Building a new screen for an app used to mean one of two things: learning design software yourself, or waiting for someone who already knows it. A newer generation of AI tools compresses that step — you describe a screen in plain English, or even point a browser extension at a product that already exists, and get back something real: a working interface, and often the actual code behind it, not just a picture of one. They take genuinely different approaches to that same idea, so picking one has less to do with which is "best" and more with where you're starting from — a blank idea, an existing codebase, or a pile of components you just want to raid for reusable pieces.
Quick comparison
| Best for | Starting price | What makes it different | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Onlook | Teams editing a real React codebase | Free (self-hosted) | Edits your actual code, not a throwaway mockup |
| Magic Patterns | Product teams with an existing design system | Free / $20/seat/mo | Imports your real brand instead of generic templates |
| Wonder | Design-to-production teams | Free / $16/user/mo | Design canvas and code are literally the same thing |
| Alloy | Product managers, not designers | Free / $20/user/mo | Captures your live product via browser extension |
| Stitch | Anyone who wants it free | Free (Google account) | Text, voice, sketch or screenshot in, React/Tailwind out |
| UX Pilot | Fast wireframe-to-Figma workflows | Free (80 credits/day) | Full flow from idea to Figma plugin handoff |
| Acebuilder | Founders building a landing page | $25/mo | Starts from real templates, not a blank prompt |
| Magic UI | Developers who just need components | Free (MIT) | Copy-paste animated components, no generation step |
Onlook: edit a real React app the way you'd edit a Figma file
Onlook is open source (Apache 2.0, ~26k GitHub stars) and it edits your actual codebase directly, not a disposable prototype — click and drag on the live DOM of a Next.js or Vite app, and the change is written straight into the real React code. It's often called "Cursor for designers" for that reason: the code stays the single source of truth, with AI-assisted suggestions, real-time collaboration and revision history layered on top.
Honest limits: the hosted product is still in closed beta, so self-hosting means some technical setup; it only works with React, and it assumes you already have a codebase and a team comfortable working near real components, not a blank slate.
Magic Patterns: prototypes that already match your brand
Most AI generators produce something that looks nothing like your actual product. Magic Patterns imports your existing design system from Figma or Storybook first, so every prototype it generates from a chat prompt already uses your real colors, typography and components. Output exports to React code or back into Figma, with real-time multi-user editing and version history — and it's SOC 2 Type II / ISO 27001 certified, which is why teams like KPMG, Ramp and DoorDash use it.
Honest limits: seat pricing ($20-100/month) stacks on top of whatever you're already paying for Figma, and the credit-based system means heavy iterative prompting can burn through the free tier faster than expected.
Wonder: the canvas IS the code
Wonder puts an AI agent directly inside the design canvas — generate UI, graphics or a pitch deck, then select any element to refine it by prompting or editing directly. The distinctive part: every design maps 1:1 to real React and Tailwind (or plain CSS) code, and it connects via MCP to coding agents like Cursor and Claude Code, so a team can go from canvas straight into an existing repo. It won Product Hunt's "Launch of the Day" in April 2026.
Honest limits: it's still in public alpha, meaning the feature set is actively shifting; it has far less production track record than Figma, and the free plan caps out at 3 private files with limited AI tokens.
Alloy: prototype your live product, built for PMs not designers
Alloy skips the usual import step entirely — a browser extension captures your actual live web app, no Figma file or design system required, and from there you just type what you want changed. It's explicitly built for product managers rather than designers: multiple pages can be captured into one prototype, interactive states like dropdowns are captured as real editable states, and paid plans can export the resulting code straight to GitHub. It integrates with Figma, Linear, Jira, Slack and Intercom, and is SOC 2 Type II certified.
Honest limits: it's not a tool for building a design system from zero, it works best when you already have a live web product to point it at, and the free plan's credits are limited.
Stitch: Google's free take on text-to-UI
Stitch is a free AI-native design tool from Google Labs, powered by Gemini: describe a screen by text, speak it out loud, sketch it on paper and photograph it, or upload a screenshot, and it generates an editable UI design plus working React and Tailwind CSS code. Its "Voice Canvas" lets you talk directly to the canvas for real-time edits, and generated designs paste directly into Figma as editable frames — all under a free Google account, with up to 350 generations a month on Gemini 2.5.
Honest limits: it's a Google Labs product, which carries real risk of being discontinued or changed without notice; it's tied to the Google/Gemini ecosystem, and it's less mature than a dedicated paid prototyping tool.
UX Pilot: wireframes to high-fidelity screens in under a minute
Type what you need — "a settings page for a fitness app" — and UX Pilot generates a real wireframe or high-fidelity UI design in under a minute, covering the full early-stage flow from ideation through wireframing to full screen-flow creation. A Figma plugin sends the generated design directly into an existing design file, so the AI output stays inside a team's normal tooling rather than a separate silo. The free tier gives 80 daily credits with no card required.
Honest limits: paid-tier pricing isn't published, so it's hard to compare cost without signing up; treat any output as a first draft rather than a finished design, and the claimed "1M+ users" figure isn't independently verifiable.
Acebuilder: starts from real templates instead of a blank prompt
AI website builders often produce something that visually screams "made by AI." Acebuilder's fix is to start from a library of pre-built Aceternity UI components and templates instead of generating layout from scratch, so the AI's job is filling in and adapting good design rather than inventing it — plus AI image generation via Flux and full code export so you're not locked into its hosting. It's in beta with a reported 120,000+ active users.
Honest limits: credit-based pricing (Pro $25/mo for 1,000 credits, up to Studio $129/mo for 6,000) is less predictable than a flat plan, it's still in beta, and image generation specifically can burn through credits quickly.
Magic UI: skip generation entirely, copy-paste 150+ ready components
Magic UI is a different animal from the rest of this list: it's not a generator, it's a free, open-source (MIT) library of 150+ animated UI components — fade-ins, gradient borders, particle backgrounds — built with React, TypeScript, Tailwind and Motion. It follows the same copy-paste philosophy as shadcn/ui: components live in your codebase, not behind an npm dependency, so you own and can modify the code directly. It has over 21,700 GitHub stars and shows up in the marketing sites of several YC-backed startups; a one-time $199 Pro purchase adds 50+ premium components and 8 landing page templates.
Honest limits: copied components mean manual maintenance if the library updates, it's focused on aesthetics and animation rather than being a complete design system, and the Pro templates require a separate one-time payment.
Which should you pick?
Pick Onlook if you have an existing React codebase and want visual, Figma-like editing that writes straight into real code.
Pick Magic Patterns if your team already has a Figma or Storybook design system you want every prototype to match automatically.
Pick Wonder if you want the design canvas and the shipped code to be the same artifact, and don't mind an alpha product.
Pick Alloy if you're a product manager who wants to prototype changes directly on a live product without waiting on design or engineering.
Pick Stitch if you want a genuinely free tool and don't mind depending on Google Labs.
Pick UX Pilot if you want the fastest path from a typed idea to a Figma-ready wireframe.
Pick Acebuilder if you're a founder who wants a landing page that doesn't look AI-generated, without hiring a designer.
Pick Magic UI if you just need polished, ready-made animated components to drop into a project you're already building.
None of these replace the judgment of knowing what to build — they remove the time it takes to see it. Full pricing, alternatives and honest pros/cons are on each tool's profile: Onlook, Magic Patterns, Wonder, Alloy, Stitch, UX Pilot, Acebuilder and Magic UI.