Big Idea

The argument in one line.

OpenDesign removes the weekly prompt ceiling and model lock-in of Claude Design by running locally with an Apache 2.0 license, letting you use any LLM you already pay for across unlimited projects.

Who This Is For

Read if. Skip if.

READ IF YOU ARE…

A freelancer or agency owner who needs commercial-safe design deliverables and cannot afford to burn Claude Designs weekly limit on client projects.
A builder who already pays for Claude Code, ChatGPT, or Gemini and wants those subscriptions inside a visual design tool without a separate fee.
Anyone hitting the two-meaningful-projects-per-week ceiling on Claude Design and wanting unlimited local runs.
A multi-model operator who wants Opus for the initial design system and a cheaper model for all subsequent iterations.

SKIP IF…

You have no existing LLM subscriptions and are not willing to fund a small OpenRouter account to unlock the free-model path.
You need a polished, production-tested tool -- OpenDesign was 12 days old at time of filming and carries real bug risk.
You are not comfortable cloning a GitHub repo and running a local server.

TL;DR

The full version, fast.

Claude Designs limits are real: one meaningful project per week, a single model locked to Opus, and no commercial licensing for output built with most competing open-source clones. OpenDesign is an Apache 2.0 local fork that ships with 71-plus brand design systems and connects to any LLM you already pay for. The recommended workflow is Opus for the first-pass design architecture, then a cheap or free model for iterative amendments -- producing client-ready output deployable directly to Vercel or exported as HTML, PDF, PowerPoint, or ZIP.

Free for members

Chat with this breakdown — free.

Sign in and you get 23 free chat messages on us — ask for the hook, quote a framework, find the exact transcript moment, generate a markdown action plan. Bring your own key when you want unlimited.

Create a free account →

Chapters

Where the time goes.

00:00 – 00:58

01 · Hook and premise

Opens on the Claude Design limits problem and promises a 100% local unlimited alternative.

00:58 – 02:33

02 · The case against Claude Design

Lays out the cap, AI slop perception, dollar-twenty pro cost, single-model lock-in, and no commercial use in competing clones.

02:33 – 03:50

03 · What OpenDesign does differently

Apache 2.0 license, 71-plus brand systems, any LLM, local-first, five export formats.

03:50 – 04:52

04 · Install and setup

Clone the GitHub repo in Antigravity; the tool opens a locally-hosted browser UI automatically.

04:52 – 05:40

05 · Model picker and project start

Selecting Claude Code CLI as the backend; bring-your-own-key option also available.

05:40 – 07:08

06 · Live dashboard build demo

Builds a SaaS analytics dashboard in one shot with dark utility style and interactive charts.

07:08 – 08:35

07 · Switching models mid-project

Swaps from Claude Code to ChatGPT Codex mid-session to request a smoothness fix on the live event stream widget.

08:35 – 09:49

08 · Export and Vercel deploy

Five export formats shown; one-click deploy to Vercel via API token from inside the app.

09:49 – 11:22

09 · Image generation integration

Wires in OpenAI image API key; one-shot Ghibli-style image asset embedded with auto blur-gradient.

11:22 – 12:54

10 · Free-model path via OpenCode

Uses a free OpenCode skill to set up OpenRouter-backed free models for design work via CLI.

12:54 – 14:50

11 · Anthropic path vs open path

Cost comparison: Anthropic Max vs zero-dollar open path; recommends Opus for initial architecture then cheap models for scale.

14:50 – 15:53

12 · Who should use it and caveats

Ideal for agency/freelance, multi-model operators, anyone burning the weekly cap. Caveats: repo is 12 days old.

Atomic Insights

Lines worth screenshotting.

Claude Designs real limit is not the monthly price -- it is roughly two meaningful projects a week before your context is 95% consumed.
OpenDesign carries an Apache 2.0 license, making it the only widely-available Claude Design clone where you can sell output to clients without royalties or permission.
The optimal model strategy is a premium model for the initial design architecture and a cheap or free model for all amendments.
Running a design tool locally means no proprietary assets or controversial content ever leaves your machine.
OpenDesign ships 71-plus brand design system prompts so the model inherits a specific company voice, typography, palette, and layout language automatically.
You can deploy a finished design directly to Vercel from inside OpenDesign by pasting a Vercel API token -- no separate build or upload step.
Integrating the OpenAI image API into OpenDesign adds model-native image generation to the canvas, which Claude Design does not support natively.
DeepSeek v3 costs roughly one-hundredth of Opus pricing and approaches or exceeds Anthropic model performance in certain design-iteration tasks.
The free-model path via OpenRouter still requires a funded account of at least five to ten dollars to pass spam validation.
A 12-day-old open-source project is not production-grade; build bug tolerance into any client timeline that uses it.

