Empower Teams, Not Just Developers
Storybook serves developers, Knapsack empowers entire teams. Go beyond isolated components with an all-in-one platform built for collaboration, automation, and enterprise scalability. Unify your design system and accelerate your digital production.
Disparate System with Storybook
Consolidated Platform with Knapsack
Loved by digital product teams at
Why Knapsack outperforms Storybook
6 reasons brands are switching from Storybook to Knapsack
Cross-functional Collaboration
Empower design, development, and product teams to work from the same repository, eliminating communication gaps and ensuring that design changes are automatically reflected across code and documentation.
Reduced Maintenance
Minimize manual maintenance by automating documentation and workflows through integrations and dynamic connections, reducing repetitive tasks so developers can focus on solving interesting problems and building innovative features.
Seamless Code Deployment
Move from design to deployment faster with automated workflows that let you push design updates through a unified design-to-code pipeline, accelerating production timelines.
Improved Quality
Improve consistency across the entire design-to-code pipeline by automating updates and documentation, empowering non-technical users to compose with production-ready code, and freeing up time for developers to focus on more complex issues.
Increased Production Efficiency
Engineering, design, and product management teams spend less time juggling multiple tools and collaborating more effectively, accelerating production by 15% or more.
Real-World ROI
An end-to-end platform can reduce annual costs while boosting efficiency through tool consolidation and the elimination of redundancies.
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.
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.
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.
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Frequently asked questions
Knapsack is a standalone platform that does not require Storybook to function. Knapsack integrates seamlessly with design tools like Figma and your code assets in Git repositories. Most teams find they no longer need Storybook once they start using Knapsack.
While Knapsack can work alongside Storybook, most teams don’t find it necessary. Knapsack automates playgrounds, property specs, and demos (similar to stories and controls in Storybook). It also enables collaboration across technical and non-technical teams, unifying workflows and maximizing ROI.
Knapsack supports embedding Storybook via iframes within a workspace page. However, Knapsack directly utilizes source component files (e.g., React templates) rather than consuming Storybook artifacts. This ensures flexibility and simplifies maintenance.
See our table above and make sure you read the blog post A Tale of Two Tools: How Knapsack and Storybook Stack Up.
Yes. Knapsack renders live components, automatically generating demos and interactive playgrounds without additional configuration.
Yes. Knapsack automates documentation by inferring properties and generating variants from connected code templates. For testing, demos and prototypes can be shared via URL, integrated into automated pipelines, or tested with tools like Cypress. While Storybook may have more plugins, Knapsack provides robust built-in tools and integrations tailored for enterprise needs.
Knapsack is purpose-built to manage and scale component libraries for large teams and enterprises, eliminating the need for separate tools like Storybook.
Knapsack provides real-time rendering of components locally, streamlining development and reducing reliance on deployment for previews.
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.
Absolutely! Knapsack centralizes all aspects of design systems—tokens, components, and documentation—eliminating the need for multiple tools like Storybook.
Knapsack uses Git for version control, ensuring all changes are tracked and integrated seamlessly with your existing workflows.
Yes. Knapsack allows for isolated testing and interaction with components, making it a strong alternative to Storybook.
Not yet. Teams typically integrate Knapsack with tools like Jira for collaboration, often adding Knapsack fields in tickets. Enhanced feedback and collaboration tools are on our roadmap for 2025.
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