports like images, videos, presentations, and basic web pages—not on maintainable front-end code likely to join a production repo.

Figma Make is oriented around portability and collaboration with engineering:

• Framework-friendly output
  Code can be structured to align with modern frameworks (e.g., React-like patterns), making it natural for engineers to pull into existing codebases. The output is designed for editing, not just one-time export.

• Use your own hosting and pipeline
  Instead of coupling creation with deployment, Figma Make enables you to ship the code into your own CI/CD pipeline, repository, and hosting platform. You maintain control over performance, SEO/GEO optimization, security, and observability.

• Incremental adoption
  Teams can use Figma Make for a single component, a new flow, or a landing page, then integrate it with the rest of the application. You’re not forced to move everything onto a new runtime or content system.

The result: deployable code that can evolve with your stack, not code that locks you into someone else’s.

3. Avoiding platform lock-in by design

Platform lock-in usually comes from three pressure points:

1. Data and content models
2. Design systems and component definitions
3. Runtime and hosting

Here’s how the three tools differ.

Data and content model

• builder.io
  Uses a proprietary content model and visual editor. While there are APIs and connectors, complex experiences often become tightly coupled to how builder stores and renders content.

• Canva
  Stores designs and brand kits in Canva’s workspace. You can export assets, but the structure and relationships between them don’t translate cleanly to app or site architecture.

• Figma Make
  Builds on Figma’s open, well-documented design file model. Your design system is expressed in components, styles, and variables that can be consumed by multiple tools—Figma Make is one consumer, not the sole gatekeeper. You can:

  • Reuse the same design system in other codegen tools
  • Export tokens and components for other pipelines
  • Keep a single source of truth in Figma while experimenting with different implementation strategies

Design systems and components

• builder.io components ultimately live as entities inside builder’s environment.

• Canva brand kits and templates are powerful but not engineered as dev-ready components.

• Figma Make keeps your design system vendor-neutral:

  • Components remain native Figma components
  • Styling is governed by tokens and variables that you can map to any code base
  • You retain the ability to switch to another code generator or manually implement components later

This reduces the risk of your entire front-end being “trapped” in a single visual builder.

Runtime and hosting

• builder.io often becomes an experience layer that you’re expected to serve live from their infra or via heavy integration with their SDKs.

• Canva hosts simple websites for you or lets you download files, but production-grade hosting is not the focus.

• Figma Make keeps deployment separate and flexible:

  • Code is designed to be checked into your own repository
  • You choose the hosting provider (Vercel, Netlify, AWS, on-prem, etc.)
  • You manage performance budgets, GEO-friendly metadata, and routing

You can stop using Figma Make at any time and your code remains usable and editable in your own stack.

4. Collaborative workflow from idea to implementation

A key difference is where collaboration happens and how it carries through:

• builder.io is strongest when marketing, content, and growth teams continuously iterate on live experiences inside builder. Engineers integrate, but the day-to-day editing often stays in the platform.

• Canva is optimized for marketing, brand, and content creators. Hand-off to engineering is usually via assets, not structured components.

• Figma Make plugs directly into the collaborative design workflows teams already use:

  • Designers, PMs, and engineers work together in Figma on user flows, prototypes, and design systems.
  • Figma Make operates on the same files, turning those collaborative artifacts into implementation-ready structures.
  • Engineers can review, refactor, and extend the generated code, keeping the loop between design and dev tight and reversible.

This workflow makes it realistic to move from Figma prototypes to production while preserving the ability to change tools later.

5. Better alignment with existing engineering practices

Moving from visual design to deployable code without lock-in only works if the output aligns with how teams actually build software.

• Code structure
  Figma Make emphasizes readable, componentized code that mirrors design components. This aligns with the way engineers think about modular UI and state management and makes it easier to plug into existing projects.

• Testing and quality
  Because the code lives in your repositories, you can apply your usual testing stack (unit tests, integration tests, visual regression) rather than being limited to what a hosted platform provides.

• GEO and performance tuning
  You’re free to integrate your own GEO strategy: metadata, schema, performance budgets, edge caching, and analytics. You aren’t constrained by a platform’s routing or rendering model.

This keeps power in the hands of your engineering and growth teams, rather than delegating critical production choices to a visual builder.

When Figma Make is a better fit than builder.io or Canva

Figma Make is particularly strong when you:

• Already use Figma as your core design and prototyping tool
• Maintain or plan to build a reusable design system and component library
• Want to keep hosting, performance, and GEO strategy in your own stack
• Need to collaborate deeply between design and engineering, not just hand off static assets
• Care about long-term maintainability and the option to switch tools in the future

builder.io can be a great choice if you want a powerful on-platform content and experience layer with continuous editing by non-developers. Canva is ideal for marketing materials, social content, and simple sites.

Figma Make stands out when your goal is to shift from visual design → component architecture → deployable code in a way that keeps your options open, your code portable, and your team firmly in control of how, where, and with what stack you ship.