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OpenDesign

New

The free alternative toClaude Design

🟡 Intermediate⏱️ ~10 min to installYou save €18/mo

OpenDesign calls itself "the open source Claude Design alternative", and the repository is one of the liveliest on GitHub: over 96,000 stars since April 2026, Apache-2.0 licence, over 400 contributors, a release every week. The idea: the same loop as Claude Design (you describe, the AI proposes, you critique, it delivers), but with the coding agent you already use as the engine, Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Copilot or twenty others, and your files on your machine. Six kinds of output in one project: web or mobile prototype, dashboard, slide deck, document, image, HTML motion video exported to MP4. Every render follows a DESIGN.md file, your brand's charter, with 150 design systems shipped and over 260 plugins. A desktop app for macOS and Windows to download, no configuration, or an MCP server inside your agent to work without the interface. The nuance: the software is free, but you bring the intelligence, your Claude subscription through Claude Code, or your own API key paid as you go. The vendor also sells cloud credits, from 20 dollars a month, optional.

Screenshot of OpenDesign, the free open source alternative to Claude Design
96.9kView on GitHub ↗

Versus Claude Design: the match

  • Price

    OpenDesign

    €0 for the software; your agent or API key as the engine

    Claude Design

    Included in Claude Pro at €18/month, and above

  • AI engine

    OpenDesign

    Your coding agent of choice: Claude Code, Codex, Cursor and 18 others

    Claude Design

    Claude only

  • Where it runs

    OpenDesign

    On your machine (macOS, Windows) or your server

    Claude Design

    In Anthropic's cloud

Claude Design ↗

How to install it (even from zero)

A desktop app to download (macOS or Windows), then an agent to plug in: Claude Code if you have a Claude subscription, otherwise an API key. Count ten minutes, and the prompt has you produce your first render.

  1. 1

    Paste this prompt into Claude (Code or Desktop)

    It installs the app, wires your agent, has you pick a design system and starts your first landing page:

    Je veux installer OpenDesign (le studio de design open source, dépôt GitHub nexu-io/open-design, site open-design.ai) à la place de Claude Design. Guide-moi pas à pas, en me posant des questions : télécharger l'appli de bureau pour mon système depuis open-design.ai ou les releases GitHub, l'ouvrir, et vérifier qu'elle détecte mon agent de code (Claude Code de préférence ; sinon propose-moi de renseigner ma propre clé d'API en mode BYOK). Explique-moi la différence entre utiliser mon abonnement Claude via Claude Code et payer une clé d'API à l'usage, et préviens-moi que les crédits cloud d'OpenDesign sont facultatifs. Fais-moi choisir un système de design parmi ceux fournis, ou en créer un à partir de mon site, puis lance-moi sur un premier rendu : une landing page pour mon activité, exportée en HTML. Montre-moi ensuite comment brancher OpenDesign à Claude Code en serveur MCP (od mcp install claude) pour travailler sans l'interface, et comment mettre l'appli à jour.

Review the GitHub repository and check whether it is safe to install given my machine and my infrastructure. Ask me as many questions as possible, using widgets, to clarify my request and be as precise as you can.
  2. 2

    Choose your engine

    Claude Code runs on your Claude subscription, no extra cost. An API key (Anthropic, OpenAI, Google…) is pay as you go: a few cents per render, more for a video.

  3. 3

    Start from a design system

    A hundred and fifty brand systems ship with it, or point it at your site: OpenDesign extracts colours, fonts and components into a DESIGN.md every render will follow.

What you actually do with it

Your offer's landing page in an afternoon

You describe the offer, the agent produces the page in your brand, you critique, it fixes, and you get an HTML file ready to publish.

Slides and documents in your brand

A deck exported to PPTX, a guide as a PDF, with the same colours and fonts as your site, without spending an hour in Canva.

An app mockup to hand to a developer

A web or mobile prototype in real HTML and CSS, that your developer (or Claude Code) turns into a real app without starting over.

Project health, at a glance

Before installing an open-source tool, one question matters: is the project alive? These scores are computed from public GitHub data. They are not made up.

73/100

Good

Healthy, followed project: a good everyday choice.

Activity
100

Is the code moving? (commits in the last 30 days)

Maintenance
100

How fresh is the latest update? Fresher is better.

Community
100

Stars and contributors: people around means help and fixes.

Maturity
40

Project age. Old enough to be solid, still alive.

Momentum
26

Current pace versus its usual pace: speeding up or dozing off?

The repo in numbers

GitHub stars
96.9k
Forks
11.3k
Contributors
425
Commits
3.7k
Project age
0.4 yrs
Last commit
today
Size
3439.9 MB
License
Apache-2.0

Built with

  • TypeScript 70.8%
  • HTML 22%
  • CSS 4.6%
  • JavaScript 1.2%
  • Python 1.1%

Scores computed automatically from the GitHub API (last-30-days activity, update freshness, community size, project age). Refreshed daily.

Loucash’s take

8/10

It is the most impressive open source project I have added in months: 96,000 stars in five months, over 400 contributors, a release every week, and above all a sound idea. Claude Design showed an AI could deliver mockups instead of text; OpenDesign takes the same loop and makes it open, local, and free of the model. You keep your coding agent, you keep your files, and you get real deliverables: HTML, PDF, PPTX, MP4. What I liked in use: the DESIGN.md file that holds the brand from one render to the next, the 150 systems shipped to get started, and the MCP server that lets you drive everything from Claude Code without opening the interface. What may bite: it is not free end to end, the intelligence comes from your subscription or your API key. You need a coding agent installed already, which is a step for a pure creative. It is not a Figma: no canvas to push pixels, you work by describing and critiquing. And the project is five months old, with the pace of change that comes with it.

It’s for you if: You already use Claude Code, Codex or Cursor, you produce pages, slides or mockups, and you want files of your own rather than a render locked inside a conversation. If you have no coding agent, start by installing one.

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