[HN Gopher] Show HN: I spent 4 years building a UI design tool w...
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Show HN: I spent 4 years building a UI design tool with only the
       features I use
        
       Hello everyone!  I'm a solo developer who's been doing UI/UX work
       since 2007. Over the years, I watched design tools evolve from
       lightweight products into bloated feature-heavy platforms. I kept
       finding myself using a small amount of the features while the rest
       just mostly got in the way.  So a few years ago I set out to build
       a design tool just like I wanted. So I built Vecti with what I
       actually need: pixel-perfect grid snapping, a performant canvas
       renderer, shared asset libraries, and export/presentation features.
       No collaborative whiteboarding. No plugin ecosystem. No enterprise
       features. Just the design loop.  Four years later, I can proudly
       show it off. Built and hosted in the EU with European privacy
       regulations. Free tier available (no credit card, one editor
       forever).  On privacy: I use some basic analytics (page views,
       referrers) but zero tracking inside the app itself. No session
       recordings, no behavior analytics, no third-party scripts beyond
       the essentials.  If you're a solo designer or small team who wants
       a tool that stays out of your way, I'd genuinely appreciate your
       feedback: https://vecti.com  Happy to answer questions about the
       tech stack, architecture decisions, why certain features didn't
       make the cut, or what's next.
        
       Author : vecti
       Score  : 373 points
       Date   : 2026-02-06 19:27 UTC (1 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (vecti.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (vecti.com)
        
       | popalchemist wrote:
       | It's beautiful. Great job. Congrats on having the persistence to
       | see this through.
        
         | vecti wrote:
         | Thanks a lot. I appreciate it. It's been quite a journey.
        
       | tarcon wrote:
       | How does it compare to https://github.com/penpot/penpot?
        
         | vecti wrote:
         | Thanks for this question. I'm humbled by the comparison. I have
         | been following penpot for a while and I appreciate the work
         | they've been doing.
         | 
         | The main difference lies in the rendering engine. Penpot relies
         | on an SVG engine, which limits performance as project
         | complexity grows.
         | 
         | Vecti is built on canvas and WebAssembly (the same architecture
         | used by Figma). This gives us raw performance advantages,
         | allowing you to handle complex, heavy design systems without
         | the lag you might experience in SVG-based tools.
        
       | mettamage wrote:
       | Fun submission, will have a look :)
        
       | willparks wrote:
       | Beautiful design! (makes sense for someone that does UI design).
       | Congrats, I'll check it out.
        
       | danielvaughn wrote:
       | Congrats on launching. I spent a decade trying to build a design
       | tool. I think I built almost 40 prototypes, to various degrees of
       | completion. Never got to a point where I felt it was good enough
       | to share. It's an incredibly difficult thing to do, so kudos to
       | you for sticking with it.
        
         | vecti wrote:
         | Thank you, and I know exactly what you mean. I myself have
         | rewritten the entire engine ar least three times until I was
         | happy with the performance and the overall outcome. It's been a
         | long learning experience. As a developer at heart, this project
         | scratched every itch I had from a software engineering
         | perspective :)
        
           | written-beyond wrote:
           | How much of this release was made easier with LLMs?
        
           | uxcolumbo wrote:
           | You should write about this, the gotchas and what you learned
           | how to make things performant. Might drive some traffic.
        
             | alsetmusic wrote:
             | Yes. This. I read a post-mortem about developing v2 of an
             | app last month because getting insight into the thought
             | process of the builder is super interesting (to me). It's
             | probably not for most people, but it definitely has an
             | audience.
        
         | cobertos wrote:
         | Are any of your prototypes published or available to view?
        
           | danielvaughn wrote:
           | there are various little things scattered around the github
           | org - a js framework, a treesitter grammar, some old docs, a
           | vscode extension, a vim-style editor, an AI-powered code
           | editor geared towards design, etc.
           | 
           | https://github.com/matry
        
             | airlocksoftware wrote:
             | Are you still working on this? Because I like the words I
             | see on your GitHub -- vim-style bindings, keyboard driven,
             | sounds like you write a definition language for your
             | designs, basically?
             | 
             | Lik Matry is to Figma as openscad is to traditional CAD
             | (Fusion 360, etc)?
             | 
             | Though that does sound like a huge project to take on!
        
               | danielvaughn wrote:
               | I don't know enough about CAD products to evaluate that
               | comparison, but the core idea was to expose language as a
               | design tool. First through code, then through keyboard
               | commands (hence the vim idea). It's still pretty fun, but
               | LLMs have changed the conversation around what a designer
               | even is, and I'm currently re-evaluating.
               | 
               | Matry might pop up in another form. I'm considering
               | turning it into an actual browser for designers. Right
               | now designers are getting into the code and using
               | Claude/Cursor to make changes directly. But they still
               | have to know how to get the app running locally, which is
               | a hurdle. So if they could just navigate to the site,
               | make some design changes directly in the browser, Matry
               | could then take the changes and create a PR on GitHub for
               | them. Designer wouldn't have to fuss with any dev tools.
               | Kind of a cool idea.
        
       | falloutx wrote:
       | Just tested a few things and I gotta say its fairly easy to pick
       | up and do things. UI does feel like Figma for better or worse.
       | 
       | Congrats on completing this project and good luck.
        
       | contrast wrote:
       | Maybe its obvious but I can't tell it this is an image editor, a
       | React builder, an HTML/CSS designer, ...? What does it make?
        
         | TonyStr wrote:
         | It's a wireframing tool akin to figma. You create the design
         | for your website/app there, then hand it over to a programmer
         | who implementd it in html/react/flutter/wpf/etc
        
           | mft_ wrote:
           | This is always the piece that disappoints me when seeing this
           | and other similar tools.
           | 
           | Surely it is an obvious next step to offer export to e.g.
           | React, React Native, SwiftUI...?
           | 
           | Otherwise you spend days, weeks, months crafting your perfect
           | design down to the pixel, and then someone else has to start
           | again from scratch with a totally different approach. Maybe
           | I'm missing something, but that feels incredibly inefficient
           | and regressive.
        
             | gyomu wrote:
             | > your perfect design down to the pixel
             | 
             | > Surely it is an obvious next step to offer export to e.g.
             | React, React Native, SwiftUI...?
             | 
             | These UI frameworks do not really operate in a "down to the
             | pixel" way and so getting correspondance between a bitmap
             | design and a representation in the UI framework is far from
             | an "obvious next step" (if it were trivial to add such a
             | feature, then of course the developers of these tools would
             | add it).
             | 
             | Various concerns that aren't captured in the bitmap design
             | - like how your screens transition from one to another, etc
             | - can dramatically affect how the UI is implemented in a
             | target framework. This is the job of UI engineers.
             | 
             | Well, used to be. Now it's vibe code all the way down.
        
