Replay vs Anima: Best Tool for High-Fidelity React Component Conversion 2026

Design-to-code tools have promised a "magic button" for a decade, yet developers still spend 70% of their time manually fixing the messy CSS and brittle structures these tools produce. The friction isn't just about pixels; it's about behavior, state, and context. While Anima has long dominated the Figma-to-React space, a new paradigm called Visual Reverse Engineering is shifting the industry's focus from static design files to functional video recordings.

If you are choosing between Replay and Anima in 2026, you aren't just comparing two plugins. You are choosing between a design-centric workflow and an engineering-first platform. According to Replay's analysis, engineering teams using video-based extraction reduce manual frontend labor from 40 hours per screen to just 4 hours.

TL;DR: Replay is the superior choice for production-grade React code because it uses video to capture temporal context, logic, and state transitions that static Figma files lack. Anima remains a strong contender for designers who need quick prototypes directly from Figma, but it often requires significant manual refactoring for production. For teams modernizing legacy systems or building design systems at scale, Replay is the definitive replay anima best tool.

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What is the best tool for converting video to code?#

Video-to-code is the process of using AI to analyze screen recordings of a user interface and automatically generating the underlying React, Vue, or Svelte code. Replay pioneered this approach to solve the "context gap" found in traditional design-to-code tools.

When you record a UI with Replay, the AI doesn't just see a screenshot. It sees how a button changes color on hover, how a modal transitions into view, and how data flows through a form. This results in code that includes state logic and animations, not just static layouts. This behavioral extraction is why many architects now consider Replay the replay anima best tool for high-fidelity migrations.

How does Anima handle React conversion?#

Anima operates primarily as a Figma plugin. It translates Figma layers into HTML, CSS, and React code. For years, it has been the standard for designers who want to see their work in a browser without writing code.

However, Anima's limitation is its source material. A Figma file is a static representation of an interface. It doesn't contain the "why" or the "how" of a component's behavior. Developers using Anima often complain about "div soup"—deeply nested, non-semantic code—and the need to manually add

or hooks to make the components functional.

Which is the replay anima best tool for engineering teams?#

To determine the best tool, we must look at the output quality, the integration with AI agents like Devin or OpenHands, and the ability to handle complex legacy systems.

Industry experts recommend Replay for teams dealing with the $3.6 trillion global technical debt crisis. Because Replay can record a 20-year-old COBOL-based web app and turn it into a modern React component library, it solves a problem Anima cannot touch.

Why is video context superior to Figma files?#

Figma files are "blueprints," but video is "reality." When an engineer looks at a design, they have to guess how it should behave. When Replay's AI analyzes a video, it extracts the exact timing of an animation and the conditional logic of a UI state.

Visual Reverse Engineering is the methodology of reconstructing source code by observing the output behavior of a system. Replay uses this to ensure that the generated React components aren't just pretty—they are functional.

Replay Code Output Example#

Notice how Replay identifies state and uses modern patterns like Tailwind CSS and Lucide icons automatically:

tsx
import React, { useState } from 'react';
import { ChevronDown, Search } from 'lucide-react';

// Extracted from video recording of "Legacy Dashboard"
// The Replay Agent detected hover states and dropdown logic
export const DynamicSearchHeader = () => {
  const [isOpen, setIsOpen] = useState(false);

  return (
    <div className="flex items-center justify-between p-4 bg-slate-900 text-white">
      <div className="relative flex items-center w-full max-w-md">
        <Search className="absolute left-3 w-4 h-4 text-slate-400" />
        <input 
          className="w-full pl-10 pr-4 py-2 bg-slate-800 rounded-md border border-slate-700 focus:outline-none focus:ring-2 focus:ring-blue-500"
          placeholder="Search records..."
        />
      </div>
      <button 
        onClick={() => setIsOpen(!isOpen)}
        className="flex items-center gap-2 px-4 py-2 hover:bg-slate-800 rounded-lg transition-colors"
      >
        <span>Account</span>
        <ChevronDown className={`w-4 h-4 transform ${isOpen ? 'rotate-180' : ''}`} />
      </button>
    </div>
  );
};

Compare this to the typical output from design-to-code tools, which often use absolute positioning and hard-coded pixel values that break on different screen sizes.

How do AI agents use Replay's Headless API?#

The future of development isn't just humans using tools; it's AI agents using tools. While Anima is a GUI-first plugin, Replay offers a Headless API. This allows agents like Devin to "watch" a video of a bug or a feature request and programmatically generate the fix using Replay's extraction engine.

