It's an incredible success story, and the engineering they did upfront (primarily led by co-founder Evan Wallace) that set the stage for their success is the stuff of legends. https://madebyevan.com/figma/ has links to numerous blog posts breaking it down, but here are some choice quotes:
> [Evan] developed the hybrid C++/JavaScript architecture for Figma's editor that made it possible to build a best-in-class design tool in the browser. The document representation and canvas area is in C++ while the UI around the canvas is in JavaScript (the team eventually settled on TypeScript + React for this). This let us heavily optimize the document representation to reduce memory usage and improve editing speed while still using modern UI technologies for fast iteration on our UI. C++ development was done using Xcode (not in the browser) to provide a better debugging environment.
> Even though the contents of Figma documents are similar to what HTML can display, Figma actually does all of its own document rendering for cross-browser consistency and performance. Figma uses WebGL for rendering which bypasses most of the browser's HTML rendering pipeline and lets the app work closely with the graphics card. The rendering engine handles curve rendering, images, blurs, masking, blending, and opacity groups, and optimizes for high visual fidelity.
> [Evan] developed Figma's multiplayer syncing protocol, worked on the initial version of the multiplayer live collaboration service (a kind of specialized real-time database), and added multiplayer syncing support to Figma's existing editing application. The initial version was written in TypeScript but [he] later ported it to Rust for improved performance and stability.
It's a great reminder that it's not premature optimization if your UI's fluidity is your distinctive feature and your calling card! And the business acumen to turn this into such a wildly successful product in the context of competitors with kitchen-sink feature lists can't be understated, either. I have an incredible amount of respect for this team, and they should inspire all of us to tackle ambitious projects.
show comments
dcchuck
Congratulations to the Figma team! Well earned. It was such an exciting product when it hit the scene. It became the standard so fast, and it was easy to see why. When there were talks of them being bought for $20 billion I thought it was a great deal for Adobe - and that was before seeing these impressive financials.
I will admit I have waned enthusiasm a on Figma over the past couple of years. I find the UI churn confusing. The new features, i.e. dev mode and variables, feel out of place. I find the plugin ecosystem cumbersome. Doing simple things has become complex. I'm putting out real "who moved my cheese?" energy here I know. I suppose I'm wondering if others feel the same.
show comments
Animats
There's a president-for-life clause:
"Immediately following the completion of
this offering, and assuming no exercise of the underwriters’
over-allotment option, Dylan Field, our Chair of our Board of
Directors, Chief Executive Officer, and President will hold or
have the ability to control approximately % of the
voting power of our outstanding capital stock, including
% of the voting power pursuant to the Wallace Proxy. As a result, following this offering, Mr. Field will have the ability to control the outcome of matters submitted to our
stockholders for approval, including the election of our
directors and the approval of any change of control
transaction."
show comments
us0r
> The table above does not reflect our renewed cloud hosting agreement with a third-party provider, entered into on May 31, 2025. Under the terms of the non-cancellable agreement, we committed to purchase a minimum of $545.0 million in cloud hosting services over the next five years. This renewed agreement replaces a previous agreement with the provider.
$300k/DAY AWS bill. I wonder what the "non-cancellable" savings is.
show comments
pm90
From the adobe disaster to this. I am glad Adobe didn’t snuff them out. Cheers and congrats to … fig-mates? : )
show comments
granzymes
Headline financials:
FY Ended December 31, in millions except percentage
| 2023 | 2024 | YoY
---------------|--------|--------|-------
revenue | $505 | $749 | 48%
gross profit | $460 | $661 | 44%
op ex | $534 | $1,539 | 118%
net income | $738 | $(732) | (199)%
free cash flow | $1,041 | $68 | (93)%
show comments
rco8786
Congrats to the team here. Let it be a lesson for anyone worried that “their idea has been taken” or “there already solutions for this” out there.
show comments
greatgib
To me, an IPO by them at this moment let me think that they know that they are on top of the wave and that it is better to cash-in before growth starts to stale.
They got a huge influx of users when image editing AI started to be a thing, I'm not quite sure that they haven't already conquered most of new users that could join them.
show comments
jonator
Reminds me of the Linear story. You can disrupt a set of established players by focusing on simplicity, opinionated design, and maximum performance via hardcore engineering.
urda
Don't forget how Figma bullied Loveable from being able to use "dev mode" [1].
A bit off-topic, but I really wish we had a system where we could make bets to pit public companies that develop closed source software against its FOSS alternatives.
In the example here: people would bet by either buying $100 worth of Figma shares, or they could buy $50 worth of put options and give $50 to the developers of Penpot.
Would something like that be legal or does it violate any type of trading regulations?
show comments
crossroadsguy
I see this play out a lot in my country’s stock market. Where numbers are fine and all hunky dory. But in reality all increase in share prices — those meteoric rises has already happened behind the curtain which separates it from the public (and for good). And then IPO comes and the public mostly oays for the final exit.