       | crazygringo wrote:
       | > _I kept finding myself using a small amount of the features
       | while the rest just mostly got in the way. So a few years ago I
       | set out to build a design tool just like I wanted. So I built
       | Vecti with what I actually need..._
       | 
       | Joel Spolsky said (I'm paraphrasing) that everybody only uses 20%
       | of a given program's features, but the problem is that everyone
       | is using a different 20%, so you can't ship an "unbloated"
       | version and expect it to still work for most people.
       | 
       | So it looks like you've built something really cool, but I have
       | to ask what makes you think that the features that are personally
       | important to _you_ are the same features that _other_ potential
       | users need? Since this clearly seems to be something you 're
       | trying to create a business out of rather than just a personal
       | hobby project. I'm curious how you went about customer research
       | and market validation for the specific subset of features that
       | you chose to develop?
        
         | nielsbot wrote:
         | I think a successful product strategy can be "build something
         | you love, see if others love it too". If that's enough
         | customers, you can judiciously expand out from there. The "fail
         | honestly" method.
         | 
         | I think the Apple II is one example of this.
        
           | reactordev wrote:
           | >"you can judiciously expand out from there"
           | 
           | Which is where the bulk of the other 80% of features come
           | from. It's a cycle.
           | 
           | You start as you describe, you expand, you end up with this
           | enterprise monstrosity, everyone using a different 20%. New
           | tool comes along, you start as you describe...
        
             | nielsbot wrote:
             | Assuming it's enterprise software.. then maybe?
             | 
             | Hopefully you can afford to say "No" a lot.
        
           | dvt wrote:
           | This is the best way to build products imo. I'm like this,
           | and I've been accused of being very "vibes-based." However,
           | that's a way more tractable way of shipping stuff instead of
           | "well Jim said he wants X, but Amy said she wants Y" so you
           | end up just kind of half-assing features because you think
           | they might get you users, instead of just being passionately
           | all-in into a very defined product vision (which is a very
           | Jobsian way of doing things).
           | 
           | It's also easier to run a feedback loop. If you implement Y,
           | but Amy doesn't give you $5 a month, what are you going to
           | do? Knock on her door? Users have no idea what they want half
           | the time, anyway.
           | 
           | If you build a product and no one cares, it bruises the ego a
           | bit more, sure, but if you self reflect, you can eek out your
           | own bad assumptions, or bad implementation, or maybe a way to
           | pivot that keeps your product ethos.
        
             | linkregister wrote:
             | In order for this to work, you have to possess good taste.
             | Not everyone has it, and it often does not translate across
             | domains.
        
               | nerdsniper wrote:
               | Good taste is an incredibly powerful differentiator in
               | competitive markets like software. Seems like there's 3-5
               | decent choices for darn near anything I need, and usually
               | 1 smaller team has the product that stands head and
               | shoulders above the rest.
        
               | raw_anon_1111 wrote:
               | Unfortunately, good taste doesn't matter for a successful
               | software product.
               | 
               | First let's look at B2B, there the "user is not the
               | buyer". The buyer doesn't care about "good taste" they
               | care about a lot of other things.
               | 
               | ("Where is my SSO support for multiple users, I'm not
               | going to have my IT department worry about tracking down
               | usernames when Bob leaves)
               | 
               | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46919794
               | 
               | Second, if you have the feature that people need or a
               | service or network effect, they will suffer through a bad
               | app - see every Electron app ever.
               | 
               | That "smaller team" may not be around in a year and if
               | you are lucky, you'll get an "Our Amazing Journey" blog
               | post. Does this product export to a format that my design
               | team can import into Figma if this product goes tits up?
        
               | Dansvidania wrote:
               | If you want to do the proverbial "moving upmarket" then
               | yeah you're going to have this and a lot of other
               | problems. Taste does not sell (let's be nice and add "on
               | its own") in that segment.
        
               | alsetmusic wrote:
               | Does that mean no one should try? I'd rather a tool be
               | built and I don't use it than the tool not exist.
        
           | thfuran wrote:
           | If ten people make focused tools covering different 20%
           | subsets of the giant ones, there's a good chance of having a
           | choice that matches what any given customer wants. And for
           | most customers, that's going to be a better match than a big
           | tool that does tons of other stuff they didn't want.
        
             | dotancohen wrote:
             | How do the consumers find which of the dozen tools support
             | the 20% they need?
        
               | Zopieux wrote:
               | By, get this, trying out the products. Revolutionary.
        
               | crazygringo wrote:
               | How about less snark?
               | 
               | Especially when, who the heck has time for trying out a
               | dozen products? That's at least a full day of work, which
               | probably costs more than the software itself.
               | 
               | No, you just read a few reviews to find the best full
               | price option and best budget option and figure out if the
               | budget does what you need or not. And often go for full
               | price just because you don't even know what features
               | you'll need in 6 months which you don't need now, so
               | safer to just learn the option that is the most future-
               | proof.
        
               | ctxc wrote:
               | You're right. Even across stuff I _really_ use it's hard
               | to bring myself to try.
               | 
               | Anecdotally I haven't tried Codex and use Claude Code.
               | The day I try Codex will be when I hear from my
               | friends/communities that it's much better. Same for IDEs,
               | STT tools, etc
        
               | Aditya_Garg wrote:
               | I tried codex on a whim when my Claude code rate limited
               | me. Canceled my max subscription and stuck with codex
        
               | Dansvidania wrote:
               | It's amusing how much of a difference in experience I
               | hear about this. Almost hilarious if you take into
               | account what this thread is discussing.
        
               | Zopieux wrote:
               | This post is about some highly interactive software with
               | a lot of design decisions, and this thread is about
               | finding whether or not your 20% feature niche is
               | supported.
               | 
               | Let's be real, unless some soul somehow had the same 20%
               | as yours and left a review somewhere, you won't know if
               | the features you need, or their implemention, fit your
               | need until you try.
        
               | alsetmusic wrote:
               | I dunno. I get that we have different needs, but I enjoy
               | testing out new productivity tools. I'm sort of a
               | productivity-software-junkie. I don't use almost any of
               | the things I try, but I enjoy exploring the market.
               | 
               | Then again, I do this in my free time. At work, I rarely
               | deviate from what is provided and the handful of things
               | that I explicitly added.
        
             | cwmoore wrote:
             | "...good chance at having a match" might be a reach, as
             | more use cases create a viable market.
             | 
             | Are your customers selecting one of five features in your
             | product, or choosing any twenty from among a hundred?
        
             | 1313ed01 wrote:
             | That is the alternative timeline for software I always
             | wanted to live in, both as a user and as a developer. Make
             | it 100 different tools instead to make it even more likely
             | that there is a close enough match.
             | 
             | Games are closer to that than any other type of software
             | even if they tend to cluster around popular genres and
             | styles a bit much.
        
             | onion2k wrote:
             | If you give people a limited set of tools they quickly
             | improve until then they need (well, _want_ ) different
             | tools. In order to keep your customers you'll inevitably
             | end up adding new things.
        