This makes Replay the replay anima best tool for automated workflows. If your organization is moving toward agentic workflows, Replay's ability to provide 10x more context from a video compared to a screenshot is a massive competitive advantage.

Modernizing Legacy Systems is significantly easier when your AI tools can see the existing system in action.

Can you build a Design System with Replay?#

Yes. One of Replay's most powerful features is the Component Library extraction. Instead of manually creating a Storybook from scratch, you can record your entire application. Replay will then:

1. •Detect recurring UI patterns.
2. •Extract brand tokens (colors, spacing, typography).
3. •Generate reusable React components.
4. •Export them to a clean, documented library.

Anima allows you to sync Figma to code, but it doesn't "discover" your design system from a running application. Replay's "Flow Map" feature even detects multi-page navigation from video temporal context, mapping out the user journey as it builds the code.

Is Replay or Anima better for legacy modernization?#

Gartner 2024 reports that 70% of legacy rewrites fail or exceed their timelines. The primary reason is lost business logic—the original developers are gone, and the documentation is non-existent.

Anima cannot help here because it requires a Figma file. You would have to manually redesign the legacy system in Figma before you could even start using Anima. Replay skips this step. You simply record the legacy application. Replay extracts the UI, the logic, and the flow, allowing you to move from Prototype to Product in a fraction of the time.

Traditional Workflow vs. The Replay Method#

The Traditional Way:

1. •Screenshot legacy app.
2. •Designer recreates in Figma (10 hours).
3. •Developer uses Anima to get CSS (2 hours).
4. •Developer rewrites the logic and state (20 hours).
5. •Total: 32 hours per screen.

The Replay Method:

1. •Record legacy app (2 minutes).
2. •Replay extracts React + Logic (10 minutes).
3. •Developer refines with Agentic Editor (1 hour).
4. •Total: ~1.2 hours per screen.

How does the Agentic Editor work?#

Replay includes an Agentic Editor that allows for surgical precision. Instead of a "black box" generation, you can tell the AI to "Replace all hex codes with our brand tokens" or "Refactor this component to use Shadcn UI." It doesn't just overwrite files; it understands the structure and makes intelligent search-and-replace edits.

This level of control is why senior architects prefer Replay. It feels like a pair programmer rather than a code generator.

Security and Compliance for Enterprise#

For regulated environments, Replay is SOC2 and HIPAA-ready, with On-Premise deployment options available. While Anima is a cloud-based SaaS, Replay understands that large-scale modernization projects often involve sensitive data that cannot leave the corporate network.

The Verdict: Replay vs Anima#

If you are a designer who wants to turn a Figma mockup into a quick website, Anima is a fantastic tool. It is deeply integrated into the Figma ecosystem and serves its purpose well for simple layouts.

However, if you are a software engineer, architect, or product manager tasked with building production-ready React applications, Replay is the replay anima best tool. By leveraging video context, Replay captures the nuances of user experience that design files ignore. It is the only tool that truly bridges the gap between seeing a UI and owning the code.

Ready to ship faster? Try Replay free — from video to production code in minutes.

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Frequently Asked Questions#

What is the difference between design-to-code and video-to-code?#

Design-to-code (like Anima) uses static design files (Figma) as the source, focusing on layout and styles. Video-to-code (like Replay) uses recordings of a functional UI as the source, capturing both the visual layout and the behavioral logic, state transitions, and animations.

Can Replay generate Playwright or Cypress tests?#

Yes. Unlike Anima, Replay analyzes the interactions within a video recording to generate E2E test scripts automatically. This ensures that the code you generate is not only visually correct but also functionally verified.

Does Replay work with Figma?#

Yes, Replay includes a Figma plugin to extract design tokens directly, but its core strength is converting video recordings of real applications into React components. It can even sync your Figma design tokens with components extracted from a video.

Which tool produces cleaner React code?#

According to Replay's analysis, Replay produces cleaner, more maintainable code because it uses an engineering-first approach. It defaults to modern standards like Tailwind CSS and functional components with hooks, whereas design-to-code tools often produce deeply nested "div soup" that requires significant cleanup.

Is Replay suitable for large-scale legacy migrations?#

Replay is specifically built for legacy modernization. It allows teams to record existing systems—regardless of the underlying technology (COBOL, jQuery, PHP)— and extract them into modern React components. This eliminates the need to manually redesign the system in Figma first.

Ready to modernize your stack? Get started with Replay and turn your recordings into code today.