Zeplin has carved out a niche as the bridge between design and development. Founded in 2014 and based in San Francisco, the company built a tool that automatically generates style guides, measurements, and code snippets from design files, making it much easier for developers to implement designs accurately.
The platform integrates with Figma, Sketch, Adobe XD, and Photoshop, pulling in design files and presenting them in a developer-friendly format. Engineers can inspect elements, grab CSS or Swift code, download assets at multiple resolutions, and see exact spacing and typography values — all without needing access to the original design tool.
Zeplin’s connected components feature links design components to their code counterparts, creating a single source of truth that both designers and developers can reference. This has made it especially popular with larger teams where maintaining consistency across a product is critical.
The company has been used by teams at Starbucks, Airbnb, Pinterest, and Dropbox, among thousands of others. It operates on a freemium model, with a free tier supporting one project and paid plans for teams and organizations.
While Figma’s Dev Mode and similar built-in handoff features from other design tools have created new competition, Zeplin’s strength lies in being tool-agnostic — it works regardless of which design application a team prefers. For organizations with mixed design toolsets, that flexibility still makes Zeplin a practical choice.
