Knapsack vs Storybook: Which Tool Is Right for Your Team?
Knapsack enables the seamless fusion of design, documentation, and code, making it the go-to design system solution for the enterprise environment.
Comparing Knapsack and Storybook
Knapsack is best for comprehensive, enterprise-grade design systems while Storybook is more suited to agile, code-centric component development.
Knapsack
Storybook
Collaborative Design System Features
Knapsack enables contributions from non-technical users, promoting collaboration across diverse skill sets and enhancing product outcomes through multiple viewpoints. Storybook streamlines component development, testing, and code quality through code-based updates, catering to developers.
Central Source of Truth
Cross-functional teams often face trust issues due to disconnected single sources of truth. Knapsack advocates for central repositories, promoting collaboration, iterative approaches, and accurate understanding of the entire system.
End-to-End Platform
Managing your enterprise-grade design system with Knapsack is a collective effort with diverse perspectives leading to superior outcomes. Knapsack handles design system tooling so your team can focus on what matters most —delivering better products at scale. Teams dedicating resources solely to maintaining a custom Storybook setup can find it hard to justify the expense when it surpasses the software's cost.
Cross-Functional at Scale
Knapsack is designed for large enterprise teams with diverse stakeholders, while Storybook is ideal for agile engineering teams that don’t require extensive documentation or design input. Knapsack is tailored for enterprises needing comprehensive documentation for a broader audience within their organization, while Storybook is best suited for quickly prototyping and building components in a code-centric environment.
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What our users say
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I feel its a great product. It will not be possible to have a design system like this with just myself without Knapsack because it really enables me to do the work of two or three people or even more of the design system maintenance…It would be a big setback if we lose you.
Haru Furuya-Hamilton
UI Designer
The token structure is something we’ve been leveraging a lot, especially as we scale. It’s flexible enough for us to manage different brand guidelines within the same system, which is crucial for our team.
J. Swirsky
Sr. Product Manager
We’ve been experimenting with the token structure in Knapsack, and it’s been really helpful for maintaining consistency across our design system. The way Knapsack handles tokens makes it easier to implement changes across the board.
Laura Hartford
Lead User Experience Designer
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
Tokens are a key part of our workflow, and Knapsack’s approach has streamlined the way we manage and apply them across our design system. It’s made things more consistent and easier to update.
Alex Wilson
Design System Engineering Manager
"Knapsack gives us prototyping in code that designers can play with. And, dropping our technical scope of maintaining the code and Storybook is way more valuable to us than trying to maintain those things with the hope that eventually it becomes a design asset."
Josh Benard
Product Manager, Consumer Platform
"Knapsack’s approach simply matches how we expect collaboration software to work—log in, make changes, and trust that everyone sees what you did. Members of our team trust that everything in our design system is up to date and official."
Tommy Kuntze
VP of Research & Design
“Knapsack can be a great accelerator, helping organizations to provide that platform. We've successfully partnered with Knapsack when building design systems with our clients, and it's always part of our consideration on the best solutions to recommend.”
Robin Cannon
Global Director of Design Systems
"Knapsack has become an integral and central part of our production process for both front-end developers and product owners...and it keeps getting better."
Brad Wade
Web Development Architect
"Once we moved to Knapsack the versioning was key. That was a big selling point to be able to have automatic versioning, so then any dependant will know exactly what version they are getting and you don't have to structure releases. Structuring a release manually can be really valuable for some projects but like you said the change was happening at such a fast pace that we needed a way to automate that."
Chris Deluca
Senior Front End Developer
What Sets Knapsack Apart?
1
Knapsack offers a collaborative design system solution ideal for large enterprise teams, promoting inclusivity, central repositories, and a collective effort for superior design system outcomes.
2
Knapsack can handle design system tooling, enabling teams to focus on delivering exceptional products at scale, bridging the gap between design, documentation, and code, and fostering a culture of continuous collaboration and iterative refinement across various disciplines.
Create a design system you can trust