               | Nevermark wrote:
               | Tiered versions work well.
               | 
               | I don't know anyone that doesn't use a combination of at
               | least one simple, one feature laden, text editor. Most of
               | us via notes apps, etc., routinely move between a range
               | of text complexity, suitable to a range of things we want
               | to write.
               | 
               | Having the simplest to the most powerful apps be
               | consistent between each other, wherever they have feature
               | commonality, would be really nice.
        
         | james2doyle wrote:
         | Makes me wish more apps had feature toggles
        
           | roberthahn wrote:
           | The testing that would be required to support toggles would
           | be for 2^n. I'm not sure that's a good solution.
        
             | dlcarrier wrote:
             | Makes me wish more apps followed the UNIX model of
             | separating every feature into separate applications with
             | well documented interfaces that only change when new
             | features absolutely require it and otherwise are only
             | updated for security patches.
        
               | roberthahn wrote:
               | Yeah I like that idea too. Theres a lot of people who
               | would have trouble with that approach though.
        
               | AlienRobot wrote:
               | One common case I notice this is with FFMPEG. Everything
               | that saves a video needs its own dialog with different
               | settings. It would make a lot more sense if you had 1
               | single polished FFMPEG frontend that everyone just
               | streamed data to.
               | 
               | On the other hand, I'm afraid that if this did happen
               | that FFMPEG frontend would look like a GNOME app and I
               | would hate using it.
        
               | mylastattempt wrote:
               | Me, on the other hand, love ffmpeg, because I notice my
               | ytdlp using it and my vlc player sometimes using it and I
               | have two homemade powrshell scripts using it to convert
               | flac to mp3 and whatever. I don't want to open a program
               | and figure out it's UI for those things. It has a job, it
               | does it well, you can sort of pipe things to it and I'm
               | very happy.
        
               | AlienRobot wrote:
               | I'm not sure you understood what I mean. I'm talking
               | about applications like Krita using FFMPEG to export
               | their data as video. Sometimes they include their own
               | FFMPEG instead of using FFMPEG installed in the system.
               | Each of them has its own dialog. The only way to input
               | custom settings for FFMPEG would be to export in a
               | lossless video format and then reencode using FFMPEG,
               | when you should be able to just "connect" a data stream
               | to an FFMPEG frontend as the input and the frontend has
               | all the options you might want to customize how that data
               | is turned into a .mp4 file or .mov file.
        
               | socalgal2 wrote:
               | This is something I like about lots of web apis.
               | 
               | Want to generate a video, it's just a few lines of code.
               | Want to connect the user's camera (with permission), it's
               | just a few lines of code. Websockets? About 4 lines of
               | code.
               | 
               | There could be 1000s of options for each of those but
               | they mostly distilled it down to what most people need,
               | and they're cross platform.
        
               | dlcarrier wrote:
               | I'm just glad that we have one very polished backend, in
               | FFMPEG itself.
               | 
               | My favorite frontend is MPV, because I can generally
               | forgo a GUI and just use single keystrokes to do
               | everything.
        
             | wavemode wrote:
             | > The testing that would be required to support toggles
             | would be for 2^n
             | 
             | I don't think that's really true, unless the behavior of
             | each toggle is tightly coupled to the behavior each other
             | toggle.
             | 
             | Case in point - most mature apps nowadays _do_ have
             | hundreds of toggles for various settings and features.
        
           | dotancohen wrote:
           | VIM does this perfectly. Not a single feature is exposed to
           | the user. Every feature the user might ever want is
           | supported, they need just Google for which keyboard
           | incantation to invoke it.
        
             | goosejuice wrote:
             | Or follow the directions on the startup screen and type
             | :help.
        
         | dlcarrier wrote:
         | I feel like HTML and CSS could remove 90% of the functionality
         | and only affect 1% of developers, then we could get some
         | actually good web browsers.
        
           | drob518 wrote:
           | The issue here is backwards compatibility with web pages that
           | will never be updated. Nobody wants a browser that works with
           | "most of the web."
        
             | dotancohen wrote:
             | For this was invented Quirks Mode.
        
               | crazygringo wrote:
               | Oh god. I world have been happy if I'd never heard that
               | term again... flashbacks. :P
        
             | raw_anon_1111 wrote:
             | Well they did get rid of the blink tag
             | 
             | https://developer.mozilla.org/en-
             | US/docs/Glossary/blink_elem...
             | 
             | And Gopher support...
        
               | rapnie wrote:
               | And soon XSLT. https://xslt.rip/
        
         | cosmic_cheese wrote:
         | > Joel Spolsky said (I'm paraphrasing) that everybody only uses
         | 20% of a given program's features, but the problem is that
         | everyone is using a different 20%, so you can't ship an
         | "unbloated" version and expect it to still work for most
         | people.
         | 
         | To me this is an argument for more apps that do less extremely
         | well instead of a handful of apps that do everything poorly.
         | There's nothing wrong with a tool that's honed for very
         | specific user. They'll never hyperscale, but that's also fine.
         | 
         | Or then again maybe they can. Google Docs is plenty popular
         | despite being closer to WordPad or TextEdit in terms of
         | functionality than it is to MS Word.
        
           | Hammershaft wrote:
           | Then you'll need interoperability of development artifacts to
           | work with teams.
        
             | andrekandre wrote:
             | opendoc remembers...
        
               | raw_anon_1111 wrote:
               | Nah it's 2026, you have to have an MCP server.
        
               | alsetmusic wrote:
               | "I'm a developer who hates your decision to kill that
               | tech. Can you please talk about your shitty adventure
               | before you became CEO of this company cause I want to
               | embarrass you?"
               | 
               | Then Steve Jobs gives one of his most memorable
               | statements about building good products while ignoring
               | the taunt.[0]
               | 
               | I got your reference. Cyberdog!
               | 
               | 0. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oeqPrUmVz-o
        
         | PeterStuer wrote:
         | "everyone is using a different 20%"
         | 
         | In my experience, what people use is very malleable to how
         | easy/good the flows are they are presented with. Given 100
         | equal options, they might use 20, and nobody picks the same 20,
         | but given 25 options, 20 of which present a very good
         | experience, almost 90% will go with those 20 without
         | complaints.
        
         | Alex63 wrote:
         | A quick web search suggests that you are probably paraphrasing
         | a newsletter [1] that Joel Spolsky published in 2001. He was
         | talking about software like Excel (of which he was the Product
         | Manager) and Word. Maybe a tool that is more focused on a
         | narrower task (like UI design) can be less "bloated"?
         | 
         | [1] https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2001/03/23/strategy-letter-
         | iv...
        
           | conductr wrote:
           | Agree. This quote is being used out of context here. Niche
           | software can and does succeed especially when it's only
           | supporting a single dev. This isn't trying to dethrone an
           | adobe product, or doesn't need to.
        
             | raw_anon_1111 wrote:
             | A tool focusing on design is not "niche software" - every
             | company of any size has designers. It's trying to get
             | professionals to use their software instead of Figma. Why
             | would I move my team from an industry standard that they
             | know or would be willing to learn because they know it will
             | be important at their n+1 job?
        
