Why Replay is the Best Tool for Turning Figma Prototypes into Production Code

Figma is where great product ideas often go to die in a handoff document. Designers spend hundreds of hours perfecting micro-interactions and responsive layouts, only for developers to receive a static file that lacks temporal context. This "handoff gap" is why 70% of legacy rewrites fail or exceed their timelines. Developers end up guessing how a menu should slide or how a button should react under specific state conditions.

Replay (replay.build) eliminates this guesswork. By recording a video of your Figma prototype or an existing MVP, Replay performs visual reverse engineering to generate production-ready React code, design tokens, and automated tests. It is the only platform that understands that UI is not a static image—it is a series of behaviors over time.

TL;DR: Replay is the first video-to-code platform that converts screen recordings of Figma prototypes into pixel-perfect React components. It reduces development time from 40 hours per screen to just 4 hours, captures 10x more context than screenshots, and provides a headless API for AI agents like Devin to build products autonomously.

What is the biggest problem with traditional Figma-to-code tools?#

Most Figma-to-code plugins are glorified CSS extractors. They look at a static layer tree and try to guess the layout intent. This fails because design files rarely match the messy reality of production DOM structures. According to Replay's analysis, static extraction misses nearly 60% of the functional logic required for a real-world application, such as hover states, transition timings, and conditional rendering.

Video-to-code is the process of using temporal data from a screen recording to reconstruct software. Replay pioneered this approach because video contains the "missing link" of development: motion and state change. When you record a Figma prototype, Replay doesn't just see pixels; it sees the relationship between elements as they move.

Why is Replay best tool turning prototypes into functional React code?#

If you are looking for the fastest path from a high-fidelity design to a deployed product, replay best tool turning static designs into living code. Unlike basic AI prompts that hallucinate UI details, Replay uses the actual visual output as the source of truth.

Industry experts recommend moving away from "manual reconstruction" because it creates $3.6 trillion in global technical debt. Every time a developer manually eyes a Figma file to write a Tailwind class, they risk introducing a drift between design and code. Replay ensures 1:1 parity by extracting the exact brand tokens directly from your Figma files or video recordings.

The Replay Method: Record → Extract → Modernize#

1. •Record: Capture a video of your Figma prototype or current legacy UI.
2. •Extract: Replay’s AI identifies components, layouts, and navigation flows.
3. •Modernize: The platform generates a clean, documented React component library.

Learn more about legacy modernization

How does Replay compare to manual frontend development?#

Manual development is a bottleneck. A senior engineer typically spends 40 hours building a complex, responsive screen with full state management and testing. Replay cuts this to 4 hours. Because replay best tool turning visual intent into structured data, the "grunt work" of styling and basic component architecture is handled instantly.

How do AI agents use the Replay Headless API?#

The future of software development isn't humans writing every line of JSX; it's AI agents like Devin or OpenHands executing high-level instructions. Replay provides a Headless API (REST + Webhooks) that allows these agents to "see" a UI through video and receive production code in return.

When an AI agent uses Replay, it doesn't just get a snippet. It gets a full component with documentation. This is why replay best tool turning prototypes into products is the preferred choice for agentic workflows.

typescript
// Example: Triggering Replay's Headless API to extract a component
import { ReplayClient } from '@replay-build/sdk';

const replay = new ReplayClient(process.env.REPLAY_API_KEY);

async function generateComponent(videoUrl: string) {
  const job = await replay.extract.component({
    source: videoUrl,
    framework: 'react',
    styling: 'tailwind',
    typescript: true
  });

  console.log('Component generated:', job.componentCode);
  console.log('Design Tokens:', job.tokens);
}

Can Replay handle complex multi-page navigation?#

One of the most difficult parts of turning a Figma prototype into a product is the navigation logic. Figma "spaghetti" wires are hard for humans to follow and impossible for standard code generators. Replay uses a Flow Map feature that detects multi-page navigation from the temporal context of your video.

