Alternative · Google Stitch
Best Google Stitch alternative for design.
Open Design is the open-source, local-first alternative to Google Stitch — prompt-to-UI with the coding agent you already use, your key, your files, and a portable design system you keep in your repo.
Google Stitch is a Google Labs design tool that turns a natural-language prompt — or a screenshot, sketch, or voice description — into a high-fidelity UI, generated by Gemini inside a hosted canvas. It launched at Google I/O in May 2025 on the back of Google’s Galileo AI acquisition, gained Gemini 3 and a multi-screen "Prototypes" canvas through late 2025, and is genuinely good at producing a clean first draft fast. It is also free — with the catch that it is cloud-only, tied to a Google account, and capped at roughly 350 standard generations a month.
Open Design is the open-source, local-first alternative: a design agent you point your own coding agent at (Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Gemini, OpenCode, Qwen) over BYOK. Same prompt-to-UI surface — but the source, the design system, and the output stay as files you own in your repo, with no per-month cap and no vendor sign-in. This page is honest about where Stitch genuinely wins and where Open Design does.
01
What Google Stitch is
Google Stitch (stitch.withgoogle.com) is a Google Labs design tool that converts a natural-language prompt — or an uploaded image, sketch, screenshot, or voice description — into a high-fidelity web or mobile UI, with Gemini doing the design work as you direct it by conversation. It runs entirely in the browser, requires a Google account, and is free. Under the hood it began life as Galileo AI, the prompt-to-UI startup Google acquired and relaunched as Stitch at Google I/O in May 2025.
Stitch runs in two modes: a Standard mode on Gemini 2.5 Flash for fast generation (roughly 350 generations a month) and an Experimental mode on Gemini 2.5 Pro for higher fidelity with a much smaller monthly pool (commonly reported around 50). A December 2025 update brought Gemini 3 for sharper layouts, and a multi-screen Prototypes canvas lets you stitch screens into a clickable flow.
For output, Stitch exports HTML/CSS and React, and supports paste-into-Figma with auto-layout, named layers, and editable text — a real starting point to refine, not a flat screenshot. What it does not have: a paid tier to lift the cap, a bring-your-own-key option, an enforceable design system, or any local / self-host mode.
- Vendor: Google Labs — cloud-only at stitch.withgoogle.com, Google account required, closed-source
- Model: Gemini (2.5 Flash standard / 2.5 Pro experimental; Gemini 3 added Dec 2025)
- Pricing: free, no paid tier — capped at ~350 standard + a smaller experimental pool per month
- Output: high-fidelity screens + multi-screen Prototypes; HTML/CSS and React export, paste-to-Figma
02
Open Design vs Google Stitch, feature by feature
| Feature | Open Design | Google Stitch |
|---|---|---|
| License | Apache-2.0, full source on GitHub | Closed-source Google Labs experiment |
| Runtime | Local daemon on your machine | Cloud-only (stitch.withgoogle.com) |
| Account | None required; runs locally | Google account sign-in required |
| Pricing / limits | Free; your own model API spend, no app-level cap | Free; ~350 standard + smaller experimental gens/month, no paid tier |
| Model | BYOK — Claude, GPT/Codex, Gemini, Qwen, more | Gemini (Flash standard / Pro experimental; Gemini 3 Dec 2025) |
| Output formats | Real files: HTML/CSS, React, decks, DESIGN.md | HTML/CSS + React export, paste-to-Figma |
| Portability | Files in your project dir / git | Hosted project state + manual export |
| Self-host | Yes, anywhere Node 24 runs | No |
| Design system | Portable DESIGN.md every skill enforces | No enforceable brand kit; re-prompt hex each time |
| Code ownership | Lands in your repo, you own it | Exported snapshot; tool not in your codebase |
| Flows vs screens | Multi-artifact projects, prototypes, decks | Screens + multi-screen Prototypes canvas |
| CLI / CI / API | od CLI + local HTTP daemon | Web canvas only; no public API |
Read it honestly: Stitch wins on zero-setup speed and a free, Gemini-backed first draft with a clean Figma paste. Open Design wins everywhere the work has to outlive the draft — open source, local-first, no monthly cap, BYOK with the agent you already use, and a design system that lives as files in your repo instead of styling you re-prompt every session.
03
Why teams look for a Google Stitch alternative
Stitch is a great way to get a first screen on the canvas. The frustrations start once you iterate hard, need brand consistency, or want the design to live inside your codebase — exactly the points where a hosted Labs experiment is structurally limited.
- You run out of generations: The ~350 standard generations a month, plus a much smaller experimental pool, sound generous until you are iterating on a real project. There is no paid tier and no bring-your-own-key escape hatch — so heavy days mean waiting for a reset. Open Design has no app-level cap; you pay your own model spend and keep going.