               | conductr wrote:
               | Why did they move to figma from adobe? There's tons of
               | purpose built design software. I use a few different
               | tools just for pixel art recently as I'm designing a
               | game. I could use adobe or probably figma but this
               | purpose built software made it super easy to focus on my
               | one single design goal.
               | 
               | What you're saying is basically a majority of SaaS
               | shouldn't exist because it could just be an excel
               | spreadsheet. Why would anyone pay for a subscription or
               | something when they already pay for excel right? Problem
               | is spreadsheets are a blank canvas and can be difficult
               | for people to build. Just like a design software like
               | adobes and figma. This product is trying to focus on one
               | particular use case of design software and simplify it.
               | It's not a horrible idea and can exist in the market. I'm
               | not sure it will succeed but conceptually it's not
               | destined to fail for the this reason. I think you need to
               | also define what success means. For a single dev, could
               | just be a thousand paying users. He's not necessarily
               | trying to be figma.
               | 
               | My most successful company was a tool that focused on 10%
               | of a ERP feature. One that I had used and implemented at
               | corporates but knew ERP vendors were selling hard for
               | having 100s of features of which I only cared about 20%.
               | Not everyone cared about those same 20% but I found
               | enough people that did and liked my opinionated take on
               | the software. It would have never worked if I had this
               | mindset.
        
               | steve_taylor wrote:
               | Figma was a completely fresh take on UI design software
               | and it was the best thing available at the time. It made
               | incumbents look lazy.
               | 
               | Vecti looks like a Figma clone if its landing page is
               | anything to go by. You're not going to have an easy time
               | convincing people to migrate from Figma to a clone.
        
           | graemep wrote:
           | Not just that, it was Excel a quarter of a century ago.
           | 
           | I am not even sure it was still true by the time her wrote
           | it. It think that there is a set of core features (laying out
           | stuff in a table, simple formulae) and some very commonly
           | used features (e.g. graphs, data filtering) and a long tail
           | of less commonly used advanced features (pivot tables,
           | database like formulae like VLOOKUP).
           | 
           | Its more like 80% of users only use the same subset. Less
           | commonly used stiff is important to the people who do use
           | them, so you need it to sustain the network effects and
           | enterprise sales.
        
         | vitaflo wrote:
         | Maybe the problem with software is feeling the need to satisfy
         | 100% of users instead of being OK with "only" 20%. Not
         | everything needs to be a min/max problem.
        
           | drob518 wrote:
           | As long as the 20% is enough to sustain your company, sure.
           | You might have to charge more, however. Luxury brands do
           | this, for instance (fewer consumers is actually a strategic
           | choice to make the product more exclusive). "Pro" products
           | also do this (though often "pro" means more features, not
           | fewer).
        
           | crazygringo wrote:
           | The point is that 20% of features doesn't satisfy even 20% of
           | users. It's going to be only a tiny fraction of that because
           | something like 99% of potential users are going to need _at
           | least one_ feature outside the 20%. And if a competitor has
           | all the features they need, but you don 't, then you lose the
           | sale.
        
         | TheGRS wrote:
         | Every now and then I stumble on video game developers who have
         | been chugging along for many years, even decades with a handful
         | of dedicated fans. They make obscure niche games that play so
         | well into that niche that they can sustain themselves. Honestly
         | this is something I'd aspire to get to eventually, building a
         | niche product that I love and that just enough people love that
         | I could live sustainably on it, not trying to please anyone but
         | a little collective of people who all agree on what the product
         | should be.
        
           | moritonal wrote:
           | Creeper World, am I right?
        
             | somenameforme wrote:
             | This is a far bigger small world than some might expect.
             | The number of devs and games he's referring to numbers well
             | into the thousands. A quick search [1] shows more than 4
             | games are released _per day_ on Steam which will go on to
             | earn more than $50k in revenue, so about 1500 per year.
             | 
             | It's wild - I'm a big gamer but I strongly doubt I could
             | even list 1500 games across all systems and time. And that
             | many games make $50k+ each year.
             | 
             | [1] - https://gameworldobserver.com/2023/10/06/steam-
             | stats-41k-gam...
        
               | TheGRS wrote:
               | It's crazy! I don't think anyone in my sphere is some
               | hardcore fan of a niche game. But then I stumble on them
               | in the marketplace or watching some GDC talk and it's
               | like, wow this solo dev has been making this obscure
               | series of games for 20 years and they live comfortably
               | (but not extravagantly) with their family. Good on them!
               | 
               | I'm really just describing the long tail at this point.
               | Gives me hope that maybe I can find that product before
               | getting to retirement age.
        
         | socalgal2 wrote:
         | Could it be more people want Instagram instead of Photoshop?
         | Take a picture, choose from one of 10 filters. Have a ~12
         | adjustable settings. Vs Photoshop's 1000s of options.
         | 
         | Like lots of people prefer Trader Joes (limited selection) to a
         | bigger super market
        
         | FridgeSeal wrote:
         | I for one, would certainly prefer a wider ecosystem of _more
         | refined_, less bloated tools.
         | 
         | The current system of a near-monoculture of garbage sucks.
        
         | gchamonlive wrote:
         | > what makes you think that the features that are personally
         | important to you are the same features that other potential
         | users need?
         | 
         | I think this is a weird question. Sure he can't be the only
         | soul in the world to need only those features. Those 20% people
         | need gotta overlap. So I think a more generous way to read your
         | question would be "what makes you think that the features that
         | are personally important to you are the same features that the
         | mass audience need?". If that's what you meant then I'd ask why
         | appealing to the mass audience so important? Why maximize sales
         | and risk making your product worse if the core of your product
         | is to make things you care about?
        
         | esperent wrote:
         | > everybody only uses 20% of a given program's features, but
         | the problem is that everyone is using a different 20%
         | 
         | This is a phrase that gets repeated and it sounds clever. But
         | it's completely at odds with statistics, specifically the
         | normal distribution.
         | 
         | We should say, people use 80-90% the same features, and then
         | there's a tail of less common features that only some people
         | use but are very important to them.
         | 
         | This is why plugin systems for apps are so important. You can
         | build an app that supports the 80% with a tightly designed set
         | of core features, and if someone needs to go outside of those
         | they can use/build a plugin.
        
         | Terretta wrote:
         | > _what makes you think that the features that are personally
         | important to you are the same features that other potential
         | users need?_
         | 
         | Good question, what's the pitch:
         | 
         |  _"Vecti is a browser-based UI design tool built from the
         | ground up with one core belief, that creators deserve tools
         | built specifically for them. Better performance, better
         | privacy, and better alignment with their actual needs. A tool
         | that just works, built by someone who genuinely cares about the
         | people using it."_
         | 
         | Hmm. Did founders of Balsamiq or Figma not care about the
         | people using it? And who if not creators were they built for?
         | 
         |  _"Share & Present - Set viewer and editor permissions at the
         | team or project level. When it's time to present ... let your
         | work shine."_
         | 
         | Oh, right, for the people who pay the creator.
        