Is this an IPO where participants (public) will make long term money of it’s already at the top and this is the final stage of “finding someone to hold the bag” and in this case eventually — the public i.e the retail trader, mostly?
nout
More and more companies are now holding bitcoin in their treasuries (including Figma according to the filling). It's interesting, but it makes a lot of sense.
show comments
lvl155
Figma is an incredible product but I don’t like what they’re doing with AI. They should focus on enabling UI/UX designers to do more instead of making a glorified Dreamweaver.
show comments
lenerdenator
Looks like I got access to it riiiiiiiight as they're gonna start gutting themselves to pay for retirement and pension funds. Awesome!
system2
When they go IPO, will you guys buy it immediately, expecting it to go up? Curious what people think about the figma's future.
show comments
rvz
Very predictable outcome: [0] [1]
Now prepare for price increases, lock-ins and many threads of people looking for Figma alternatives.
The ones cheering already have stock ready to dump it on the public markets on retail.
Congrats Figma! It annoys me every time I open their UI, billions of dollars in revenue for a web design tool, yet still no way to export tokens natively as CSS.
colesantiago
So now that Figma will be owned by Wall Street, it will only get considerably worse from here. It is now time consider and find and fund open source alternatives.
I know of excalidraw and perhaps penpot are there anymore?
show comments
Kye
What Figma did in this era of anticompetitive buyouts is admirable but my mind will always think figma balls even after they IPO freely.
Anyway, congratulations to everyone at Figma and good luck.
[deleted]
Brajeshwar
I read that as though new companies filing IPO should use files created with Figma.
Manik_agg
Figma has come a long way, from a blocked Adobe acquisition to now filing for an IPO.
StableAlkyne
Going public is usually terrible news for users.
That said, today it's an incredibly good design tool - worth checking out before shareholders start the enshittification process. Congrats to the devs / founders for making it all the way to an IPO!
[deleted]
ElevenLathe
[flagged]
show comments
Alex_L_Wood
Maybe this will finally cause designers to ditch Figma. It's a fantastic tool for designers, but it's complete shit for developers.
[deleted]
andybak
And the cycle continues. Who's working on the "Figma but not enshittified" at the moment?
show comments
giacaglia
Its S-1 shows $70M held in Bitcoin ETFs, and board approval for another $30M BTC purchase via USDC!
So much negativity in this thread. I thought we’d be able to celebrate this one. Figma provided an alternative to the evil Adobe empire that was actually better. It’s powered by some amazing tech built originally by one of the founders. It’s still got a generous free plan. I’m happy the employees will get to cash out.
show comments
pixxel
If you’re tired of it all, and the inevitable, and you have agency, try penpot.app
They don't link to the Form S-1 prospectus from their announcement, but it's publicly available at https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1579878/000162828025...
Their highlighted metrics page: $821M LTM revenue, 46% YoY revenue growth, 18% non-GAAP operating margin, 91% gross margin.
It's an incredible success story, and the engineering they did upfront (primarily led by co-founder Evan Wallace) that set the stage for their success is the stuff of legends. https://madebyevan.com/figma/ has links to numerous blog posts breaking it down, but here are some choice quotes:
> [Evan] developed the hybrid C++/JavaScript architecture for Figma's editor that made it possible to build a best-in-class design tool in the browser. The document representation and canvas area is in C++ while the UI around the canvas is in JavaScript (the team eventually settled on TypeScript + React for this). This let us heavily optimize the document representation to reduce memory usage and improve editing speed while still using modern UI technologies for fast iteration on our UI. C++ development was done using Xcode (not in the browser) to provide a better debugging environment.
> Even though the contents of Figma documents are similar to what HTML can display, Figma actually does all of its own document rendering for cross-browser consistency and performance. Figma uses WebGL for rendering which bypasses most of the browser's HTML rendering pipeline and lets the app work closely with the graphics card. The rendering engine handles curve rendering, images, blurs, masking, blending, and opacity groups, and optimizes for high visual fidelity.
> [Evan] developed Figma's multiplayer syncing protocol, worked on the initial version of the multiplayer live collaboration service (a kind of specialized real-time database), and added multiplayer syncing support to Figma's existing editing application. The initial version was written in TypeScript but [he] later ported it to Rust for improved performance and stability.
It's a great reminder that it's not premature optimization if your UI's fluidity is your distinctive feature and your calling card! And the business acumen to turn this into such a wildly successful product in the context of competitors with kitchen-sink feature lists can't be understated, either. I have an incredible amount of respect for this team, and they should inspire all of us to tackle ambitious projects.
Congratulations to the Figma team! Well earned. It was such an exciting product when it hit the scene. It became the standard so fast, and it was easy to see why. When there were talks of them being bought for $20 billion I thought it was a great deal for Adobe - and that was before seeing these impressive financials.
