Onlook AI Review: the Cursor for Designer is Here!

The GitHub community has been buzzing lately about Onlook, an intriguing new tool that's quickly gaining traction among React developers and designers alike. When I first spotted it trending, I couldn't help but wonder: could this open-source visual React editor actually bridge the frustrating gap between design and code that so many teams struggle with?

As someone who's spent years navigating the often painful handoff between designers and developers, I was immediately intrigued by Onlook's promise. The idea of a tool that lets you visually build React components while generating clean, usable code seemed almost too good to be true. So I decided to take it for a serious test drive on a real-world project to see if it lives up to the hype.

After putting Onlook through its paces, I've found it's a fascinating tool with genuine potential, but it also comes with some significant limitations that might surprise you. Let's dive into what makes this tool unique, how it performed in real-world testing, and whether it deserves a place in your development workflow.

What Is Onlook?

Onlook is an open-source desktop and web application that provides a visual editor for React applications. Unlike traditional code editors, Onlook enables developers and designers to:

• Edit React components visually with a WYSIWYG interface
• See real-time updates between the visual canvas and code
• Use drag-and-drop functionality to manipulate components
• Style components with Tailwind CSS directly in the visual editor
• Leverage AI assistance for generating and modifying components
• Import designs from Figma (in development)
• Deploy applications directly to hosting services

At its core, Onlook attempts to solve the perennial challenge of the design-to-code gap by creating a unified environment where visual edits automatically sync with the underlying React codebase.

Hands-On Test: Building a Booking Website

To properly evaluate Onlook's capabilities, I built a booking website for indoor playgrounds and football grounds—a real-world project that demands both aesthetic design and functional components.

Test Scenario

I aimed to create a fully functional booking website allowing users to:

• Browse available venues
• View venue details and availability
• Select and book time slots
• Complete mock payments
• Receive booking confirmations

Initial Experience

When I first provided the prompt to Onlook's AI, the results were impressively comprehensive. The tool generated a complete initial design with:

• A responsive homepage showcasing venue listings
• Detailed venue pages with image carousels
• A functioning booking system with time slot selection
• Payment flow components
• Confirmation pages

The initial design quality was high, with no significant structural errors—a promising start that suggested Onlook might indeed deliver on its core promise of AI-assisted visual development.

Visual Editing Experience

Onlook's visual editor feels intuitive and responsive when making basic adjustments to the layout, components, and styling. The direct manipulation interface is particularly strong with:

Component Positioning: The drag-and-drop functionality works mostly as expected, allowing elements to be moved and resized naturally.

Styling Interface: The Tailwind CSS integration is well-implemented, providing access to Tailwind's utility classes through a visual interface rather than requiring memorization of class names.

Component Library: Onlook includes a good selection of pre-built components that can be dragged into the design, accelerating the creation process.

Code Syncing: Perhaps most impressively, changes made in the visual editor are instantly reflected in the code panel, maintaining a clean React codebase without generating messy markup.

AI Assistance Quality

Onlook integrates AI assistance for component generation and modification. In my testing:

• Initial prompt response was comprehensive and accurate
• The AI successfully interpreted complex requirements
• Generated components were functional and well-structured
• The AI handled styling requests reasonably well

However, the AI performance degraded somewhat during iterative refinements. When asked to:

• Make the design "visibly aesthetic"
• Change to a dark purple color theme
• Add glow effects to cards
• Increase contrast in specific segments

These requests took significantly longer to process (2-3 minutes each) compared to some other AI tools, and occasionally produced errors that weren't automatically detected by the system.

Pain Points and Limitations

Despite its promising features, my testing revealed several significant limitations with Onlook:

1. Restrictive Free Plan

The most substantial drawback is Onlook's extremely limited free plan, which restricts users to just 5 messages. This limitation makes it virtually impossible to complete even a basic project since design iterations are essential to the development process.

For comparison, many competitor tools offer more generous free tiers that allow for meaningful project work without immediate payment requirements.

2. Cloud Dependency

Even when running Onlook locally, the tool still relies on cloud services for core functionality. This means you can't bypass the message limits by self-hosting, which may disappoint developers who prefer truly local development environments.

3. Performance Issues

The tool exhibited noticeable lag during certain operations, particularly when:

• Applying complex styling changes
• Requesting AI-assisted modifications
• Rendering larger component trees

These delays, often 2-3 minutes for relatively simple changes, disrupted the workflow and reduced the feeling of real-time interaction.

4. Error Handling

When errors occurred during my testing (particularly when applying the dark theme changes), Onlook didn't automatically detect or suggest fixes for these issues. This required manual intervention and troubleshooting, diminishing the tool's promise of seamless design-to-code workflow.

