Open-source Claude Design alternative.
Open Design is the official open-source, local-first alternative to Claude Design. BYOK with the agent you already use, keep your brand as a portable DESIGN.md file, and ship artifacts as files in your project.
TL;DR
Same use case, different posture: local-first, BYOK, open source (Apache-2.0), with portable DESIGN.md systems and composable SKILL.md skills.
Why people search for a Claude Design alternative
Five reasons keep showing up in support threads, GitHub discussions, and Discord:
- Data ownership. Designs should live as files in a repo, not documents in a vendor DB.
- BYOK economics. Bring your own provider key; API spend bills to your account.
- Agent choice. Drive design from the agent you already use for code.
- Brand portability. One DESIGN.md file encodes a brand for every skill.
- Self-host / fork. Apache-2.0, full source, rebrandable for your studio or company.
Local-first + BYOK, explained
Open Design runs a desktop app, a local daemon, and Markdown skill/system catalogs on your machine.
No design output is forced through a vendor cloud. Credentials stay in local config or environment variables.
Feature comparison
| Feature | Open Design | Claude Design |
|---|---|---|
| License | ●Apache-2.0, full source on GitHub | Closed-source, hosted product |
| Runtime | ●Local daemon on your machine | Vendor cloud |
| Agent | ●BYOK: Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Gemini, OpenCode, Qwen | Vendor-managed agent |
| API spend | ●Bills to your account | Bundled into vendor subscription |
| Design system | ●Portable DESIGN.md in your repo | Stored in vendor DB |
| Skills | ●Composable SKILL.md you can fork | Built-in templates |
| Self-host | ●Yes, run anywhere Node 24 runs | No |
| Pricing | ●Free product; you pay agent API costs | Vendor subscription |
| CLI / CI | ●Yes via od CLI + HTTP daemon | Web UI only |
| Artifact ownership | ●Files in your project directory | Vendor-hosted documents |
Who should pick which
Pick Claude Design if
- You want zero local setup and one vendor bill.
- You are already deep in a Claude-first workflow.
- Your team prefers a hosted UI over Markdown files.
Pick Open Design if
- You want design artifacts as version-controlled files.
- You want BYOK with your existing coding agent.
- You want to fork, rebrand, embed in CLI, or self-host.
- You want one DESIGN.md per brand that every skill respects.
Migration / first run
There is no automatic import from Claude Design today; use a one-time brand-extraction run:
- Install Open Design from the quickstart.
- Open the web UI and point your agent at a Claude Design artifact you like.
- Ask the agent to extract the brand into a DESIGN.md file.
- Pick a skill and render it against your new brand.
From then on, every skill renders in your brand without re-prompting.
FAQ
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01 Is Open Design really a drop-in alternative to Claude Design?
Not literally, but they overlap on prompt-to-design-artifact use cases.
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02 Can I use Claude as my agent in Open Design?
Yes. Open Design supports Claude Code and Anthropic API BYOK flows.
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03 What happens to my Claude Design designs?
You can keep using Claude Design alongside Open Design; migration is manual today.
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04 Does Open Design generate the same artifact types?
Yes for common types: landing pages, decks, dashboards, social posts, brand systems, and prototypes.
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05 Why "open-source Claude Design" vs "open-source AI design tool"?
That is how many users describe the product shape they are searching for.
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06 Who builds and maintains Open Design?
The project lives at github.com/nexu-io/open-design and is Apache-2.0.
Switch in three commands.
Star the repo, grab the desktop build, or run the install in your terminal. Your DESIGN.md system stays in your repo from the first render onward.