Backlight — Developer Tools

What is Backlight?

Backlight is a code-centric design system platform that empowers front-end teams to build, ship, and evolve great design systems. It combines an online IDE, visual pull request reviews, instant sharing, and a Figma plugin to automatically generate UI kits from code — bridging the gap between developers and designers.

Who is it for?

Backlight is built for front-end engineers and design system teams who want to speed up development without sacrificing quality. It is also loved by designers who can generate and maintain Figma libraries automatically from code changes. It is not a low-code/no-code tool for non-technical users; it requires familiarity with code components (React, Vue, Svelte, etc.).

Real use cases

Teams at product-driven companies like Qovery and Saqara use Backlight to reduce design system creation from months to days. Visual PR reviews let developers catch inconsistencies before merging. The Figma plugin eliminates manual design-to-code handoffs, saving hours per sprint.

Key limitation to know

Backlight.dev is shutting down on June 1st, 2025. For details, contact [email protected]. This means new sign-ups and long-term migrations may be affected — consider this before committing to the platform for new projects.

• Visual Pull Request Reviews — See before-and-after changes of your design system components without waiting for builds.
• Figma Plugin (story.to.design) — Automatically generate and maintain Figma UI kits directly from your code.
• Online IDE + CLI — Edit components in real-time using your preferred framework (React, Vue, Svelte, SolidJS, etc.).
• Versioning & Auto-Versioning — Keep automatic snapshots of your design system, with manual tagging when needed.
• Rich Documentation Engine — Write docs in Markdown, MDJS, MDX2, MDVue, MDsveX, or Nunjucks; export a static documentation site.
• Git Integration — Works with GitHub and GitLab; share and collaborate on design systems without tickets.
• Visual Regression Reports — Catch unintended visual changes with automated regression snapshots (100 included in Starter).

Backlight pricing: Free plan available; Pro from $149/mo. Billing model: Freemium.

Starter (Free)

Unlimited users, up to 2 design systems, online IDE & CLI, GitHub & GitLab integrations, visual PR reviews, 100 visual regression reports, publish on scope @backlight-dev, Markdown/MDX documentation, real-time editing, auto-versioning, community Discord support.

Pro ($149/month)

All Starter features, up to 5 design systems, 1000 visual regression reports, publish to any scope/registry, publish private packages, export documentation static site, email support.

Enterprise ($499/month)

All Pro features, unlimited design systems, unlimited visual regression reports, email support with SLA, and story.to.design (Figma plugin) included. 1% of purchases go to Stripe Climate.

Note: Backlight.dev is shutting down June 1st, 2025. New subscriptions may be impacted.

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