Comparison to Similar Tools

To properly contextualize Onlook's position in the market, it's valuable to compare it with other visual React editors, design-to-code tools, and AI-assisted development environments:

What makes Onlook stand out?

Among these similar tools, Onlook's primary differentiators are:

1. Open-source nature: Unlike most competitors, Onlook is open-source, potentially allowing for community improvements and customizations.
2. Live code synchronization: Onlook's approach to maintaining a clean React codebase while providing visual editing is particularly strong.
3. Tailwind CSS integration: The native support for Tailwind makes styling more accessible while maintaining industry-standard approaches.
4. Browser-based runtime: Using Bun as a runtime and the data-oid attribute for mapping DOM elements to code locations provides a modern development experience.

Onlook vs. Cursor AI: Different Tools for Different Needs

While the title of this review asks if Onlook is "The New Cursor AI for Designers," it's important to clarify that these tools serve fundamentally different purposes:

Cursor AI is primarily an AI-powered code editor based on VS Code that focuses on code generation, refactoring, and AI-assisted coding productivity. It excels at helping developers write, understand, and refactor code through AI assistance, but doesn't provide a visual design interface or design-to-code workflow.

Onlook, in contrast, is a visual UI editor with AI capabilities specifically focused on React component design and development. It prioritizes the visual manipulation of UI elements with code synchronization rather than pure code generation.

These tools are better viewed as complementary rather than competitive. A development team might use Onlook for visual UI design and component creation, while using Cursor AI for more complex backend logic, API integrations, or code refactoring tasks. Each tool addresses different aspects of the development workflow, with Onlook focusing on the design-development bridge and Cursor AI enhancing coding efficiency.

How Onlook Compares to Specific Competitors

Onlook vs. Visily

Visily focuses more on the wireframing and prototyping stage with AI assistance, while Onlook aims to be a complete development environment. Visily has better AI wireframing capabilities, but Onlook offers superior code generation and direct React integration.

Onlook vs. Tempo Labs

Both tools offer AI-powered React development, but Tempo Labs has a more established platform with better performance and collaboration features. However, Onlook's open-source nature and direct code synchronization give it unique advantages for developers who want more control over their workflow.

Onlook vs. Bifrost

Bifrost specializes in converting Figma designs to React code with AI assistance. Onlook provides a more comprehensive environment where you can both design and develop, rather than focusing primarily on the design conversion aspect.

Onlook vs. PageDraw

PageDraw, like Onlook, offers WYSIWYG React editing, but with less AI integration. Onlook's modern architecture and AI capabilities give it an edge for rapid development, while PageDraw might offer more stability as a more established tool.

Use Cases: Who Should Consider Onlook?

Based on my testing, Onlook seems best suited for:

1. Teams with both designers and developers who need a unified interface to collaborate on React projects
2. React developers who prefer visual manipulation for UI components but want clean, maintainable code
3. Design-oriented developers who think visually but need to produce production-ready React code
4. Agencies building client prototypes who want to rapidly visualize concepts while generating usable code

However, due to the current limitations, these groups would likely need to commit to the paid plan to derive meaningful value from the tool.

When developing React applications with visual tools like Onlook, integrating with backend services becomes crucial. Apidog's comprehensive API development and testing platform can help teams ensure their beautifully designed frontends connect seamlessly with robust backend services.

Potential Future Impact

Despite its current limitations, Onlook represents an important direction for development tools. The visual-first, code-synchronized approach has the potential to:

1. Reduce the designer-developer handoff friction that slows down many projects
2. Make React development more accessible to design-oriented professionals
3. Speed up UI implementation while maintaining code quality
4. Facilitate faster prototyping of complex interactive components

If Onlook can address its performance issues and create a more generous free tier, it could become a significant player in the visual React editor ecosystem.

Conclusion: Promise and Position in the Market

Onlook shows genuine promise as a visual React editor with its strong approach to the design-code relationship. The visual editing experience and code synchronization are impressive achievements for an open-source project.

However, the extremely limited free tier (5 messages), performance issues, and cloud dependency prevent it from being truly revolutionary for most developers. It faces significant usability hurdles before it can claim leadership among similar tools.

For teams willing to pay the $20/month subscription fee, Onlook offers a unique combination of visual design flexibility and React code generation that few other open-source tools provide. As it continues to develop, it could grow into the transformative design-development bridge it aspires to be, leveraging its open-source advantage in a space dominated by proprietary solutions.

Whether using Onlook or traditional coding approaches, pairing your frontend development with a tool like Apidog ensures your interfaces connect seamlessly with backend services—creating complete, functional applications that delight users.