KNAPSACK VS. ZEROHEIGHT
Break down silos and democratize digital production
Knapsack brings designers, developers, and product teams together around a shared source of truth to design, build, and ship with production-ready components. Knapsack is built to power multi-brand ecosystems with faster feedback, fewer rework cycles, and seamless cross-functional collaboration. While zeroheight shines at polished, designer-led docs, Knapsack supports org-wide design-to-code workflows, automation, and scalable digital production.
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What makes Knapsack different
From multi-brand scalability to live code integration, here’s 6 reasons brands are switching from zeroheight to Knapsack
Flexible Collaboration
Product managers, engineers, and contributors work in one place, with clarity around roles, governance, and shared workflows. This breakdown of silos enables real collaboration and faster decision-making.
Live Code Integration
Knapsack goes beyond static previews by integrating live components directly from your codebase and supports multiple frameworks for true accuracy and usability. With Zeroheight, teams lack the ability to validate the behavior or logic of components.
AI-Ready Structured Data
Knapsack’s dynamic link between design and code creates structured data. This opens up the possibility for AI-driven automation, generative design, and personalization.
Prototyping and Testing
Knapsack enables testing and iterating with live, production-ready components. Validate your ideas earlier and reduce rework. With zeroheight, experimentation and iteration happen outside the system.
Dynamic Documentation
Knapsack keeps your docs up-to-date automatically by connecting directly with your design and development tools. Knapsack makes code approachable for non-engineers, so anyone can contribute. Designers stay in control without relying on devs.
Enterprise-Grade Scale
Knapsack is built to scale with growing teams and complex workflows supporting multiple brands, offering enterprise-grade security, governance, and collaboration across large organizations.
Design-to-Code
Deep integration between design and code ensures alignment with fewer handoffs and faster feedback loops.
Code integrations with manual updates.
Documentation
Dynamic documentation updates automatically when changes to source design and code occur, ensuring less maintenance and better reliability.
Offers beautiful, static documentation that is tailored for presenting design systems with clarity and style. Requires manual effort to maintain that may lead to discrepancies.
Component Interactivity
Live, interactive components give designers visibility into how things really work, not just how they look.
Static previews that don't accurately validate real behavior or logic in components.
Prototyping
Prototyping with real, interactive components, enables early validation and reduces rework.
Limited or no ability to prototype with actual code. Experimentation and testing happens outside the system.
Collaboration
Facilitates collaboration across teams (design, dev, PMs), enabling true co-creation. From ideation to implementation, every stakeholder can collaborate.
Empowers design teams, delivering an exceptional documentation experience that resonates with creative professionals. Engineers and other teams typically work elsewhere.
Shared Understanding of Constraints
Designers gain real-time input from engineering, and engineers better understand design intent.
Design and engineering work in isolation, increasing the risk of misaligned expectations and rework.
Adoption & Scale
Drives real adoption with tools for governance, security, and org-wide usage. Scales with your team and product complexity.
Lacks the infrastructure for org-wide scale.
Governance & Contribution
Clear roles and governance empower everyone to collaborate seamlessly, while protecting system integrity.
Disconnected workflows and sources, and limited ability to co-create or collaborate on the system itself.
AI-Readiness
AI-ready structured data enables automation, personalization, and future-proof workflows.
Lacks structured data needed for future innovation.
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Automated Playground Creation
Automatically generates playgrounds and property specs from source components, eliminating the need for manually building stories and controls.
Requires manual setup of stories and controls for each component.
Non-Technical User Access
Enables non-technical users to manage content, configure demos, and assemble components into patterns for prototyping, documentation, and testing.
Primarily developer-focused; limited non-technical user interaction.
Real-Time Documentation Updates
Real-Time Documentation Updates.
Requires manual updates to documentation for each new code change.
Property Comparison Across Tools
Automates property comparisons between Figma designs and code implementations, ensuring consistency.
No built-in comparison features; requires external tools or manual processes.
Multi-Framework Support
Supports multiple frameworks in a single workspace, including React, Vue, Angular, Web Components, Twig, Handlebars, and HTML.
Primarily focused on JavaScript frameworks like React, Angular, and Vue.
Token Management
Offers a token pipeline that syncs Variables, Collections, and Modes from Figma, and transforms tokens into implementable outputs for web and native platforms.
No built-in token pipeline; requires external tools like Style Dictionary for token management.
Dynamic Themes and Prototyping
Allows teams to adjust CSS Variable-based themes in real-time, reflecting changes across playgrounds and prototypes.
No real-time theming or prototyping capabilities.
Testing and Collaboration Tools
Includes utilities for automated testing, link-based reviews, and integrations with testing tools like Cypress.