Takeaway

Own the runtime, not the design tool.

WHAT TO LEARN

The cost of Claude Design is not the monthly fee -- it is the weekly cap that resets project momentum and the model lock-in that prevents routing cheap tokens to cheap work.

The weekly usage cap on cloud design tools is the real bottleneck; local-first tools eliminate it by moving compute to your machine.
Starting a design with a premium model and finishing with a cheaper one is not a quality compromise -- it is how production workflows manage cost at scale.
Apache 2.0 licensing is the test that determines whether you can sell design output to clients; verify the license before committing to any open-source design tool.
Deploying an LLM-generated design directly to Vercel from inside the design tool collapses a multi-step export, import, and configure chain into a single API token paste.
Free-model paths still carry a real cost floor: a funded account of at least five to ten dollars is required to pass spam validation on most routing APIs.
A repo that is less than two weeks old is not production-grade; build explicit bug tolerance into any client timeline that depends on it.

Glossary

Terms worth knowing.

OpenDesign: An Apache 2.0 open-source local design tool that mirrors Claude Designs UX while allowing any LLM to serve as the generation backend, running entirely on the users machine.
Apache 2.0: An open-source software license that explicitly permits commercial use, modification, and distribution without requiring royalties or permission from the original author.
Brand system: A structured prompt file that encodes a specific company typography, color palette, layout language, and voice so the model generates output matching that visual identity.
OpenCode: A CLI tool providing a single unified interface for routing prompts to multiple LLMs, enabling model switching without changing the host application.
OpenRouter: An API aggregator that provides access to many LLM providers under a single key, simplifying billing and enabling model-agnostic integrations.
Antigravity: An AI coding environment similar to Claude Code or Cursor, used in the video to clone repos, install dependencies, and manage the local OpenDesign server.

Resources

Things they pointed at.

00:58toolOpenDesign

02:33toolVault Designs GitHub

03:50toolAntigravity

11:22toolOpenCode

12:00toolOpenRouter ↗

08:35toolVercel ↗

Quotables

Lines you could clip.

01:29

“You say the word Claude and you are 50% of the way through it.”

Zero-context punchline, lands the cap problem in one breath.→ TikTok hook↗ Tweet quote

11:43

“Imagine if it was just the Hulk. He cannot fly and shoot lasers out of his eyes.”

Standalone metaphor, works as a quote card or reel cold open.→ IG reel cold open↗ Tweet quote

08:21

“Use Opus to get the initial design, then tag in the other models once there is an existing design architecture.”

Clean actionable tip, no setup needed.→ newsletter pull-quote↗ Tweet quote

The Script

Word for word.

Read-along

Don't just watch it. Burn it in.

See every word as it's spoken — crank it to 2× and still catch all of it. The same dual-channel trick behind Amazon's Kindle + Audible.

metaphoranalogy

00:00Claw Design is amazing, but the limits are brutal and it can stop you dead in your tracks. Open Design is a clone of Claw Design and it is 100% local.

00:12And in this video, I'll show you exactly how to use this to build any website, app, or design that you want with any model you want to, even 100% for free so you can stop wasting time and start growing your business. And if you don't know who I am, my name is Jack Roberts.

00:26I built and saw my last tech startup with thousands and thousands customers. Now I have my own companies and show you the exact things that work. So if you haven't already, grab that coffee and let's dive straight in.

00:37So replacing Claude Design. The limits are so high in Claude Design, you just say the word Claude and you're 50% of the way through it. Now, Open Design is a new GitHub repo that is fast trending and I expect it to rise very, very quickly.

00:52Because essentially with Claude Design, we're locked in. It's only OPUS 4.7. It has limitations.

00:57I'll show you, OpenDesign has a completely different license, and you can use it with as many models as you want to. Now, CloudDesign itself is pretty cool.