         | zaidf wrote:
         | He was talking about Excel. Google Sheets with a tiny fraction
         | of Excel features destroyed Excel except for a tiny minority of
         | hardcore finance and Windows users.
        
         | phyzix5761 wrote:
         | Assuming a big enough audience, that 20% can still be
         | significant enough to build a business around.
        
         | Aldipower wrote:
         | "customer research and market validation".
         | 
         | This is a provocative joke, isn't it?
         | 
         | Could you elaborate a little bit more, how a sole developer
         | should do these things in a meaningful way, if even larger
         | companies and start-ups fail with this?
        
           | crazygringo wrote:
           | Not at all.
           | 
           | The most basic way is to do a 30 min interview with 20
           | designers that cover a few each of freelance, small company,
           | med company, large company. Find out which features they use
           | and don't, and what their pain points are, and whether a tool
           | with less features is something that would be majorly helpful
           | or not very important.
           | 
           | Then do a round of validation with AdWords, can you get
           | designers to click on the ad for something advertised as
           | simpler and bloat-free, go to a landing page that explains
           | what it has and doesn't have, and then put it their email to
           | find out when it launches.
           | 
           | To me, that is the absolute bare minimum to make sure you're
           | developing something that can be a business, rather than just
           | a hobby for yourself.
           | 
           | And these are not my ideas or anything. They're pretty
           | standard stuff, and there's a lot more you can and should do
           | as well.
        
         | kkkqkqkqkqlqlql wrote:
         | > Joel Spolsky said (I'm paraphrasing) that everybody only uses
         | 20% of a given program's features, but the problem is that
         | everyone is using a different 20%, so you can't ship an
         | "unbloated" version and expect it to still work for most
         | people.
         | 
         | I remember reading something like this while talking about
         | developing in C++.
        
         | bryanrasmussen wrote:
         | Assuming that users only use 20% of the program and that the
         | usage is evenly distributed, which would be a really big
         | assumption right there, then there is still a finite number of
         | users before you will have used up every part of program
         | functionality between your user base and that any users past
         | that amount will be repeating an actual and specific percentage
         | of program functionality already assigned to some other user,
         | unless you want to argue that functionality can be reduced
         | infinitesimally in a sort of Zeno-like process.
         | 
         | If you agree however that functionality profiles will repeat
         | among users given a large enough user base then it implies a
         | particular limited feature set can still be totally adequate to
         | support program development.
         | 
         | And that is with assumptions stacked against you succeeding, if
         | indeed, as would seem likely, that some user profiles are more
         | widely distributed than others it would follow that a
         | successful product can just focus on those.
        
       | jmkni wrote:
       | Congrats on launching, looks cool for sure, I'll certainly check
       | it out!
       | 
       | Have you considered adding an MCP server? I've had good results
       | recently using the Figma one just
        
         | vecti wrote:
         | An MCP server is definitely on my radar. I've seen some really
         | cool workflows coming out of Figma too. Being a one-man show
         | though, prioritizing what to build next is always the tough
         | part. But it's on the list, appreciate your suggestion!
        
           | jmkni wrote:
           | Yes 100%
        
       | cobertos wrote:
       | Any chance this will be open-sourced or have a self-hosted
       | version available?
       | 
       | I'm interested in modding tools in this space in pursuit of
       | finding weird new ways to create and work with UIs
        
         | uxcolumbo wrote:
         | If you're looking for an open-source and self-host option then
         | you might to checkout https://penpot.app/
        
       | codethief wrote:
       | Congrats on your launch! My impression is that this looks quite
       | polished. Can you elaborate on your tech stack?
        
         | vecti wrote:
         | Thanks!
         | 
         | On the frontend: typescript, react, webgl with an
         | emscripten/c++/wasm engine
         | 
         | On the backend: Python, postgres, redis
        
       | pawelwentpawel wrote:
       | Great job, congrats on the launch!
        
       | catapart wrote:
       | Godspeed! This is the software design philosophy that I support!
       | As someone building my own design utility, I'm impressed by the
       | quality of yours.
        
       | jasonsb wrote:
       | Love the domain name. How did you manage to snag it?
        
         | vecti wrote:
         | When I started the project I was having a hard time finding a
         | good domain name for the project. Some time later, I came up
         | with this name, and found it for sale on some website for
         | ~800EUR. I figured it was something I could do, but fortunately
         | I ended up on dynadot's website where it was for sale for a
         | fraction of the price. I think I got lucky while doing all the
         | work :)
        
           | _el1s7 wrote:
           | That domain is definitely worth more than $800, good find.
        
             | potamic wrote:
             | In such cases does the registrar jack up prices next year
             | or do you get to lock in the price forever at the time of
             | purchase?
        
               | gyomu wrote:
               | No such thing as forever, but .com has been extremely
               | stable and bad surprise-free, thankfully (one of the very
               | few TLDs worth pursuing, really)
        
       | aerzen wrote:
       | Nice. My gripe with designer apps is that they are online first.
       | I'd want to save designs to files, close to other files of the
       | project. I'd want to open each file in their own window, not in
       | browser tabs.
        
         | aabhay wrote:
         | Sketch is offline first but has a really stellar online app as
         | well.
        
           | vitaflo wrote:
           | Plus you can buy Sketch outright without the subscription.
        
             | gyomu wrote:
             | Except they have a very annoying 2 machine limit and their
             | license manager is a pain to get to. On a weekly basis I am
             | deactivating/reactivating license keys between my home
             | computer, work laptop, travel laptop. Super frustrating.
             | 
             | On top of that, their recent redesign comes with a number
             | of boneheaded decisions that would make a Sketch
             | alternative a gift from the heavens above...
        
       | amadeuspagel wrote:
       | Trying to login with google I got a social auth error:
       | https://app.vecti.com/dashboard/social-auth-error/
        
         | dsnr wrote:
         | Thanks for reporting, I'm looking into it.
        
       | ramon156 wrote:
       | Comparing this to penpot, which is free as long as you self-host.
       | 
       | Not sure why I would pick this over a self-hostable battle-tested
       | option.
        
       | TonyStr wrote:
       | Since this is a commercial product, I'm naturally inclined to
       | compare it to other competing commercial products.
       | 
       | Why would I want to use this over figma? The sidepanels and
       | floating toolbar are ripped directly from figma (to the point I
       | would fear a lawsuit). Figma is already a very clean UI, which
       | tries it's best not to shove too many features in your face.
       | Whiteboard, presentations, dev mode are all hidden behind menus.
       | "no plugin support" seems like a very odd thing to flaunt as a
       | feature. Many of the most popular use-cases of figma, such as
       | interactive prototypes, svg creation, html/css exports are all
       | impossible in this tool.
       | 
       | Then, there is the problem of this being maintained by a single
       | person. Components are essential to any serious figma user, good
       | svg and image handling is important (svg is buggy in my testing),
       | selection colors is vital, color palette is important. When can
       | users expect to see these features if the maintainer is busy
       | hunting down bugs?
       | 
       | This is a technically impressive product, but I struggle to see
       | the market plan. I personally hate distractions in software, I go
       | to great lengths to debloat and disable features to make my
       | computer interactions smoother, yet figma is possibly the last
       | program I would want to clean up.
        
