Hacker News Reader

Comment by notsrg | Hacker News Reader

Figma is written in C++ and compiled to web assembly. All the UX designers I know are using it because it's pretty powerful for a webapp.

View on HN

Figma is cool, but every time I open a Figma link, my beefy laptop turns into a jet engine on takoff thrust.

Is it an “Intel Inside” laptop?

I have figma open all day, never noticed it have any effect (M1 MBP)

Also M1 MBP, but I only use Figma when consulting a design, not creating one. It's definitely beefy (higher ram usage), but I assume it's electron based and has all of chromium running underneath it. I don't think that's a big deal for things like Figma that are usually someone's primary (or a close second) application. Hasn't been a serious issue for me, but I definitely close it when not in use instead of letting it hang around.

Are you saying its an electron app running web assembly?

Yes. I found it weird too. They put so much effort into making their app performant and then for the desktop app, wrapped it into an electron shell which is weird :)

I guess except the designing canvas, all the UI controls are built over DOM/Javascript and they needed a quick way to take them all into desktop. But I did expect more from Figma :)

Having access to the chrome dev tools during designing is very useful!

I think Figma being a browser web app is one of the core reasons why it’s outpacing alternatives both in terms of features and UX. It’s a remarkable feat.

https://penpot.app/about.html is an open source competitor to figma. I'm not a designer so I cannot speak to how good it is.

It was built to scratch the itch of the company Kaleidos.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com