01:04We've all seen what CloudDesign looks like. You can build nice individual graphics and stuff. I mean, we've all seen all the wonders of CloudDesign.

01:11It's a pretty cool software. Right? But what's the problem with it?

01:14Well, there's a few problems with it. It kinda sucks. And it sucks because, you know, it's so easy to use it.

01:2010 prompts and you're 95% the way done. I built out a design system with it and it was pretty much baked and cooked at that very moment. So it really restricts you, which I think if you're actually gonna do meaningful design, can be a little bit limiting.

01:32Yes. You can export to good Claude code, but it has its limitations. And some of the big issues that people say their cat melts in, just twenty five minutes.

01:39You can do one meaningful project a week. Everyone thinks that Apple looks like AI Slop, a $20 pro, and you can only have one model, which is Opus 4.7. And, of course, you're locked into the Anthropic ecosystem with this.

01:52And the issue with this model swap is what if you want to use a different model or you wanna do it more cheaply so you can do this at scale, you're kinda hold back. This is where OpenDesign comes into play. Now first thing's call out is it's got an Apache two point o license.

02:03So there are other repos, but they try to replicate and clone what CallDesign does, but you can't actually use them. And I've seen videos that have gone off recently on this. You can't use it in an inclined project.

02:13And for me, that just I I don't really see the point of that if you can't use it commercially. This has an Apache two point o license. It's got over 71 demand of basically brand design systems, loads of skills, and you can effectively build it out in so many different brand designs as I'll show you inside the video.

02:28And the way this works is you pick a brand, the agent inherits the voice, typography, palette, layout language, and the codes. It was built off a really popular GitHub that went viral called Vault Designs.

02:38It's a really, really cool one. So it's great to see that they're building on this. So specifically, what this can do that you can't do in call design, and then we're gonna download this and bolt on the call together so we can see this for ourselves.

02:48First of all, you can pick any large language model you already pay for. We can and the interface for this is really cool. This could be a free model.

02:56If I wanna bring in Chachi, Bettil, Gemini, I can do all of that stuff. You have seven to one brand systems that are baked into them. You have Apache two point o, which means it's safe for clients.

03:04You can use it on client work, sell products built with it, never ask for permission, never pay royalties forever, unlike other GitHub repos I've seen bopping off on YouTube. So it's it's really important to bear that in mind. It's local first, nothing uploads, which is great.

03:17It's all in your own ecosystem. If you wanna design something controversial, go ahead and do it. You have five different export formats, so HTML, PowerPoint, p d you know, zips, and these, and you can discover first.

03:27So basically, surface, audience turn, brand scale forces the model to ask before it rides. So let's go ahead and try this puppy out. So all you're gonna do is shoot over to this.

03:35Now this is an example of what it looks like. It's giving you an overview Design with the agent already your laptop. As you can see, these are examples of what the product looks like.

03:42This is basically open design. And expect this to get more and more popular over time, by the way, as this goes out. This kind of like taking the system prompt intelligence and building something local.

03:51So all you're gonna do is come up to code like so, you're gonna copy this. So you're gonna pop over to your environment of choice. I'm in anti gravity here.

03:57And what I'd like you to do is come up here and just say, hey there, I'd like you to go ahead and clone this repo please, and then open it up for me. Alright? And all you're gonna do is paste in a GitHub repo like so, drop that in, and let it work its magic in the background.

04:08Now, one thing that's good to understand about this is it isn't just you talking to the repo, it's actually got its own environment, which is so freaking cool because it opens up and basically your browser, which is your own locally hosted Claude design replica, which is freaking cool. So when you ask it to open up, it may need just to install something, but again, Claude code or anti gravity will do that all for you directly.

04:30And I just wanna call out as well, on the left hand side, you got all these different things in the design systems. Right? We've got Airtable, Apple, Binance, Coinbase, Kraken.

04:38We got Nike. We've got PlayStation. All these different design MDs from really cool websites.

04:42So if you want a website in that basic style, it'll do that for you and it can leverage that, which is super cool. And then this is what it opens up. This is OpenDesign.

04:50Now, first thing you'll notice when you open up OpenDesign is you're basically deciding the models that you've already installed. I've installed Gemini, I've got Hermes, I've got Codex.

