Figma files for proposed IPO

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

Reaction to IPO & Adobe Aftermath

  • Many are pleased Figma survived the failed Adobe acquisition (and collected a ~$1B breakup fee), but see the IPO as the beginning of inevitable “enshittification.”
  • Some users say they’re already seeing bloat, confusing UI churn, and a shift in focus away from the core design–dev workflow.
  • Others explicitly plan to migrate off Figma once public-market pressure ramps up, citing past experience with Adobe and other IPO’d tools.

Product Merits & Engineering

  • There’s broad admiration for the technical achievement: custom C++/WASM editor core, WebGL rendering, and low-latency multiplayer are seen as foundational to Figma’s success.
  • Early users emphasize how real-time collaboration and browser access across OSes crushed the old Sketch + Zeplin/InVision stack.
  • Debate arises around “100x engineer” myths and whether highly complex low-level code (e.g., text rendering) is a strength or a bus-factor liability.

Competitors & Alternatives

  • Sketch still has loyal users (especially on Mac and at Apple), but many note it lost share because of platform lock-in and weaker collaboration.
  • Alternatives mentioned: Penpot (open source, SVG-based, self-hostable), Excalidraw, Miro/FigJam, Lunacy, Plasmic, plus old-school Photoshop/Illustrator for more complex work.
  • Several commenters argue it’s time to seriously fund FOSS alternatives before Figma follows Adobe’s path.

Pricing, Lock-In, and Feature Gaps

  • Strong concern that network effects give Figma room to raise prices and gate essential features (e.g., variables, advanced dev tooling) behind enterprise tiers.
  • Designers list long-standing pain points: clunky components/variables, weak typography and justification, poor file/project management, limited prototyping, awkward version control.
  • Developers complain Figma is “great for designers, bad for devs”: dev mode paywalls, missing native token→CSS export, and designs that don’t map cleanly to HTML/CSS layout or real data.

Design vs Reality of Implementation

  • Recurrent theme: Figma’s custom rendering means mocks often don’t match browsers, especially for fonts and complex layouts.
  • Some advocate box/flow-first or HTML/CSS-native design tools; others prefer building live prototypes synced to Figma to keep designers accountable to actual implementation constraints.

Financials, Bitcoin, Infra, and Governance

  • S-1 numbers impress (high growth, ~90% gross margin) but 2024’s large accounting loss is traced to one-time RSU/secondary-sale charges.
  • A $545M, non-cancellable cloud hosting commitment and a large AWS bill spark discussion; multiplayer and heavy in-memory sessions are cited as cost drivers.
  • Figma holds significant Bitcoin via ETFs and plans more purchases, viewed by some as a hedge and by others as meme-chasing.
  • Dual-class control concentrating voting power in the CEO divides opinion: some see it as protection from short-termism; others worry about weak shareholder accountability.