         | popalchemist wrote:
         | There is space for this. The things you list as negatives are
         | positives. Feature parity or similarity to a big competitor? A
         | plus. Single developer? For a certain kind of consumer, a plus.
        
         | johnwheeler wrote:
         | People ship stuff that doesn't make sense at first blush all
         | the time. But how are they ever supposed to even get into the
         | space if they don't try something? Try to get some customers,
         | see what people want. On day one, he's not saying he's going to
         | compete with Figma. He's just getting it out there. Your
         | comment--You could say you're just asking questions or giving
         | constructive criticism, but it just assumes the negative on so
         | many levels. I can criticize your viewpoint. Why do you think
         | someone should have a product that's ready to compete with
         | Figma on day one? Do you seriously expect him to have an answer
         | for that?
        
           | TonyStr wrote:
           | I initially wanted to write a comment applauding the effort
           | (making a performant web-based wireframe editor is a
           | technically challenging task). But after testing the site, I
           | got the impression that this is a commercial product trying
           | to get a foothold (as opposed to a hobby project for the sake
           | of learning).
           | 
           | At the time of posting, there were no other comments with
           | criticism, so I thought it better to contribute some of my
           | thoughts.
           | 
           | My main concern for this project is not that it doesn't have
           | feature parity with figma, but that I don't see a well-
           | thought out business model. Vecti sells a seat-based
           | subscription model (same as figma), has almost directly
           | ripped much of figma's design (a proclaimed ex-figma employee
           | pointed out that this may be cause for a lawsuit in another
           | comment), and the only distinguishing selling point is that
           | it has less features than figma (the tool it's trying to
           | emulate).
           | 
           | My opinion (which may be wrong) is that figma is already very
           | good at stripping away features, hiding them behind modes,
           | toggles or contextual menus. I'm a figma power user, but I
           | have held a course in figma and managed to get 20 non-
           | technical people to grok the tool and be able to create their
           | own interactive designs in half an hour.
        
         | fastThinking wrote:
         | I think you're missing the point a bit. Not every tool needs to
         | be Figma, and honestly, that's a good thing.
         | 
         | I've been using Figma for a while, and true, it's powerful. At
         | the same time it becomes increasingly complex, difficult,
         | bloated overall. Simple tasks now require navigating through
         | multiple menus, and the learning curve for new users is steep
         | (took me a while to understand it, and the same experience had
         | it acquaintances of mine). Sometimes I just want to sketch out
         | an idea or make a task without dealing with all that overhead.
         | 
         | The no plugin support thing actually makes sense to me. I've
         | had Figma slow down or crash because of poorly maintained
         | plugins. Having a tool that just works, consistently, without
         | worrying about plugin compatibility or security issues? That's
         | valuable. And yeah, it's a solo developer versus a massive
         | company (that's my understanding) but that is why it's
         | beautiful. Also it's an uneven comparison if you ask me (but
         | didn't :)) ).
         | 
         | However, the fact that this is even being compared to Figma
         | shows the quality of what's been built. Not everyone needs
         | enterprise features. Some of us just want a clean, fast canvas
         | without the friction. Every new feature of Figma feels like an
         | attempt to monopolize the entire market.
         | 
         | I think he did an incredible job. Good work. This has value.
        
           | TonyStr wrote:
           | > Simple tasks now require navigating through multiple menus
           | 
           | I'm curious which simple tasks you're referring to?
           | 
           | > I've had Figma slow down or crash because of poorly
           | maintained plugins
           | 
           | Why not uninstall those plugins? Is no plugin support really
           | the best solution to this problem? Was there not a reason
           | that you originally installed those plugins?
        
           | bryanhogan wrote:
           | Comparing the tool shared here to PenPot[1] might be more
           | fair.
           | 
           | [1]: http://penpot.app/
        
         | vecti wrote:
         | Thanks for your input. I'm happy that Figma works for you, and
         | I'm not trying to put Figma out of business :) I'm sincerely
         | humbled to be compared to such an iconic product as Figma.
         | 
         | I started this project as a personal endeavour to scratch my
         | own itch during the pandemic, out of a personal desire to
         | contribute to the field of UX design that I've always been
         | passionate about, but at the same time I don't intend on
         | working as a solo developer for much longer.
         | 
         | Some of the features you've listed, are currently being worked
         | on, which are going to be launched very soon.
        
           | cadamsdotcom wrote:
           | Gotta say I love your humility in the face of challenges from
           | prospective users.
           | 
           | Wishing you the best of success, really like seeing your
           | vision and hope it bears out.
        
           | TonyStr wrote:
           | I applaud your effort, and I love to see others practice the
           | love of building. Though my original comment didn't suggest
           | this, I would love to see your project succeed and gather a
           | user base. Competition is always good, and this is a very
           | solid start for a project.
           | 
           | > endeavour to scratch my own itch during the pandemic
           | 
           | Was this an "itch to build something", or an itch as in an
           | annoyance you had with an existing tool? I'm skeptic of
           | whether bloated UI is an itch many users have with figma or
           | similar, which is why I'm critical of presenting this as the
           | selling point for Vecti. If you manage to find an itch many
           | people do have, and you provide the salve, you'll attract
           | paying users.
        
         | g947o wrote:
         | This. As a heavy Figma user, I don't see why people want to pay
         | $12/month for this product when Figma is as competitive in
         | pricing and much more widely used
        
         | gyomu wrote:
         | > The sidepanels and floating toolbar are ripped directly from
         | figma (to the point I would fear a lawsuit)
         | 
         | No, a company can't sue you (well they can try, but it has no
         | legal standing) because you rip off their side panel design.
         | Thank god the industry doesn't work like this.
        
           | TonyStr wrote:
           | Figma sued AI startup Motiff in 2024 for copyright
           | infringement and won[0]. Motiff had to reimburse figma, and
           | redesign their product.
           | 
           | [0] https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/69166901/figma-inc-
           | v-mo...
        
             | mortenjorck wrote:
             | Not relevant. Figma v. Motif was over allegations of
             | stealing _source code,_ apparently including known Figma
             | bugs.
             | 
             | The design of the UI wouldn't be covered by copyright
             | anyway; Figma would have had to file and be granted a
             | patent, which has a much higher bar (IMO not high enough,
             | but that's a different discussion).
        
           | egypturnash wrote:
           | Adobe sued Macromedia because the floating palettes in Flash
           | worked just like the ones in Photoshop. Flash MX had a much-
           | revised, shittier UI.
        
             | Fraaaank wrote:
             | Well, sort of. They sued because they believed Macromedia
             | infringed on their patents. That's something else than
             | merely visual similarity.
        