04:59There's so many different things you can do. If you wanna know how to install those, I'll put a link on screen for a video I did literally a couple days ago that show you all that process. But basically, you can add the models that are on your computer currently and use it.

05:10So let's say that I wanna use CluedCode, which is great. You can also do a bring your own keys if you want to. That's really cool.

05:15But we're just gonna use the CLI for this one. So if you've CluedCode downloading your laptop, this will be here ready to rock and roll. You got the model, so I can actually specifically go ahead and choose that to do whatever I want to.

05:24Again, and if I wanted to do something like a free model, I can go ahead and use that too. But I'm gonna go ahead with Cloud Code here and click on get started as a for instance. Cool.

05:31So now it's rocking and rolling. Let's give it a project name. And you'll bear in mind, it has an uncanny resemblance to the one that you've seen before.

05:37So I'll just say something like analytics. Okay? And then I'm gonna come down here, wireframe high fidelity, and guys, it looks very, very similar, but it's basically an open source thing.

05:46So let me bring this over so you can see. Okay. Cool.

05:48So I'm gonna come down. I'm on his SaaS analytics dashboard. That sounds really cool.

05:51Just click send on that and see what it does. And then what you get within this as well, quick brief. So let's just say it's gonna be for desktop web, which is gonna be cool.

05:58Who's the prime reviewer? I'll say founder exec is decent. Tone with dark utility.

06:02You know, do want data dark, linear, stripe, radar, Bloomberg? And let's just go for pure operator density, hairline grids, green, amber, red status, quieter, near grayscale, softer dark, warm accent, more white space, terminal maximum density, no decoration. Let's go for a bit of a stripe style dashboard.

06:16I think that could be really cool. Product name, I'm gonna give you something like Vantage, brand context, pick a direction for me, scope. I'll just say simple dense overview page, that's fine.

06:24Or I could do overview tab with two to three sliding tabs, that's cool. Make it super interactive, go up just beautiful animations, something that has a wow factor, but it's also beautifully designed.

06:33But when that's done, let's go ahead and just click on send answers. Cool. And then it's got pick a dark direction.

06:37So again, we can just pick which is the brown palettes that we like and we think is pretty cool. Why don't we go for one that's got this kind of nice, the quick brown fox. That looks decent.

06:45And then we've got accent override. Where should the single well moment land? Again, it's kind of working with it iteratively and coming back and forth on this.

06:51Let's just go for world heat map would be cool and just click on send Then literally, guys, you can see it's gonna be working through all those to do lists on the left hand side. And, effectively, they've taken the essence and basically what makes core design, and it just open sourced it and let you work through everything on your own computer.

07:06This is 100% local right now. And the actual user interface is pretty pleasant to use, to be honest.

07:12Guys, and then just like that, I open up and this is the dashboard that it's given me. I mean, look at the interactivity on this. Monthly recurring revenue, active workforces, workspace retention chart.

07:21This is, by the way, one shot. I've done nothing else's, and it's live. Like, things are adding in.

07:26Like, that could be tidied up a little bit, right, which is cool. But look at this. Like, this is really impressive.

07:31Now, the cool thing about this is that I can, if I want to, change the models. So if I wanna do this, I'm like, you know what? I've spent, you know, my Opus 4.7 is out or I wanna use Track GPT, I can come down.

07:41Now on the bottom left, which you can see because I've got this thing down here, look, we'll see a light. I click on this. And then all you're gonna do is just switch it over to codecs.

07:48Cool. And then come down, click on save, which is wonderful. Now that's done.

07:52I click back on Vanguard. Now I'm type with ChatGPT. So here for example, I might come back over and I might just hit something like, hey there dude, could you just make an improvement to the live event stream?

08:01It looks a little bit laggy when it comes in. Just make that a bit smoother for me, please. Release and then basically ChatGPT can do the work for us.

08:08And by the way, you can see when you do switch the models, you'll have codex. Codex is initializing, codex is running and that's how easy it is now to get any model to code and replicate core design like that. I think this is really cool.

08:19I didn't really have too many expectations coming into this. And as always, the goal of this channel is to share the stuff that works.

08:25A little hack that I personally found guys is that, you know, use Opus, use Claw to get the initial design, then you can tag in the other models once there's like an existing design architecture. It's like the rooms think of it like a basically a room being painted and you get a typical kind of vibe.

