The open-source alternative to Claude Design. Local-first, web-deployable, BYOK at every layer — 16 coding-agent CLIs auto-detected on your PATH (Claude Code, Codex, Devin for Terminal, Cursor Agent, Gemini CLI, OpenCode, Qwen, Qoder CLI, GitHub Copilot CLI, Hermes, Kimi, Pi, Kiro, Kilo, Mistral Vibe, DeepSeek TUI) become the design engine, driven by 31 composable Skills and 72 brand-grade Design Systems. No CLI? An OpenAI-compatible BYOK proxy is the same loop minus the spawn.
Why this exists
Anthropic's Claude Design (released 2026-04-17, Opus 4.7) showed what happens when an LLM stops writing prose and starts shipping design artifacts. It went viral — and stayed closed-source, paid-only, cloud-only, locked to Anthropic's model and Anthropic's skills. There is no checkout, no self-host, no Vercel deploy, no swap-in-your-own-agent.
Open Design (OD) is the open-source alternative. Same loop, same artifact-first mental model, none of the lock-in. We don't ship an agent — the strongest coding agents already live on your laptop. We wire them into a skill-driven design workflow that runs locally with pnpm tools-dev, can deploy the web layer to Vercel, and stays BYOK at every layer.
Type make me a magazine-style pitch deck for our seed round. The interactive question form pops up before the model improvises a single pixel. The agent picks one of five curated visual directions. A live TodoWrite plan streams into the UI. The daemon builds a real on-disk project folder with a seed template, layout library, and self-check checklist. The agent reads them — pre-flight enforced — runs a five-dimensional critique against its own output, and emits a single <artifact> that renders in a sandboxed iframe seconds later.
That's not "AI tries to design something". That's an AI that has been trained, by the prompt stack, to behave like a senior designer with a working filesystem, a deterministic palette library, and a checklist culture — exactly the bar Claude Design set, but open and yours.
OD stands on four open-source shoulders:
- alchaincyf/huashu-design — the design-philosophy compass. Junior-Designer workflow, the 5-step brand-asset protocol, the anti-AI-slop checklist, the 5-dimensional self-critique, and the "5 schools × 20 design philosophies" idea behind our direction picker — all distilled into apps/daemon/src/prompts/discovery.ts.
- op7418/guizang-ppt-skill — the deck mode. Bundled verbatim under skills/guizang-ppt/ with original LICENSE preserved; magazine-style layouts, WebGL hero, P0/P1/P2 checklists.
- OpenCoworkAI/open-codesign — the UX north star and our closest peer. The first open-source Claude-Design alternative. We borrow its streaming-artifact loop, its sandboxed-iframe preview pattern (vendored React 18 + Babel), its live agent panel (todos + tool calls + interruptible generation), and its five-format export list (HTML / PDF / PPTX / ZIP / Markdown). We deliberately diverge on form factor — they are a desktop Electron app bundling pi-ai; we are a web app + local daemon that delegates to your existing CLI.
- multica-ai/multica — the daemon-and-runtime architecture. PATH-scan agent detection, the local daemon as the only privileged process, the agent-as-teammate worldview.
Publisher’s description
What is Open Design?
Open Design by Powerformer, Inc. is open-source Windows software in the ai assistants & llms category. It is written in TypeScript.
Installation and requirements
The publisher provides EXE (NSIS) installers for 64-bit Windows. It can be installed for the current user only, without administrator rights. A silent install is possible with the installer’s documented switches.
Updates and version history
The current version is 0.26.1, released on October 22, 2026. The version history goes back to May 7, 2026: 35 releases, all linked to the official files. The last update is less than a month old.
Popularity and file types
The source code on GitHub (nexu-io/open-design) has 103,216 stars. Similar programs include Claude Code, Codex CLI and ChatGPT.
Project description on GitHub: “The 1st Collaborative AI Design Agent Workspace. Local-first and open source. Create motion, prototypes, websites, apps, dashboards, presentations, images, and videos with your team and AI agents. Share work, exchange feedback, and iterate together in one workspace.”
Pros / Cons
Pros
- Open source: the code can be inspected and built by anyone
- Documented silent install
- Installs without administrator rights
- Updated in the last two months
- Large user base
Cons
- No native ARM64 build
In short: Open Design is an open-source ai assistants & llm tool for 64-bit PCs. Administrators can deploy it unattended.
Is Open Design safe to download?
- The file is served by github.com, the publisher’s own domain
- The download link uses HTTPS
- A SHA256 hash is published, so you can verify the file:
704A996E2A4F4A0A5A3DCAC18D80E26FF163CE37CC9BDA4E6004C0A8DC524F3C· Open the VirusTotal report for this hash - The link has not been checked yet
- The source code is public
- ExeAtlas does not host, wrap or modify installers
Related guide: How to check a file’s SHA256 hash on Windows
Recent versions
All 35 versions ›| Version | Date | Size | Files |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0.26.1Latest | October 22, 2026 | — | 64-bit EXE (NSIS) |
| 0.26.0 | October 20, 2026 | — | 64-bit EXE (NSIS) |
| 0.25.0 | October 15, 2026 | — | 64-bit EXE (NSIS) |
| 0.24.1 | September 24, 2026 | — | 64-bit EXE (NSIS) |
| 0.24.0 | September 22, 2026 | — | 64-bit EXE (NSIS) |
| 0.23.0 | September 20, 2026 | — | 64-bit EXE (NSIS) |
| 0.22.2 | September 10, 2026 | — | 64-bit EXE (NSIS) |
| 0.22.1 | September 9, 2026 | — | 64-bit EXE (NSIS) |
Install from the command line
Silent install ›winget install --id Powerformer.OpenDesign -eopen-design-0.26.1-win-x64-setup.exe /SRelated guide: How to use winget: install and update apps
Also for other systems
brew install --cask open-designInformation
- Publisher
- Powerformer, Inc.
- Category
- AI assistants & LLMs
- Licence
- Apache-2.0
- Price
- Free
- Source code
- github.com/nexu-io/open-design
- Written in
- TypeScript
- Requires
- Windows 11 / 10
- Architecture
- 64-bit
- Installer
- EXE (NSIS)
- Version
- 0.26.1
- Released
- October 22, 2026
- Added to the catalogue
- May 11, 2026
- Versions listed
- 35
- GitHub stars
- 103,216
- GitHub forks
- 11,820
- Website
- open-design.ai
- winget ID
- Powerformer.OpenDesign
Ratings and reviews
No reviews yet. Be the first to rate it.
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Frequently asked questions
Is Open Design free?
Yes. Open Design is open-source software under the Apache-2.0 licence.
Is Open Design safe to download?
The download comes from github.com, which belongs to the publisher; ExeAtlas does not host or change the file. Compare its SHA256 hash with the one shown here, or open the VirusTotal report for that hash.
How do I install Open Design with winget?
Open PowerShell or Windows Terminal and run the winget command shown on this page. winget downloads the official installer and checks its SHA256 hash before running it.
Can Open Design be installed silently?
Yes. The silent install page lists the exact command for each installer.
Does Open Design run on ARM (Windows on Arm)?
There is no ARM64 build; Windows 11 on Arm can run the 64-bit version through emulation.
Where can I download an older version of Open Design?
The versions page lists all 35 versions with links to their official installer files, back to May 7, 2026.
Can I use Open Design without administrator rights?
Yes, there is a per-user installer that does not need administrator rights.
What are alternatives to Open Design?
Claude Code, Codex CLI, ChatGPT, GPT4All and oh-my-pi. The alternatives page compares them.
