6 Best Figma Plugins for React in 2024

Ever since technology arrived in this world, it has had an impact on everyone and everything. Its main aim is to reduce the number of steps to do a certain task and, hence, save a lot of time. One such thing is converting Figma designs into working code in React, the most popular frontend library used by millions of developers.

Without Figma plugins, developers convert the Figma designs into code in React themselves, which takes a chunk of time from their development lifecycle. Moreover, they need to check the responsiveness of the designs for all screen sizes as well. How do they solve this problem?

But with Figma plugins for React, developers do not need to write the whole code for the designs themselves. Instead, they can simply run a plugin on Figma, and that plugin can convert the design into high-quality React code for them. Therefore, In this article, we will discuss what Figma is, why we need Figma plugins, and some of the best Figma plugins that developers can use to convert the design into code for React.

What is Figma?

Figma is a game-changing collaborative design tool that designers can use to create impactful designs for social media platforms, websites, mobile apps, and literally anything. It can be used by designers, product managers, developers, writers, and anyone else involved in the design process.

Designers can create and share logos, wireframes, and website layouts for any digital product while engaging with other team members. Multiple people can collaborate on any design by writing and resolving comments to make the design process simpler and faster.

What is a Figma Plugin and Why do We Need it?

A Figma plugin is a tool that extends the functionality of Figma to provide extra features and make any task faster. The plugins are created by the Figma community and millions of plugins are available that designers can choose from to create efficient workflows. Figma plugins are created using HTML and JavaScript. With Plugin API, the plugins can interact with Figma.

Figma plugins are helpful in multiple scenarios, such as:

1. Project Planning

Suppose you want to plan and manage any design with other team members in Figma. Now, you can create a design board for yourself by actually creating a frame and drawing a table with multiple rows and columns. This is achievable, but it would take some time. To save time, what if you could take that table from somewhere else? With plugins, it can be done. Product Planner by Hexorial Studio provides multiple templates to designers so that they can plan the product and the goal of the tasks without doing much of the prerequisite work, thereby, saving a lot of time.

2. Spell Checking

In Figma, designers deal with a lot of text content, so it is important for the text to be grammatically correct as it can be used to publish on social media platforms and on the final websites. The plugin named Spellchecker by Vladimir helps to find those nasty spelling mistakes and fix them with just a few clicks. This helps prevent the process of manually copying the text to a spell-checking tool and pasting the corrected text back to the design in Figma.

Best Figma Plugins for React in 2024

Out of an enormous quantity of plugins on Figma, there are several plugins that are available for React. Let’s look at some of the best Figma plugins that designers and developers can use to convert the designs into working code for React.

1. Locofy

Locofy is a Figma plugin that is powered by AI and helps convert Figma design to pixel-perfect, high-quality, and production-ready React code. It provides a responsive, component-based layout for the website and is used by 240,000+ users. This plugin can be used inside of Figma as it can integrate with the design tool seamlessly. Developers can also see a preview of the code in real time.

Locofy’s LocoAI converts static elements like simple buttons and drop-down menus into interactive elements on the website. It also provides onClick actions, effects for hovering over an element, etc. It enables responsiveness for all available screen sizes by adding media queries to all the elements. On the specific React front, LocoAI can split the code into reusable components, too, with props. This plugin is compatible with Figma’s Dev mode too.

2. Visual Copilot by Builder.io

Visual Copilot, an AI-powered plugin by Builder.io with over 600,000 users, does not require developers to build pages in React by hard coding. Instead, with just a click, it converts Figma design into React code. Responsiveness is provided by default, i.e., developers do not need to write manual code for responsiveness for several screen sizes. It can also integrate with styling libraries like Tailwind and Styled Components.

This plugin enables customization, such that the developers can structure the code to their preference by toggling options between fast, cleaner, and semantic code. Developers can also customize by providing instructions as a prompt. Visual Copilot enables seamless integration with the existing codebase, as the developers can simply sync the generated code into the codebase.

3. Anima

One of the most popular Figma plugins with over 900,000 active users, Anima is used to generate clean, boilerplate code for React from Figma designs. It gives high-quality React code that is both readable and maintainable. Based on the required props and the variants in Figma, it provides stateful and interactive React components. It provides responsiveness out of the box as it is based on Figma Auto Layout.

Developers can open the code of Anima in Playground so that it can be rendered in real time and listen for changes. There is an export feature too that can be used by developers to export converted React code directly into their favorite IDE. Without any manual effort, Anima converts the Figma links into React Routers to maintain the linking between the pages.

4. DhiWise

With more than 40,000 users using this Figma plugin, DhiWise is used to automate the application development lifecycle as it can generate human-readable, modular, and reusable React code with a few clicks. With support for 41+ UI components, this plugin automatically identifies every app design. Developers can take advantage of live design previews with the Smart Editor.

DhiWise uses a clean code architecture, which enhances scalability and maintainability. To increase the code quality, this plugin identifies and deletes duplicate screens, components, and meaningless variable names. The final code can be easily exported to any IDE with minimal effort and integrated with the project without any dependencies.

5. FigAct

FigAct helps convert designs in Figma to responsive React code with React Router and hooks without compromising quality. About 16,000 users use this plugin, which has an accuracy rate of 80% -90%. It automatically imports the required fonts from Google Fonts.

Images used in the designs are automatically downloaded and imported into the final project zip file. The onClick actions, solid and linear gradients are supported. To use this plugin, users can simply install it in Figma and fill in the credentials to generate the full project including all the frames. The final zip file can be downloaded and viewed in the project by running “npm install” and “npm run start”.

6. Unify

Unify is another Figma plugin with more than 30,000 users, which is used to convert designs into React code. This plugin works best when designs are converted into individual components in React instead of generating entire pages. Converting Figma designs into components eliminates the responsive issues that the developers may face.

Developers can even increase the performance of this plugin by grouping child elements with the help of the auto-layout feature on Figma. This maintains the alignment within the components. Additionally, Unify can generate better class names for elements by naming component child layers in Figma. This helps in making the code readable and, hence, easier to work with.

Conclusion

Figma plugins for React can help developers save a lot of development time without compromising on high-quality and maintainable code. The Figma community has created several such plugins that can convert simple to complex Figma designs into code in React. This article discussed some of the best Figma plugins that designers and developers can use for React in 2024.

While any plugin may work for a project, it is important to analyze and choose the plugin that satisfies the needs or requirements of the project. The right plugin can work wonders, as it can output an amazing website with a collection of highly performant components in React.