08:41It's way easier to do more of the same than it is to completely engineer from first principles up. So that's why I think it's helpful to get these things to make amendments. Now that says it's done, let's just full screen this, for example, and check it out.

08:53Now if I come down, do I see this being changed a little bit? I think we need to probably just refresh it. Right?

08:57So let's just maybe come off this one here and we come back over and do we see a difference? I'm gonna come down and see. Okay.

09:03There we go. And that's slightly different. So the first iteration wasn't perfect.

09:06I give it a second piece of feedback and look at this. It's pretty much ready to rock and roll. That whole design thing is completely different.

09:12And And then you've got this wonderful thing, and if I wanna export it, here's a cool thing. I come over here to share at the top. I can export as a PDF, as a PowerPoint, download as a ZIP, export as stand alone HTML, or save this template, or you can even publish this directly to the cell from this app, which is crazy.

09:27So if I click on deploy to Vercel, for example, you can see here, all I have to do is include my Vercel token, which I can get from online. Why is this important? Well, this now becomes a fully fledged app.

09:37You open up Vercel, you connect it, and you can basically pop it there, which is absolutely wild. If I wanna play around with it in anti gravity or different systems, I can do that, download it as a zip and have that on my desktop, then I could open it up into codecs.

09:50I could open up into Claude or anti gravity or your own individual environment of choice. Then if I come back, for example and so you can also import your basically Claude design zips by clicking here. So if you build like a Claude design over there, you can bring that over, which I think is really cool.

10:04Again, you've got design systems that all visible here on the design system section. You've got image prompts, which is freaking awesome.

10:11So if you wanna collect more of these kind of images, that's fantastic. Video prompts as well, so you can see all this different stuff. Like, it literally is becoming like the Higgs field of design.

10:20Like, that's effectively what we're seeing here. You have your own design systems that you can pick if you want to. Do you like the Lamborghini design system?

10:26Now anything we create will be in the Lamborghini design system style. Then for example, if you click on your little profile at the top, this is another way of getting into that. You can see we have a local CLI.

10:35You can have Anthropic API where you bring your own keys if you want to. Media provider. So these you can just integrate everything you want to.

10:41So for example, if I wanna build to create GPT images, I can go ahead and grab my OpenAI key. And so I wanna come back over here, I just throw the API key in here, which is called the top, click on save, and then it is ready to rock and roll. So technically then, if I just come back over to my designs, click on Vanguard, then I might come down and say, hey there, add for me a beautiful Ghibli style image in one of the boxes of like, I don't know, some kind of investment piggy bank.

11:05I use the ChatGPT API to do this. I'm just like this, guys. It is now complete, so I scroll down and do I see it?

11:11Guys, look at that. And what's really cool I don't if you can see this now. I'll just try if I can zoom in a little bit.

11:15Give me a refresh look on this thing. But can you see how not only is it added in, it's added this beautiful kind of blur gradient. That has lifted the quality of this so much, and that that's just one shot.

11:27And now I've got that integrated, I can do it as much as I want to. I'm genuinely pretty impressed with that, to be fair. Because you also gotta think, if you're building this in Claude, like, you're not able to actually naturally integrate, like, design like that with any of the models.

11:39And let's be fair, they all have their own individual superpowers like the Avengers. Right?

11:45Imagine if it was just the Hulk. Well, the Hulk's cool, but he can't fly and shoot lasers out of his eyes. Right?

11:49So we kinda wanna mix and match based on our preferences. Then to take this one step further, you can also code completely for free. So I'll put this skill down below for free.

11:56It'll be in the communities. Just go ahead, grab down and grab that. All you're gonna do is copy all this stuff then head back over to anti gravity.

12:02So all you're see is anti gravity is awesome. I'd now like to have a new CLI. Basically, using OpenRooter, use the Blow skill to set this all up.

12:10So I just want to be able to use a series of free models to do all of my design via the CLI. Just drop that in and they can just literally paste the entire thing that you got from the scope and then we're good to go. And this of course is using OpenCode, which effectively lets you use any models that you want to within one umbrella.

12:25It's very cool. I'll put a link on screen somewhere for you so you can see my full open code breakdown so you get a sense of just how epic that is. Now my recommendation is that you always go paid realistically because again, it's just gonna be way better.