- The brand never sticks: Stitch has no enforceable design system: you re-prompt brand colors as hex values every time, the same prompt yields a different result each run, and navigation can drift between screens. Open Design centralizes brand in one DESIGN.md that every render obeys, so iterations stay consistent.
- It lives in a separate tab: Design happens in Stitch’s cloud canvas, disconnected from your repo — you export a snapshot and re-integrate by hand, with no API to wire it into CI or an agent loop. Open Design output lands as files in your project and is drivable from the od CLI and local HTTP daemon.
- You cannot own or fork it: Stitch is closed-source and Google-hosted: no self-host, no audit, no rebrand for your studio. Open Design is Apache-2.0 — fork it, run it on your own machine, embed it in pipelines, and own every artifact it produces.
04
Local-first + BYOK, explained
Open Design runs a desktop app, a local daemon, and Markdown skill and design-system catalogs on your machine. No design output is forced through a vendor cloud, and your brand lives in your repo as a portable DESIGN.md file every skill respects.
You bring your own agent key. Credentials stay in local config or environment variables — Open Design never proxies them — and the API spend bills directly to you.
New to the idea? Read what vibe design is, browse the plugin and design-system library, see all Open Design comparisons — including Figma and Lovable — or download Open Design to try it.
05
Where Google Stitch genuinely wins — and which to pick
Credit where it is due: for a fast, free first draft, Stitch is hard to beat. It is zero-setup (sign in with a Google account and type), Gemini 3 produces clean, on-trend layouts from a sentence or a screenshot, and the paste-into-Figma handoff gives designers a real, editable starting point rather than a flat image. If your job is to get a polished concept screen in front of someone in two minutes and you are happy living in a hosted canvas, Stitch does that exceptionally well — and the price is zero. The trade-off is everything that comes after the draft: the cap, the missing design system, and the fact that the output never lives in your codebase.
A quick way to decide by what you actually want to do — most paths point to Open Design, but the honest exceptions are listed too:
| If you want to… | Best pick |
|---|---|
| Own your UI, code, and design system as files in git | Open Design |
| Iterate heavily without a monthly generation cap | Open Design |
| Enforce one brand (DESIGN.md) across every render | Open Design |
| Run open-source you can self-host, fork, or rebrand | Open Design |
| Drive design from your coding agent / CLI / CI (BYOK) | Open Design |
| Get a free, zero-setup first draft in two minutes | Google Stitch |
| Paste a quick concept straight into Figma to refine | Google Stitch |
06
Moving a design from Google Stitch into Open Design
There is no automatic import from Google Stitch today, so start design-first with a one-time brand-extraction run — it takes a few minutes and pays off on every render after.
- Install Open Design from the download page and bring your own agent key (Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Gemini, OpenCode, or Qwen).
- Open the web UI and point your agent at a Stitch HTML/CSS export, Figma paste, or screenshot whose look you want to keep.
- Ask the agent to extract the brand — colors, type, spacing — into a DESIGN.md file in your repo.
- Pick a skill and render it against your new brand to confirm it matches.
From then on, every skill renders in your brand without re-prompting hex codes — and the files stay in your repo under version control.
FAQ
FAQ
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01 What are Google Stitch’s generation limits?
Stitch’s free tier runs roughly 350 standard generations per month on Gemini 2.5 Flash, plus a smaller experimental pool on Gemini 2.5 Pro (commonly reported around 50). Reports through 2026 show the cap shifting and at times resetting daily; either way there is no paid tier to raise it and no bring-your-own-key option. Open Design has no app-level cap — you pay your own model API spend and keep going.
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02 Is Google Stitch free?
Yes. Stitch is a free Google Labs experiment with no subscription, but it requires a Google account and the work lives in Google’s cloud. Open Design is also free and open source (Apache-2.0); you bring your own agent key, so model spend bills to you with no vendor-set cap.
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03 Can I self-host an alternative to Google Stitch?
Stitch is cloud-only and closed-source — there is no self-host option. Open Design runs locally and self-hosts anywhere Node 24 runs, with full source on GitHub under Apache-2.0.
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04 How does export compare?
Stitch exports HTML/CSS and React and supports paste-into-Figma (auto-layout, named layers, editable text — a real starting point, not pixel-perfect). Open Design writes real files into your repo — HTML/CSS, React, decks, and a portable DESIGN.md — that you own and version directly.
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05 Is Open Design really open source?
Yes. It lives at github.com/nexu-io/open-design under Apache-2.0 and is self-hostable. Google Stitch is a closed-source Google Labs product.
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06 Is Open Design affiliated with Google or Stitch?
No. Open Design is an independent, open-source project. Google Stitch is a product of Google Labs (built on the 2025 Galileo AI acquisition); this is an unaffiliated comparison.
Own your design, in three commands.
Star the repo, grab the desktop build, or run the install in your terminal. No generation cap, no Google account — your DESIGN.md system stays in your repo from the first render onward.