DadakiA free Figma alternative for vector work
Figma is a very good product that is aimed at interface design and, increasingly, at teams that can be billed. If what you actually want is to draw vectors, in a browser, without an account, this is the smaller and freer tool.
The short version
| Dadaki | Figma | |
|---|---|---|
| Runs in the browser | Yes | Yes |
| Account required to start | No | Yes |
| Open source | Yes, MIT | No |
| Free file limit | None | Free tier is capped |
| Works on your own files, locally | Yes, stored in your browser | No, files live on Figma's servers |
| Real-time multiplayer | Presence and cloud sync with an account | Yes, and better |
| Prototyping and design systems | No | Yes |
| Plugin ecosystem | No | Large |
| Driven by an AI agent over MCP | Yes | Limited |
Where Dadaki is the better tool
You just want to open the thing and draw
dadaki.com puts you on a canvas immediately. No sign-up, no email confirmation, no team-name step, no onboarding tour. If you have five minutes and an idea, that difference is the whole product.
Your work is not a UI
Illustration, logos, icons, diagrams and print artwork are drawing tasks, not interface tasks. Live Paint, mesh gradients, variable-width strokes and boolean geometry are the tools for that, and they are the ones Dadaki has.
The files have to stay yours
Signed out, documents live in your browser and nothing is uploaded. Under an NDA, or on a client's unreleased brand, that is a materially different position from a hosted design tool.
You want to read the source
The editor is MIT-licensed and on GitHub. You can embed it in your own product, fork it, or check what it does with your data by reading it rather than by trusting a policy page.
Where Figma is still the better tool
It would be silly to pretend otherwise, and you will find out in an afternoon anyway.
- Real-time collaboration. Figma's multiplayer editing is the best in the category and it is the reason most teams are there. Dadaki has cloud documents and presence with an account, but many cursors in one file at once is Figma's home ground.
- Interface design as a discipline. Components, variants, auto layout, design tokens, prototyping and dev handoff are an entire product that Dadaki does not attempt.
- Plugins. A large third-party ecosystem covers a long tail of workflows. Dadaki has no plugin API.
- Team process. Comments, branching, libraries shared across an organisation, permissions with any nuance.
A reasonable answer for a lot of people is both: Figma for the product work, Dadaki for the drawing, with SVG moving between them in either direction.
Moving artwork between the two
SVG is the bridge and it works in both directions. In Figma, select a frame or layer and use Export as SVG; in Dadaki, press ⌘O or drag the file onto the canvas. Going back, export SVG from Dadaki with ⇧⌘E and paste or import it into Figma.
Text is the thing to watch, in either direction: SVG references fonts by name rather than embedding them, so a font neither end has installed will fall back. Converting text to outlines (⇧⌘O) before exporting removes the question entirely, at the cost of the text no longer being editable.
Dadaki is free and the editor is open source under the MIT licence — the whole thing is on GitHub. There is no watermark, no export limit and no paid tier gating the drawing tools. An optional account adds cloud sync and shared team files; everything else works signed out.
Open the editorNo sign-up, no download. It opens on a blank canvas.
Questions
Is there a genuinely free alternative to Figma?
Dadaki is free and open source under the MIT licence, with no file cap and no account needed to use the editor. It is a vector drawing tool rather than a full interface-design suite, so it replaces Figma for illustration and logo work, not for prototyping or design systems.
Can Dadaki open Figma files?
Not the .fig format, which is proprietary. Export what you need from Figma as SVG and open that — the paths, fills and text come across as editable geometry.
Does Dadaki have real-time collaboration like Figma?
With an account you get cloud sync, shared team documents and presence — seeing who else has a file open and being told when someone saves. Figma's simultaneous multi-cursor editing is more mature.
Do I have to sign up?
No. The editor opens on a canvas with no account at all, and your documents stay in your own browser. An account is only needed for cloud sync and team files.