I will admit I have waned enthusiasm a on Figma over the past couple of years. I find the UI churn confusing. The new features, i.e. dev mode and variables, feel out of place. I find the plugin ecosystem cumbersome. Doing simple things has become complex. I'm putting out real "who moved my cheese?" energy here I know. I suppose I'm wondering if others feel the same.
There's a president-for-life clause:
"Immediately following the completion of this offering, and assuming no exercise of the underwriters’ over-allotment option, Dylan Field, our Chair of our Board of Directors, Chief Executive Officer, and President will hold or have the ability to control approximately % of the voting power of our outstanding capital stock, including % of the voting power pursuant to the Wallace Proxy. As a result, following this offering, Mr. Field will have the ability to control the outcome of matters submitted to our stockholders for approval, including the election of our directors and the approval of any change of control transaction."
> The table above does not reflect our renewed cloud hosting agreement with a third-party provider, entered into on May 31, 2025. Under the terms of the non-cancellable agreement, we committed to purchase a minimum of $545.0 million in cloud hosting services over the next five years. This renewed agreement replaces a previous agreement with the provider.
$300k/DAY AWS bill. I wonder what the "non-cancellable" savings is.
From the adobe disaster to this. I am glad Adobe didn’t snuff them out. Cheers and congrats to … fig-mates? : )
Headline financials:
Congrats to the team here. Let it be a lesson for anyone worried that “their idea has been taken” or “there already solutions for this” out there.
To me, an IPO by them at this moment let me think that they know that they are on top of the wave and that it is better to cash-in before growth starts to stale.
They got a huge influx of users when image editing AI started to be a thing, I'm not quite sure that they haven't already conquered most of new users that could join them.
Reminds me of the Linear story. You can disrupt a set of established players by focusing on simplicity, opinionated design, and maximum performance via hardcore engineering.
Don't forget how Figma bullied Loveable from being able to use "dev mode" [1].
[1] https://techcrunch.com/2025/04/15/figma-sent-a-cease-and-des...
A bit off-topic, but I really wish we had a system where we could make bets to pit public companies that develop closed source software against its FOSS alternatives.
In the example here: people would bet by either buying $100 worth of Figma shares, or they could buy $50 worth of put options and give $50 to the developers of Penpot.
Would something like that be legal or does it violate any type of trading regulations?
I see this play out a lot in my country’s stock market. Where numbers are fine and all hunky dory. But in reality all increase in share prices — those meteoric rises has already happened behind the curtain which separates it from the public (and for good). And then IPO comes and the public mostly oays for the final exit.
Is this an IPO where participants (public) will make long term money of it’s already at the top and this is the final stage of “finding someone to hold the bag” and in this case eventually — the public i.e the retail trader, mostly?
More and more companies are now holding bitcoin in their treasuries (including Figma according to the filling). It's interesting, but it makes a lot of sense.
Figma is an incredible product but I don’t like what they’re doing with AI. They should focus on enabling UI/UX designers to do more instead of making a glorified Dreamweaver.
Looks like I got access to it riiiiiiiight as they're gonna start gutting themselves to pay for retirement and pension funds. Awesome!
When they go IPO, will you guys buy it immediately, expecting it to go up? Curious what people think about the figma's future.
Very predictable outcome: [0] [1]
Now prepare for price increases, lock-ins and many threads of people looking for Figma alternatives.
The ones cheering already have stock ready to dump it on the public markets on retail.
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36533826
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34920968
It's funny its performance is touted as its biggest selling point, I find it to be painfully slow
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1579878/000162828025...
Congrats Figma! It annoys me every time I open their UI, billions of dollars in revenue for a web design tool, yet still no way to export tokens natively as CSS.
So now that Figma will be owned by Wall Street, it will only get considerably worse from here. It is now time consider and find and fund open source alternatives.
I know of excalidraw and perhaps penpot are there anymore?
What Figma did in this era of anticompetitive buyouts is admirable but my mind will always think figma balls even after they IPO freely.
Anyway, congratulations to everyone at Figma and good luck.
I read that as though new companies filing IPO should use files created with Figma.
Figma has come a long way, from a blocked Adobe acquisition to now filing for an IPO.
Going public is usually terrible news for users.
That said, today it's an incredibly good design tool - worth checking out before shareholders start the enshittification process. Congrats to the devs / founders for making it all the way to an IPO!
[flagged]
Maybe this will finally cause designers to ditch Figma. It's a fantastic tool for designers, but it's complete shit for developers.
And the cycle continues. Who's working on the "Figma but not enshittified" at the moment?
Its S-1 shows $70M held in Bitcoin ETFs, and board approval for another $30M BTC purchase via USDC!
https://x.com/tier10k/status/1940133141546770454
So much negativity in this thread. I thought we’d be able to celebrate this one. Figma provided an alternative to the evil Adobe empire that was actually better. It’s powered by some amazing tech built originally by one of the founders. It’s still got a generous free plan. I’m happy the employees will get to cash out.
If you’re tired of it all, and the inevitable, and you have agency, try penpot.app
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