Figma vs Novu

Collaborative interface design — the dominant tool for UI, UX + prototyping
vs. Open-source notification infrastructure — workflows across email, SMS, push, chat, in-app

Figma website ↗Novu website ↗

Pricing tiers

Figma

Starter

$0. 3 Figma files, 3 FigJam files. Unlimited collaborators. Basic features.

$0 base (usage-based)

Professional

$15/editor/mo annual ($20/mo). Unlimited files, version history, team libraries.

$15/mo

Dev Mode Seats

$25/dev/mo. Read-only access for engineers (alternative to full editor seats).

$25/mo

Organization

$45/editor/mo annual ($55/mo). Design systems, branch + merge, SSO.

$45/mo

Enterprise

$75/editor/mo. SAML, audit log, security reviews, dedicated CSM, HIPAA.

$75/mo

Figma website ↗

Novu

Free

10K workflow runs/mo. All channels. 20 workflows, 2 environments, 3 team members, 24h retention.

Free

Self-hosted (OSS)

Open source (MIT). Run locally or on own infrastructure. No usage limits.

$0 base (usage-based)

Pro

From $30/mo. 30K+ runs, 7-day retention, branding removal, advanced email editor.

$30/mo

Team

From $250/mo. 250K+ runs, 10 envs, 90-day retention, RBAC, 600 RPS.

$250/mo

Enterprise

Custom. 10M+ runs, HIPAA BAA, SSO/OIDC, data residency (SG/UK/AU/JP/KR), self-hosted/VPC.

Custom

Novu website ↗

Free-tier quotas head-to-head

Comparing free on Figma vs free on Novu.

Metric	Figma	Novu
retention	—	1 days
workflow runs monthly	—	10000 runs/mo
workflows	—	20 workflows

Features

Figma · 19 features

Auto Layout — Flexbox-like layout constraints.
Branch + Merge — Git-like workflow for designs.
Comments + Reactions — In-file discussion.
Components — Reusable + variants + properties.
Design — Vector + layout tools.
Dev Mode — Handoff view with code specs.
FigJam — Whiteboard / brainstorming.
Figma AI — Generative design + Make Designs.
Figma MCP — AI agent access via Model Context Protocol.
Figma Slides — Presentations.
Inspect + Code Tokens — Extract CSS/iOS/Android.
Plugin Ecosystem — 10,000+ community plugins.
Prototyping — Interactive flows + transitions.
REST API — Read file contents + export.
SSO — SAML/OIDC (Org+).
Team Libraries — Shared component libraries.
Variables + Modes — Design tokens with dark/light mode switching.
Webhooks — File / version events.
Widgets — Custom interactive widgets in files.

Novu · 15 features

Activity Feed — Message-by-message delivery timeline.
Chat — Slack, Microsoft Teams, Discord, Mattermost, WhatsApp, WeChat.
Email — SendGrid, Postmark, Mailgun, AWS SES, Resend, SMTP, Plunk, Mailjet, Sparkpost, M…
Inbox — React/Next/Vue/Angular in-app Inbox component.
Layouts — Reusable email layouts with template nesting.
Multi-tenancy — Per-tenant branding, templates, preferences.
Novu Framework — Code-first workflow DSL (TypeScript) colocated with app code.
Preferences — Per-subscriber + global notification preferences.
Push — APNs, FCM, Expo, OneSignal, Pushpad, Pusher.
Self-hosting — Docker Compose / Kubernetes deployment of full stack.
SMS — Twilio, MessageBird, Plivo, Nexmo, Termii, Sendchamp, Africa's Talking, Kannel, …
Subscribers — Subscriber profiles with channels, preferences, topics.
Topics — Pub/sub style subscribe many users to a topic.
Translations — i18n support for templates.
Workflows — Code-first or visual notification workflows with steps, branches, delays.

Developer interfaces

Kind	Figma	Novu
CLI	—	Novu CLI
SDK	Plugins API, Widgets API	go-novu, @novu/api, @novu/framework, novu-java, novu-kotlin, novu-php, novu (Python), @novu/react (Inbox), novu-ruby
REST	Figma REST API	Novu REST API
MCP	Figma MCP (Dev Mode)	—
OTHER	Figma Desktop, Figma Web, Figma Webhooks	Outbound Webhooks, Self-hosted (Docker)

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