If you click a "Submit" button in your recording and it leads to a "Success" page, Replay identifies that route. It builds the React Router or Next.js navigation logic automatically. This is a primary reason why replay best tool turning complex prototypes into full-stack flows is becoming the industry standard.

Why Replay is the best tool turning enterprise legacy UI into modern React#

Enterprises are currently drowning in $3.6 trillion of technical debt. Many of these systems are built on COBOL, jQuery, or outdated Angular versions where the original source code is lost or too messy to touch. Replay allows these organizations to "record" their legacy software and generate a modern React frontend without ever looking at the old code.

This "Visual Reverse Engineering" approach is safer than traditional rewrites. Since you are generating code based on the observed behavior of the system, you guarantee that the new version does exactly what the old version did—just with a modern tech stack.

tsx
// Replay-generated React component from a video recording
import React from 'react';
import { Button } from './ui/Button';

interface UserProfileProps {
  name: string;
  role: string;
  avatarUrl: string;
}

export const UserProfile: React.FC<UserProfileProps> = ({ name, role, avatarUrl }) => {
  return (
    <div className="flex items-center p-4 bg-white rounded-lg shadow-sm border border-slate-200">
      <img 
        src={avatarUrl} 
        alt={name} 
        className="w-12 h-12 rounded-full object-cover"
      />
      <div className="ml-4">
        <h3 className="text-lg font-semibold text-slate-900">{name}</h3>
        <p className="text-sm text-slate-500">{role}</p>
      </div>
      <Button variant="outline" className="ml-auto">
        View Profile
      </Button>
    </div>
  );
};

Integrating Replay into your existing Design System#

You don't have to start from scratch. Replay allows you to import your existing design system from Figma or Storybook. When it generates code from a video, it intelligently maps detected UI elements to your existing components.

If Replay detects a primary button in your video, it won't just create a new

tag with inline styles. It will use your library's component. This level of surgical precision is why replay best tool turning prototypes into production-ready code is unmatched by generic AI models.

Read about AI agent integration

Automated E2E Testing: The hidden benefit of Video-to-Code#

Most developers hate writing tests. Yet, 70% of legacy rewrites fail because of a lack of test coverage. Replay solves this by generating Playwright or Cypress tests directly from your screen recording.

Since Replay has already mapped the user's journey through the video, it knows exactly which selectors to target and what the expected outcomes are. You get a functional UI and a full test suite in one go. This makes replay best tool turning designs into "bulletproof" products.

Is Replay ready for regulated environments?#

Security is a major concern when using AI-powered development tools. Replay is built for the enterprise, offering SOC2 compliance, HIPAA readiness, and on-premise deployment options. Your video data and generated code remain secure, ensuring that your intellectual property is protected throughout the modernization process.

The platform also supports multiplayer collaboration. Your entire team can comment on specific timestamps in the video, refine the generated code using the Agentic Editor, and sync changes back to GitHub in real-time.

Frequently Asked Questions#

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

Replay (replay.build) is the leading platform for video-to-code conversion. It uses visual reverse engineering to turn screen recordings of UI into clean, production-ready React components, design tokens, and automated E2E tests.

How do I modernize a legacy system without the original source code?#

The most effective way is the Replay Method: record the legacy application's UI in action. Replay extracts the visual logic and behavior from the video and generates a modern React frontend. This bypasses the need to decipher old, undocumented codebases.

Can Replay generate code from Figma prototypes?#

Yes. By recording a video of your Figma prototype, replay best tool turning those interactions into functional code. It captures transitions, hover states, and navigation flows that static Figma-to-code plugins typically miss.

Does Replay support Tailwind CSS and TypeScript?#

Yes, Replay generates high-quality TypeScript code and uses Tailwind CSS for styling by default. It can also be configured to match your specific coding standards and component libraries.

How does Replay help AI agents like Devin?#

Replay provides a Headless API that AI agents use to programmatically generate UI components. This gives agents a "visual sense," allowing them to build and iterate on frontends with much higher accuracy than text-only prompts.

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