         | alsetmusic wrote:
         | > The sidepanels and floating toolbar are ripped directly from
         | figma (to the point I would fear a lawsuit).
         | 
         | This is sort of ridiculous. Apple tried to sue Microsoft for
         | the look-and-feel of their GUI and lost. I think they might
         | have tried to go after Samsung for copying the iPhone GUI? It
         | certainly didn't work if they tried.
         | 
         | We all know Oracle tried to sue Google about API endpoints and
         | lost. That's different from GUI elements, but a more concrete
         | argument and it still failed.
         | 
         | You're just crapping on someone's hard work. If you don't want
         | it, don't use it.
        
       | thrownaway561 wrote:
       | I think you're 4 years too late bro. With AI, you can pretty much
       | get 80% of the way there in a minute. I don't understand why
       | anyone nowadays would build anything from scratch.
        
         | augustk wrote:
         | With so many ready meals to choose from I don't understand why
         | anyone nowadays would cook anything from scratch.
        
       | raw_anon_1111 wrote:
       | Isn't this exactly the problem that Joel Spolsky wrote about a
       | quarter of a century ago?
       | 
       | https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2001/03/23/strategy-letter-iv...
       | 
       |  _A lot of software developers are seduced by the old "80 /20"
       | rule. It seems to make a lot of sense: 80% of the people use 20%
       | of the features. So you convince yourself that you only need to
       | implement 20% of the features, and you can still sell 80% as many
       | copies.
       | 
       | Unfortunately, it's never the same 20%. Everybody uses a
       | different set of features._
        
         | shawabawa3 wrote:
         | Trello was a successful product despite having way less than
         | 20% of jira's features
        
           | raw_anon_1111 wrote:
           | And there are hundreds if not thousands of Show HNs and YC
           | funded companies that have disappeared in a whimper trying to
           | be the "smaller lightweight version of $x"
        
             | swat535 wrote:
             | They can fail for any reason and it's not always for not
             | having enough features..
             | 
             | MVPs shouldn't have 100% of features, they need to be
             | small, get feedback and iterate.
        
         | conductr wrote:
         | > and you can still sell 80% as many copies.
         | 
         | This is the key to that quote. If you resolve to selling less,
         | you can still have a multimillion dollar product. If you
         | resolve to it being a billion dollar product, then yeah you
         | need every thing for everyone.
        
           | raw_anon_1111 wrote:
           | The quote is taken out of context, he's arguing just the
           | opposite. Everyone has a different 20% and that 20% is an
           | overlapping Venn diagram. It's almost impossible to find the
           | "right" 20%.
           | 
           | It's just like the RAD tools - or Java or any of the other
           | cross platform frameworks - there is always _something_ that
           | you need to use that the vendor doesn't support.
        
             | conductr wrote:
             | There is no "right". You build what you want based on what
             | product vision or user pattern you're aware of and you sell
             | that. You can still build a healthy sized business on it if
             | you tap into the right niche and have gotten close enough.
             | 
             | This space specifically is tough. Figma and adobe products
             | are similarly cheap.
        
               | raw_anon_1111 wrote:
               | And you still for B2B SaaS have to worry about:
               | 
               | 1. Where does this fit in Gartner's Magic Square? No one
               | ever got fired for buying
               | Salesforce/ServiceNow/Workday/well known company
               | 
               | 2. "What if I don't need feature $y now. But I might need
               | it in the future?"
               | 
               | 3. "Everyone in my industry already knows how to use $x,
               | so it will be easier to onboard new employees. Even if
               | they don't know it, there are courses available"
               | 
               | In today's world for any SaaS to be taken seriously, it
               | has to have Slack/Teams integration and SSO logins with
               | the company's IDP - there is an industry standard so if
               | you support one, it's relatively painless to support all
               | of them. So what is your enterprise sales story - even
               | for small startups?
               | 
               | Even if you work at a company that gives everyone a
               | yearly stipend to get almost anything they want that will
               | improve their work, you still have to get approval for
               | any tool where the company's info is sent to a third
               | party.
               | 
               | These are all things that most people don't think about
               | when they want to turn their passion product into a
               | business
        
               | conductr wrote:
               | This is being built by a single dev. He only needs a
               | couple thousand users to likely make this a meaningfully
               | successful product to him. You guys are really blowing
               | this out of proportion if you think there's no room for
               | stuff like this. There's tons of potential users out
               | there. His challenge will be reaching them but it's
               | totally possible he's on to something decent here. Even
               | if he shuns enterprise altogether. If he's solved this
               | problem in a way that is simplistic and approachable then
               | he's maybe onto something. Pro designer likely are not
               | his target user.
               | 
               | I'm not making assessments of whether it is or not, but
               | it sure as hell could be. There's room for all this and
               | he can choose to add features or choose to stay feature
               | light.
        
       | th3o6a1d wrote:
       | Congrats on launching!
        
       | jjcm wrote:
       | Ex-Figma.
       | 
       | I'd be worried about a lawsuit here, primarily due to the overall
       | app architecture and property panel on the right. While there are
       | differences between your implementation and Figma's, it's close
       | enough that things are very clearly Figma-inspired. There've been
       | a lot of Figma copycats, and Figma does have a track record of
       | successful lawsuits against them.
       | 
       | Great work with the backend architecture (a lack of a proper wasm
       | renderer is why penpot will never be competitive), but you're in
       | dangerous territory with the UI.
        
         | vitaflo wrote:
         | Wasn't Figma's side panel just a ripoff of Sketch's? Always
         | felt that way.
        
           | jjcm wrote:
           | Heavily influenced by Sketch's UX for sure. Sketch paved the
           | way for the new wave of design tools. There were some
           | significant architectural differences between the approaches
           | though.
           | 
           | Just for comparison, here's a side by side of each: https://i
           | mage.non.io/940a433a-3c25-4610-88e8-4eec810f2235.we...
        
             | swat535 wrote:
             | You can apply your own logic here as well.
             | 
             | "While there are differences between Figma's implementation
             | and Sketch, it's close enough that things are very clearly
             | Sketch-inspired."
             | 
             | Figma doesn't have patent on side panels. I don't think
             | worrying about lawsuits is applicable here.
             | 
             | I'm sure Figma will attempt to abuse its power to kill
             | competition regardless. It's no different than other
             | corporations.
             | 
             | Likely EU has better regulations.
        
         | gyomu wrote:
         | > I'd be worried about a lawsuit here, primarily due to the
         | overall app architecture and property panel on the right
         | 
         | I wouldn't, because such a lawsuit would trivially get
         | dismissed. There are no intellectual claims to be had on app
         | architecture or the design of a property panel, otherwise the
         | whole industry would be a bloodbath.
        
       | NoSalt wrote:
       | It looks really nice, but it is subscription based, so ... no
       | thanks. I refuse to give in to this horrible cycle started by
       | Adobe, lo so many years ago.
        
       | dhumph wrote:
       | Your pricing makes it seem like $12 for a year.
        
         | AnonHP wrote:
         | That's exactly what I thought too when I saw "$12 annually".
         | Then I read the "$15 when billed monthly" and realized this is
         | a monthly price. OP, please correct this.
        
