Figma: Apps in Figma Community

A New Extensibility Category: Apps

Figma expanded its extensibility model on March 10, 2026, with the introduction of Apps as a distinct category in the Figma Community. For years, designers and developers could extend Figma's capabilities through plugins and widgets — the two primary extensibility primitives. Apps represent a third type, built on a fundamentally different technical foundation and intended for a different class of integration.

What Are Figma Apps?

Figma Apps are OAuth-based integrations: external platforms and tools that use Figma's OAuth authentication to connect their services directly to Figma. Rather than running sandboxed JavaScript inside the editor like a plugin, an App establishes a trusted connection between a user's Figma account and an external service. This allows the external platform — whether a design system management tool, an AI system, or a project management platform — to read and write Figma data on behalf of authenticated users.

Apps appear in the Extensions section of the Figma Community, discoverable in the same browsing experience that surfaces plugins and widgets.

How Apps Differ from Plugins and Widgets

The three extensibility types serve distinct purposes:

• Plugins run sandboxed JavaScript inside the Figma editor and can manipulate the canvas, generate content, and interact with the file in real time.
• Widgets are interactive objects that live on the canvas — persistent UI components that can be embedded in files.
• Apps are external services that authenticate via OAuth, enabling them to connect to Figma's APIs from outside the editor. They are best suited for platform-to-platform integrations: syncing design tokens, embedding Figma data in other tools, or enabling AI systems to read and write Figma file context.

Developer Requirements and Review

Developers who want to publish an App to the Figma Community must submit it for review. Figma evaluates Apps across four criteria: quality and usability, trust and safety, alignment with Figma's platform guidelines, and legal compliance. This review gate is intended to give users confidence that any App they allow to access their Figma data has been vetted.

Significance for the Ecosystem

The introduction of Apps formalizes a discovery layer that previously required users to find and configure OAuth integrations manually outside of Figma. By surfacing Apps alongside plugins and widgets in the Community, Figma is building a more unified marketplace for its extensibility ecosystem. This is especially relevant as AI systems, design-to-code tools, and cross-platform workflows increasingly need authenticated, programmatic access to Figma data.