Software Alternatives & Reviews

Retool VS Figma

Compare Retool VS Figma and see what are their differences

Retool logo Retool

Build custom internal tools in minutes.

Figma logo Figma

Team-based interface design, Figma lets you collaborate on designs in real time.
  • Retool Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-08-04
  • Figma Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-04-19

Retool videos

Retool - Logic Review

More videos:

  • Review - #Worth?! Ep.12 - Retool (Gameplay / Review)
  • Demo - February NY Enterprise Tech Meetup: Retool Demo

Figma videos

Figma UI Design Tutorial: Get Started in Just 24 Minutes!

More videos:

  • Demo - What is Figma

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Retool and Figma)
No Code
100 100%
0% 0
Design Tools
0 0%
100% 100
Developer Tools
100 100%
0% 0
Prototyping
0 0%
100% 100

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare Retool and Figma

Retool Reviews

React UI Components Libraries: Our Top Picks for 2023
Retool offers extensive documentation and support. Its support is available on its Discourse forum, Slack (if you are a Retool power user), Intercom for live chat, and dedicated support for enterprise customers.
Source: kinsta.com
ILLA Cloud vs. Retool vs. Bubble - Unveiling the Best Low-Code Platforms
In the quest for the best low-code platform, Retool, Bubble, and ILLA Cloud all offer unique features and capabilities. While Retool shines with its self-hosted option and Bubble contributes to the open-source community, ILLA Cloud stands out as a powerful and flexible low-code platform. With its comprehensive feature set, affordable pricing models, and self-hosted...
Top 9 Low-Code Tools for 2023 for low-code development
Retool is a powerful low-code platform that enables developers to build internal tools and apps with ease. It offers a drag-and-drop interface and a wide range of pre-built components for seamless development. Retool integrates with various data sources and external services, allowing users to fetch data, perform calculations, and display results in real-time. Its...
Superblock vs Retool: A Comprehensive Comparison for Low-code development Platforms
Retool caters to a diverse audience, including developers, product managers, and business professionals. Developers benefit from Retool's low-code capabilities, allowing them to build applications quickly without sacrificing customization. Product managers can leverage Retool to streamline internal workflows and enable teams to be more productive. Business professionals can...
Top React component libraries (2021 edition)
Style editors — Style editors are available across all Retool plans and allow you to customize your Retool components within the Retool UI by editing the style properties (e.g., color, border-radius) of any component.
Source: retool.com

Figma Reviews

  1. Figma: An Essential Tool for Web Designers and Collaborators

    Figma, a versatile cloud-based design software, stands out among design tools due to its real-time collaboration feature. It caters not only to web design but also to print projects. Offering an intuitive interface and powerful features, it allows simultaneous editing, eliminating the hassle of file sharing. Figma's adaptability covers website, mobile app, and print layout design, supported by an array of customizable templates.

    Beyond designers, collaborators benefit from Figma's capabilities too. Project managers and clients can offer real-time feedback, streamlining reviews and expediting project progress. Its pricing model, featuring a free version with limited features and a paid option, suits various budgets, ensuring accessibility to freelancers and larger agencies alike.

    Core features like real-time collaboration, prototyping, and reusable design elements distinguish Figma. These features facilitate efficient design iterations, ensuring consistency and enabling users to test ideas before development. The tool's emphasis on seamless collaboration makes it a valuable asset for teams, fostering clear communication through comments directly on the design file.

    🏁 Competitors: Adobe XD, Framer, Sketch, Moqups
    👍 Pros:    Real-time collaboration|Versatility|Intuitive user interface|Feedback and communication|Prototyping capabilities|Accessibility
    👎 Cons:    Learning curve|Internet dependency|Limited free version|Security concerns|Complexity in large projects
  2. The best designing app for your website!

    It is user friendly app with alot of modern features which give your website a cool look

    🏁 Competitors: Adobe Illustrator
    👍 Pros:    Easy to use|User friendly interface
    👎 Cons:    Expensive
  3. Very good!

    My experience with Figma for website design has been overwhelmingly positive. Figma's user-friendly interface, coupled with its comprehensive toolkit, has made the design process not only efficient but also enjoyable. The standout feature for me has been the ease of collaborative editing. The real-time collaborative capabilities of Figma have transformed the way our team works. We can simultaneously edit designs, share feedback instantly, and collectively refine our work without any hassle. This feature has not only improved our productivity but also resulted in a more cohesive design output. Overall, Figma has proven to be an invaluable tool for our website design needs, significantly improving our design workflow and fostering a more collaborative environment. I would highly recommend Figma to any team looking for a robust, user-friendly design tool.