Offers integrations for testing but relies heavily on external plugins and tools.
Documentation Flexibility
Automates documentation for properties, demos, and patterns with minimal manual input.
Documentation relies on manual configuration of stories, controls, and descriptions.
Ease of Use
Provides a centralized platform that combines design, development, and documentation workflows, reducing tool fragmentation.
Requires integration with additional tools for design and token management.
Integration with Existing Tools
Embeds Storybook using iframes or coexists by leveraging the same code sources, but doesn’t require Storybook artifacts.
Fully standalone, but primarily limited to developer-centric workflows.
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Knapsack is a much easier platform to manage than our previous homegrown design system. Especially around documentation. There’s also lots of promise around token management.
Steve Deeds
Design Systems Lead, Sr. UX Designer
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Frequently asked questions
Who Is Knapsack For?
Knapsack is used by digital production teams within enterprise organizations. Knapsack is built for teams looking to:
Break down silos: Bring together designers, developers, and product teams in one collaborative workspace.
Automate updates: Enjoy dynamic documentation that updates automatically with real code integration.
Scale innovation: Leverage enterprise-grade security, governance, and collaboration tools to support multi-brand strategies and complex workflows.
Future-proof their process: Utilize AI-ready, structured data that supports automation, generative design, and personalization.
Knapsack is perfect if you’re looking for a platform that empowers your entire organization to co-create, streamline workflows, and maintain up-to-date, production-ready components.
Who Is zeroheight For?
zeroheight is for design-focused teams. zeroheight shines for teams whose primary goal is to create and maintain beautifully detailed design system documentation. It’s an excellent choice if you need to:
Showcase design systems: Create visually appealing and richly formatted documentation that highlights your design work.
Focus on design resources: Ideal for design teams aiming to craft comprehensive style guides and system libraries.
Deliver a polished presentation: Provide stakeholders with intuitive documentation that emphasizes design quality and visual consistency.
zeroheight is best suited for teams that want to elevate the visual narrative of their design systems, ensuring that design elements are front and center.
What is the main difference between Knapsack and zeroheight?
Knapsack focuses on synchronizing digital production across teams, ensuring that design, development, and product teams are aligned. It emphasizes design-to-code workflows, allowing teams to manage components and patterns, automate documentation, and keep design variables connected with the codebase. zeroheight is focused on creating and maintaining design system documentation.
How do Knapsack and zeroheight handle documentation?
Knapsack offers dynamic documentation that updates automatically based on changes in design and code, keeping everything up-to-date without the need for manual intervention. zeroheight offers static documentation and can integrate with design tools to provide updates. zeroheight allows design teams to maintain a visually rich documentation platform.
Can I integrate Knapsack with design tools?
Yes, Knapsack integrates with design tools like Figma through plugins, allowing you to connect design variables and components. This ensures that your design system is always aligned with both design and code. zeroheight also integrates with Figma and Sketch, enabling you to embed components directly into your documentation, but it doesn’t automatically connect design tokens or variables in the same robust way Knapsack does.
Which platform is better for connecting design and development?
Knapsack is designed to connect design and code, making it an ideal choice for teams that want a continuous and real-time connection between design decisions and their implementation in code. zeroheight is more focused on documentation and does not offer the same level of integration with development tools as Knapsack. zeroheight is more about providing a clear, beautiful, and accessible presentation of your design system.
Which platform is better for automating updates and reducing maintenance overhead?
Knapsack offers dynamic documentation that automatically updates whenever design or code changes occur. This significantly reduces the need for manual maintenance and ensures that teams are always working with the most up-to-date resources. zeroheight requires more manual updates when it comes to syncing content across documentation, making it less automated compared to Knapsack.
Which platform is better for version control of design systems?
Knapsack offers version control through its integration with code and design tools, which allows you to keep track of changes across both design and development. zeroheight also supports versioning for its documentation but does not offer the same level of integration with design and code changes as Knapsack does.
Does Knapsack require special setup for existing Storybook projects?
We usually recommend migrating to Knapsack rather than running the tools in parallel, but there are flexible options depending on your needs. Let’s discuss this further on a call.
Doesn't zeroheight have code integrations now too?
While zeroheight does offer some code integration capabilities, it still requires manual work to create previews in content blocks, which is time-consuming and cumbersome.
What kind of teams typically use Knapsack vs. zeroheight?
Knapsack is used by teams at enterprise companies focused on creating a seamless collaboration between design and development, particularly in teams where there is an emphasis on automating workflows, reducing manual work, and keeping design and code aligned. zeroheight is typically used by design teams that focus on creating detailed, visually rich documentation for their design systems. It's ideal for teams that prioritize documentation as a central resource but don't necessarily need a dynamic connection between design and code.
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