Open CoDesign vs Claude Design
Both tools turn prompts into polished designs. They make different trade-offs. This page exists so you can decide quickly which one fits your workflow.
Download Open CoDesign → · Quickstart (90 s)
At a glance
Claude Design is a hosted web app by Anthropic that runs Claude Opus on their infrastructure. Open CoDesign is an MIT-licensed desktop app you run on your own machine with whichever model provider you already use.
Pick Claude Design if you want zero setup, are happy on an Anthropic subscription, and don't need model flexibility or offline use.
Pick Open CoDesign if you want BYOK cost control, any model beyond Claude, on-device privacy, local version history, or multiple export formats.
Feature matrix
| Open CoDesign (open-source) | Claude Design | |
|---|---|---|
| License | MIT | Closed |
| Runs on | Your laptop (macOS / Windows / Linux) | Cloud (browser) |
| Models | Any — Anthropic, OpenAI, Gemini, DeepSeek, OpenRouter, SiliconFlow, Ollama, OpenAI-compatible | Claude Opus |
| Keyless proxy support | Yes (IP-allowlisted) | No |
| Config import | Claude Code + Codex, one click | No |
| Built-in design skills | 12 modules (slide decks, dashboards, landing pages, charts, pricing, data tables, …) | — |
| Demo prompts | 15 ready-to-edit | Blank canvas |
| Data location | SQLite on your machine | Anthropic servers |
| Version history | Local snapshots | — |
| Export | HTML · PDF · PPTX · ZIP · Markdown | HTML |
| Inline element comments | Yes (AI rewrites only the pinned region) | — |
| AI-tunable sliders | Yes | — |
| Responsive frames | Phone · tablet · desktop | Limited |
| Price | Free (BYOK token cost) | Subscription |
Why someone would choose Open CoDesign
- BYOK means cost control. Ship drafts on a cheap model (DeepSeek, local Ollama, GPT-4o-mini), polish on Claude Opus only when it matters.
- Data stays on-device. Your prompts, designs, and any codebase scans never leave your laptop unless you send them to a model provider yourself.
- Local version history. Every iteration is a snapshot you can diff and roll back.
- Interactive surface. Click an element, leave a note, watch the model rewrite only that region. Drag AI-generated sliders to tune color, spacing, and typography without re-prompting.
- Real exports. PDF via your local Chrome, PPTX via
pptxgenjs, ZIP asset bundle, Markdown with frontmatter — all lazy-loaded so the cold-start bundle stays lean. - Import what you already have. One click pulls every provider / model / key out of your Claude Code or Codex config.
Why someone would stay on Claude Design
- Zero install, nothing to configure.
- Seamless integration with Anthropic's product surface.
- You explicitly want Opus-only and don't care about multi-model.
Both are reasonable answers. Use what fits.
Is Open CoDesign a fork of Claude Design?
No. Open CoDesign is an independent, clean-room open-source project built by OpenCoworkAI. It shares no code with Anthropic's Claude Design. The name "Claude Design" belongs to Anthropic; Open CoDesign is an independent alternative, not affiliated with Anthropic.
Install Open CoDesign
- Pre-built installer — macOS DMG, Windows EXE, Linux AppImage
- 90-second Quickstart — from prompt to export
- Build from source — Node 22 LTS + pnpm 9.15+
FAQ
- Is it really free? Yes. You pay only the token cost to whichever model provider you bring.
- Does it send anything to the cloud? Only the prompts you send to your own model provider. Nothing goes to OpenCoworkAI or a shared backend.
- Can I use it with Ollama? Yes. Any OpenAI-compatible endpoint works, keyless proxies included.
- License? MIT. Fork it, ship it, sell it.