12:36But you can do path a, which is free models, which is gonna be like DeepSeek v 3.1, etcetera, or path b, which is gonna be Sonnet 4.7, different ones. Say, for example, I just wanna get down to that and I wanna say, hey, do path a for me. Now, bear in mind, models like DeepSeek v four are great.

12:51They're like a one one hundredth of the cost for like 95% of the same performance. And in some categories, it even exceeds anthropic models.

12:59So these are just some things for you to bear in mind. But if you're designing, generally speaking, initially, you wanna lead on Opus. And obviously, at this point, we're just gonna head to open reset and grab our API key.

13:06Then, of course, go and grab your API key. You'll need at least 5 or $10. I recommend at least 10 even if using free models because basically it needs to validate you're not looking kind of like spam accounts.

13:15And once you've done that, basically OpenCode will be available right here. You click on get started and then we are ready to rock and roll. And you're connected to any of the models that you connected in OpenCode.

13:24And so where does this leave us? Well, look, here's the thing. Right?

13:27You've got two kind of like roots here. You've got the Anthropic path, so that could be $20 a month, $200 a month. I'm on the $2 month plan.

13:34I finally didn't really get any more usage than the $20 plan actually, so I ran out pretty quickly. You're looking at a couple designs a week. Again, Opus 4.7 mainly and there's a monthly cost.

13:44The OpenPath is from $0. You can use things like chat GPT in there and any model that you literally want to. Now, what would I recommend?

13:52I don't recommend that you use free models in it. But what I do recommend that you do is you build existing styles that you like using Opus.

14:00And then once you've got that, then deploy your ChatGPT's, deploy your Gemini's, your all the different models, DeepSeq's, whatever you want to, to designers at scale, which you can then either deploy directly in Vercel and post, or you can pretty much do whatever you want to. And, obviously, if you're doing production grade stuff for clients, guys, always make sure that you go and check that codecs, like ChatGPT 5.5, to review all the code as well just to make sure that you're fully backed up.

14:23But, again, initial design system anthropic and then go nuts with this, but you can build in any model you want to know, which is why this is so freaking cool. So quick telltale, what is it great for? It's great if you're an agency freelancer, you wanna design commercially safe and be able to sell it, you're a multi model operator, so you're already paying for ClawCode, Kodak, or Cursor.

14:40You're burning Claw Designs a weekly cap and, like, Jack, I just want more designs. Well, this is a great option. And you're building brand specific work against so many different design systems.

14:50When is it to skip? Probably, if you are very fresh well, you've meant this far in the video. You're freaking killer.

14:55So this doesn't apply for you. But if you are speaking to your, like, dad or your mate's older brother that works at, like, IBM and he's a very technophobic, you might be like, dude, just use, you know, core design for now and get started with that.

15:07Again, if you're doing this and you're happy with the UI and you're happy with limitation, that's cool. That's one thing. But ultimately, I think it's a really brilliant addition.

15:14The other caveat just to bear in mind is that this repo, Open Design is twelve days old. So there are a couple of bugs picking up here and there.

15:22I didn't run into any personally, but just kinda, you know, give it some grace and mileage might vary a little bit. The guy seems working really hard in it, but I think it's pretty cool. My favorite feature though, to be fair, is the fact that I can port in ChatGPT image generation and use any model I want to.

15:36I genuinely think that is really freaking cool. And so now you've got your own open design system locked down. Next thing that we need to do is learn how to bring in ChatGPT and Gemini effortlessly when we're using Claude so we always get the best model for the job, which we're gonna learn by watching this video right here.

The Hook

The bait, then the rug-pull.

Claude Designs weekly cap does not show up as a line item on your invoice -- it shows up as a half-finished project and a seven-day wait. This video makes the case that the fix is not a more expensive plan but a local, model-agnostic alternative that costs nothing to run and carries a license you can actually sell work under.

Frameworks

Named ideas worth stealing.

08:21concept

Opus-first, cheap-model-second

Use a premium model to establish the design architecture, then hand all iterative amendments to a cheaper model. The existing design context guides the cheaper model.

Steal forAny LLM-heavy workflow where initial quality matters but iteration volume is high

CTA Breakdown