    🏁 Competitors: Adobe Photoshop

10 Best Figma Alternatives in 2024
Figma is the preferred tool of many professionals in the field of interactive design, real prototyping and graphic design. Figma simplifies and speeds up the brainstorming process with its online whiteboards and loaded frames. There are other collaborative design and prototype platforms available except Figma, which is definitely among the best. It’s too difficult for some...
Top 10 Figma Alternatives for Your Design Needs | ClickUp
Whatever your reason for seeking a Figma alternative, there are plenty of options that can help you ace the design game. In this article, we’ll introduce you to the top 10 Figma alternatives, discuss their pros and cons, and help you find the best solution for your design workflows.
Source: clickup.com
Figma Alternatives: 12 Prototyping and Design Tools in 2024
Prototyping is a concept where you and your team draft a version of a product. For many designers, Figma is the go-to design platform to do this. However, if you’re looking for an alternative to Figma, look no further, as we’ll list 12 of the best prototyping and design tools available in 2023.
5 Figma Alternatives for UI & UX Designers
I think it’s a fair assessment that more than people being upset about Adobe having acquired Figma, it’s the fear of losing access to these community-curated resources. Integrating a community aspect might prove beneficial, whether you’re a paid or free design tool. And even more so if the day does come when Adobe decides to pull the plug on Figma and stuff it inside...
Source: stackdiary.com
16+ Best Web Design Software in 2022 (Ranked by a Trusted Expert)
The free version of Figma can be used forever, which is nice since other programs like Ghost and Abode Dreamworks only offer a free trial period. Additionally, what makes Figma stand out is that its premium plans are free for students and educators.

Social recommendations and mentions

Figma might be a bit more popular than Retool. We know about 101 links to it since March 2021 and only 89 links to Retool. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Retool mentions (89)

  • The End of Airplane.dev
    I am building https://github.com/claceio/clace and https://retool.com/, allow automation of operational tasks through a web interface while also allowing fully custom web apps. Clace also works great for running simple web apps locally. Building and deploying a web app should be as easy and common for backend engineers as creating a CLI app is. - Source: Hacker News / about 2 months ago
  • FastUI: Build Better UIs Faster
    This seems to mainly be useful for spinning up quick and dirty internal tools. But for that use-case, isn't it easier to use something visual and established like Retool (https://retool.com/) or that generates nice react code, like MUI Toolpad (https://mui.com/toolpad/)? - Source: Hacker News / about 2 months ago
  • Internal tools often make bad startup ideas
    There are obvious counterexamples, like https://retool.com, which is a successful company with solid revenue and multi-B valuation. > software engineers — who are often influencers in a purchase decision — are strongly incentivized to build instead of buy Regardless of what software engineers would rather do, pressure from real users trumps pressure from internal users. This especially true in startups, whose... - Source: Hacker News / 3 months ago
  • YC: Requests for Startups
    I submitted an application for w24 that fits in the "Developer tools inspired by existing internal tools" category but wasn't accepted. I suspect my pitch probably needed work, and I also haven't started building at all yet and submitted as a solo-founder which it seems has less chance of being accepted. Here's the pitch and some details, in case anyone else is interested in the idea: > Supportal uses AI to... - Source: Hacker News / 3 months ago
  • A list of SaaS, PaaS and IaaS offerings that have free tiers of interest to devops and infradev
    ReTool — Low-code platform for building internal applications. Retool is highly hackable. If you can write it with JavaScript and an API, you can make it in Retool. The free tier allows up to five users per month, unlimited apps and API connections. - Source: dev.to / 3 months ago
View more

Figma mentions (101)

  • How to build a Good Portfolio Website - My Approach.
    Planning and Design: Adobe Xd (but you can also try Figma). - Source: dev.to / 2 months ago
  • Ask HN: What's the best way to write a book in Markdown?
    Hey, I've wrote a few books (https://kerkour.com/books) with only markdown, https://excalidraw.com and https://figma.com I've detailed my complete setup and shared the Dockerfile that I use to convert the markdown into ebooks (EPUB, PDF and Kindle) on my blog: https://kerkour.com/book-self-publishing-pandoc. - Source: Hacker News / 6 months ago
  • Build Products that don’t SUCK
    Create a low-fidelity mockup or wireframe of your MVP using tools like Balsamiq, Sketch, or Figma. Or use an easier-to-use tool like Uizard, which also has text-to-design capabilities. Source: 9 months ago
  • Syncing Figma Variables and StyleDictionary with GitHub Actions
    Figma recently announced its new Variables product, allowing you to define and manage your design tokens directly within Figma. I have been experimenting with Figma Variables for a few weeks and am reasonably impressed with how it works. In this article, I'll share how I've been using Figma Variables to support my design projects and how I've been syncing them with my codebase with GitHub Actions and... - Source: dev.to / 9 months ago
  • The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom - Figma Link Figure Revealed: TotK Ver. Goodsmile
    Did anyone else think of Figma the design software or is it just me? https://figma.com. Source: 10 months ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Retool and Figma, you can also consider the following products

Airtable - Airtable works like a spreadsheet but gives you the power of a database to organize anything. Sign up for free.

Adobe XD - Adobe XD is an all-in-one UX/UI solution for designing websites, mobile apps and more. 

Bubble.io - Building tech is slow and expensive. Bubble is the most powerful no-code platform for creating digital products.

Invision - Prototyping and collaboration for design teams

Appsmith - Appsmith is an open source web framework for building internal tools, admin panels, dashboards, and workflows.

Sketch - Professional digital design for Mac.