Plasmic is an open-source visual builder designed for developers and non-technical team members to create websites, landing pages, and internal applications using React components. Unlike traditional no-code tools that lock you into proprietary systems, Plasmic integrates directly with your existing React codebase—allowing designers and marketers to drag and drop real components from your app or design system while developers retain full control over logic, state, and infrastructure. This bridges the gap between design freedom and code fidelity, enabling teams to build scalable, high-performance applications without sacrificing maintainability. Plasmic supports Next.js, Gatsby, and other Jamstack frameworks, making it ideal for teams seeking to accelerate content iteration without compromising technical quality.
What You Get
- Codebase integration - Register and use your own React components in the visual editor via PLASMIC.registerComponent(), enabling designers to build with real UI elements from your design system.
- Drag-and-drop visual editing - Build pages and components visually with a WYSIWYG interface that supports complex layouts, variants, slots, and stateful interactions without writing code.
- Headless CMS functionality - Dynamically render pages created in Plasmic Studio within your Next.js or Gatsby app using <PlasmicComponent> and PlasmicRootProvider, with server-side rendering and static generation support.
- Figma import - Import designs directly from Figma files, automatically translating vector graphics into responsive DOM and CSS structure.
- Customizable content creator mode - Provide non-technical users with a simplified editing interface with design guardrails to prevent layout breaks or style violations.
- Code generation - Generate React code from visual designs for reuse in your project, useful for prototyping or bootstrapping complex UIs.
- Deploy anywhere - Export and host Plasmic-built pages on Vercel, Netlify, or any static hosting provider with full control over deployment pipelines.
- Multiplayer collaboration and branching - Multiple team members can edit designs simultaneously with versioned branches, cross-project imports, and workspace-level organization controls.
- Headless design system components - Built-in UI primitives powered by react-aria for accessible, production-ready components that integrate seamlessly with your design tokens.
- Webhook-triggered rebuilds - Automatically trigger static site generation or incremental static revalidation in Next.js when changes are published in Plasmic.
- End-user auth and RBAC - Define user permissions and scoped access to content, enabling secure content editing for internal teams or clients.
Common Use Cases
- Building a marketing website with dynamic content - A marketing team uses Plasmic to create and update landing pages in Next.js without waiting for developer cycles, while developers retain control over component behavior and data fetching.
- Creating a headless commerce storefront - An e-commerce company uses Plasmic to design product detail pages and promotional banners, connecting them to Shopify’s API via custom React components registered in Plasmic Studio.
- Problem: Marketing delays frontend changes → Solution: Plasmic enables non-developers to publish pages directly - A SaaS company struggled with 2-week delays for simple content updates; after integrating Plasmic, marketers now publish new pages in minutes with full brand consistency.
- Team: DevOps and design teams managing a multi-page SaaS dashboard - Designers create reusable component templates in Plasmic, developers register them with prop exposure, and product managers assemble dashboards without touching code—all while the app runs on Vercel with automatic CI/CD triggers.
Under The Hood
The project is a sophisticated platform that blends visual design with code execution, enabling developers to build interactive web experiences through a component-based architecture. It emphasizes extensibility and runtime flexibility, particularly through its integration with Plasmic and support for modular example projects.
Architecture
This system adopts a layered monolithic structure with well-defined modules for core logic, CLI tools, and platform components. It promotes separation of concerns through standardized interaction patterns and middleware-based routing.
- The architecture follows a layered approach with distinct modules for core functionality, CLI tools, data sources, and platform components
- Component interactions are managed via PlasmicHost and LoaderPage patterns, with middleware supporting routing and targeting
- Strategy and factory design patterns are applied in state management and content integration approaches
- Extensive customization is enabled through example templates and plugin architectures for third-party service integrations
Tech Stack
Built primarily with TypeScript and Next.js, the platform leverages React for UI development and integrates deeply with Plasmic’s ecosystem.
- The system is developed using TypeScript and Next.js, with React as the primary UI framework
- Key dependencies include Plasmic’s loader libraries, Ant Design, and various React-based UI components
- Development tools encompass Next.js configuration, ESLint, Prettier, and Jest for testing and linting
- Test execution is handled through Jest and Tstyche, with broad coverage across example projects and modules
Code Quality
Code quality reflects a mature approach to testing and error handling, with consistent patterns and style adherence.
- Comprehensive test coverage is evident across multiple modules and example projects
- Error handling is implemented with consistent try/catch blocks and custom error messaging
- The codebase maintains a reasonable level of style consistency and naming conventions
- Some technical debt is present in the structure of test suites and code organization
What Makes It Unique
Plasmic differentiates itself through its unique no-code approach that bridges design and development workflows.
- The platform enables visual component creation with runtime extensibility, allowing seamless transitions from design to code
- Its integration model supports deep customization and third-party service connections through modular architecture
- The system redefines developer tooling by combining design systems with build-time optimizations and runtime flexibility
- Extensive use of example templates and plugin support creates a highly extensible ecosystem for diverse use cases