           | vecti wrote:
           | Done
        
         | vecti wrote:
         | Fixed
        
       | tuhgdetzhh wrote:
       | I wait for someone to comment that he could pull it off with an
       | Opus 4.6 agent team in 24h of so.
        
       | replwoacause wrote:
       | Congratulations on shipping a beautiful product
        
       | jonnycoder wrote:
       | I like your website design, especially the two-column layout in
       | most sections once I get past the hero image (full size
       | screenshot). I found myself looking at all the images. The
       | downside is that I did not really get any motivation to try it
       | out or really understand how it could help me.
       | 
       | I am a backend software engineer so I'm always on the lookout for
       | a way to easily and simply create a professional looking landing
       | page. Therefore I'm always asking the question... is there a
       | template I can choose from and just start filling it in? Just
       | yesterday I found a figma template hosted on figma.site and I
       | used chrome devtools to edit the hero text and navbar and got
       | instant results .. as in I sort of liked it. Typography, spacing,
       | use of color, detailed data presentation (ie bullet points, 2
       | column layout, etc), and fill-in images are my starting point (as
       | an amateur designer). I could spend hours tweaking a design but I
       | would rather just copy some existing component designs and call
       | it a day. Hope this helps.
        
       | pier25 wrote:
       | My biggest issue with Figma and most vector apps is how they
       | handle groups. Only Illustrator seems to offer group isolation.
       | You can double click on a group, enter the group and just edit
       | the elements inside that group.
       | 
       | It's such a simple feature but it massively improves the workflow
       | of working with vectors. Never understood why Figma, Sketch, or
       | Affinity Designer never implemented it.
        
         | designerarvid wrote:
         | Figma has an isolation mode for individual vectors, press enter
         | while it's selected.
         | 
         | Not what you're after, but working with groups in Figma can be
         | handy.
         | 
         | Try cmd+click to select elements inside groups directly. Then
         | shift+enter to select the parent group. You can do enter again
         | to select all elements in the group. You can cycle selection in
         | the group with tab. All of this works with multi-select, which
         | can be very efficient.
         | 
         | IMO working with groups in Figma is much more powerful than
         | illustrator Depends what you are trying to do, of course.
        
       | rkagerer wrote:
       | _I use some basic analytics (page views, referrers) but zero
       | tracking inside the app itself. No session recordings, no
       | behavior analytics, no third-party scripts beyond the essentials_
       | 
       | Take my upvote
        
       | RobRivera wrote:
       | Bravo
        
       | AnonHP wrote:
       | I have one observation that doesn't seem to be reported on this
       | thread. The home page is very heavy, loading several MBs of
       | images. It took half a minute to load completely for me on
       | mobile.
        
       | phmagic wrote:
       | Congrats! I tried it and some feedback:
       | 
       | 1. Every action seems slower than Figma and Sketch-my main tool
       | 
       | 2. Some short cuts didn't seem to to work, like how I can't copy
       | and paste a canvas. It was hard for me to forego muscle memory
       | 
       | 3. Is there a way to try it without signing up for an account?
       | Like a sandbox? I tried to delete my account but because I logged
       | in via Google and it requires me to enter a password (I don't
       | know), I can't delete.
        
       | econ wrote:
       | I press the button on the website and it wasn't even animated,
       | worse, it didn't have an active state.
       | 
       | Not that I like to see that stuff but you did animate the text
       | and feedback does help usability.
        
       | karhuton wrote:
       | Great work. As a European designer, really happy to see
       | competition. Figma is slowly jacking up prices and companies are
       | starting to lean on seats.
       | 
       | Figma has pretty much reached the point that they're inventing
       | features, pushing AI and expanding to other products (figjam,
       | slides), because they've reached feature maturity on UI design
       | long time ago and they need to make more money by expanding the
       | other roles (PO, dev) from viewers to paid seats that actually
       | use the tool.
       | 
       | So, you have a good fixed target here for Europeans: keep copying
       | UI features from Figma and get European businesses to start
       | switching over.
       | 
       | Your pricing is way too high.
       | 
       | World's best UI design tool with all the extra tools? 16EUR. Your
       | limited offer? 12EUR!
       | 
       | How about: 16EUR ANNUAL. "For the price of one month of Figma,
       | get Vecti for the whole year." - there's a promotion text for the
       | website too.
       | 
       | P.s. My list of must haves before I could consider switching:
       | 
       | - auto layout (w/ slots if possible!!)
       | 
       | - components
       | 
       | - very simple prototyping with click & scroll support
       | 
       | Prototyping is required for user testing, so I'd have to buy
       | software for that if I'd use yours.
       | 
       | Edit: I want to follow your progress. Could you have a mailing
       | list where you update your feature implementation progress -
       | let's say once a month?
        
         | vecti wrote:
         | Hi karhuton,
         | 
         | Thanks for your honest and thoughtful feedback.
         | 
         | Re: the features that you mentioned - these are definitely on
         | my list. I thought that getting the product out there sooner
         | was preferable to waiting longer at this stage. But I fully
         | resonate with you, and I'm working on releasing them shortly.
         | 
         | Re: pricing, this is something I gave a lot of thought to, and
         | I came to the conclusion that instead of participating in a
         | race to the bottom, I prefer that the paying customers really
         | see value in my product. I would like to offer a more generous
         | free plan and find the right niche in the design field for
         | those paying customers.
         | 
         | With this in mind, here's a 50% discount code for any plan, for
         | this community and anyone who would like to support this
         | project: HN50
         | 
         | Re: the mailing list, it's a great idea. I'll implement a
         | subscription list soon for the people who are interested. In
         | the meantime, you can send me an email at contact@vecti.com
         | with your email, and you will be the first person to get
         | notified of the product progress.
        
           | __natty__ wrote:
           | They won't see value unless they try. And by lowering price
           | (maybe for a year or two?) you will compete strongly with
           | figma and other design tools. Then you can increase price and
           | see who sees value and who doesn't.
        
       | averrous wrote:
       | Any tips for ensuring quality across features when you working
       | with urself?
        
       | joduplessis wrote:
       | A Figma competitor is a really good thing - many people are
       | waiting to jump ship for a decent competitor. However, for the
       | sake of longevity & lawsuits, maybe tweak the UI a little bit.
       | Just to make it not look exactly like Figma. Well done though!
        
       | drcongo wrote:
       | I have a rolling doc of the various US tech we're gradually
       | untangling ourselves from, just added this to the design section
       | - looks really interesting.
        
       | kevintayong wrote:
       | Thanks for sharing! Reminds me of Figma.
       | 
       | Btw, your LinkedIn and Email icons on the footer are not linked.
        
       | alluro2 wrote:
       | Looks great and congrats on building and shipping a well-rounded
       | and usable product. Looking forward to trying it out this
       | evening.
        
       | xyortuc wrote:
       | Hi, that's a great tool. It gave me great inspiration, I am
       | working on my tool now. Let's see how it goes
        
       ___________________________________________________________________
       (page generated 2026-02-07 23:01 UTC)