Figma has no File menu item that gives you a website. What it has is a set of partial answers, plus an ecosystem of plugins filling the gap. I build one of those tools, so take the last section with the appropriate pinch of salt, but the rest of this is a straight comparison.

Start with the question that determines everything: is a developer going to own this code afterwards? If yes, you want code you can read. If no, exported code is a liability, because you can't edit it and neither can the person who asked for the site.

Option 1: Dev Mode, for CSS values not for pages

Figma's Dev Mode Inspect panel generates a CSS snippet for whatever layer you select. Set the language to CSS in the Code section and copy.

This is genuinely useful and frequently oversold. What you get is computed styles for one element: pixel dimensions, hex colours, font properties. No class names, no variables, no structure, no responsive behaviour. Layers built with auto layout come out reasonably close to flexbox. Freely positioned layers come out as absolute positioning, because that's what they are in the file.

Use it as a spec reader while you write CSS by hand. Don't try to assemble a page by copying snippets layer by layer, because you'll spend longer stitching them together than writing the CSS yourself.

Option 2: hand-code it

Still the answer if the site matters and you have the skills. You read the Figma file for values and write semantic HTML with your own layout system.

It's the only route that gives you clean markup, sensible class names, real accessibility, and a page you'll still understand in a year. It's also the slowest, and it requires someone who can do it. Figure a day or two for a decent landing page if you know what you're doing.

For assets, export images from Figma directly. Select the layer, use the Export section in the right sidebar, PNG at 2x for photos and SVG for icons and logos. That part of Figma works well and you should use it regardless of which option you pick for the layout.

Option 3: code-export plugins

Anima, Locofy and Builder.io's Visual Copilot all convert Figma frames into HTML, CSS, React, Vue and friends. They've improved a lot and they'll save you real time on the first draft.

The honest caveat, which their own users report consistently, is that output quality tracks input quality. A file built entirely in auto layout with proper naming converts into something approaching hand-written code. A file that's a pile of absolutely-positioned layers converts into a pile of absolutely-positioned CSS with generated class names, which is a screenshot rebuilt in markup. Nothing in the tool can infer semantic structure you never expressed.

So these are good if you're a developer who wants a head start and intends to refactor. They're a trap if you're a non-developer hoping to get a finished site, because you end up owning code you can't change.

Option 4: Figma Sites

Figma now has its own publishing product, in open beta, that takes a design on the canvas and puts it on the web with responsive layouts and a CMS. If you're already living in Figma it's the most obvious thing to try, and it's the option I'd check first before anything on this list.

Whether it hands you downloadable HTML is a separate question from whether it publishes a site, and that's exactly the thing to verify against Figma's current docs before you commit, because the feature set has been moving fast since launch.

Option 5: publish the file directly

The category we're in. A plugin reads the Figma frames and puts a live site at a URL, skipping the intermediate code artefact entirely. Framer's Figma import lands in roughly the same territory, as do several smaller plugins.

The tradeoff is real and I'd rather state it than dodge it. Our renderer positions elements absolutely from Figma's coordinates and scales the layout to the viewport, using the desktop or mobile frame depending on window width. That's a faithful reproduction of your design and it is not the semantic HTML a front-end developer would write. If your goal is a portfolio, a landing page or a business site that you update by editing Figma, that's a fine trade. If your goal is a codebase, it isn't.

Picking

Developer building something long-lived: hand-code, using Dev Mode as a spec reader. Developer who wants a faster first draft and will refactor: a code-export plugin. Designer or founder who just needs the design live and updatable without a developer: Figma Sites or a direct publisher.

The wrong move is picking an export tool when nobody on your side can maintain code. You'll get a folder of HTML, and the first copy change will cost you a freelancer.

If the last category is you, our Figma plugin publishes straight from the frames.