What Adobe’s $20B Acquisition of Figma Means for Web Standards and Front‑End Development

On September 15, 2022, Figma co‑founder and CEO Dylan Field announced on Twitter that Adobe had agreed to acquire Figma for roughly $20 billion, with the deal to be paid half in cash and half in stock, expected to close in 2023 pending regulatory approval.

Adobe said it will integrate some of its own features—illustration, photography, and video—into the Figma platform. Adobe already sells a suite of professional software such as Photoshop, Illustrator, and Premiere Pro.

Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen stated, “Adobe’s greatness lies in our ability to create new categories and deliver cutting‑edge technology through innovation and acquisition. The combination of Adobe and Figma is transformational and will accelerate our vision for collaborative creativity.”

After the acquisition, Figma co‑founder and CEO Dylan Field will continue to run the company and will report to Adobe’s Digital Media VP David Wadhwani.

This deal is one of the most significant and expensive internet M&A transactions in the past 20 years.

Adobe’s announcement on its official site confirmed the acquisition.

Will This Affect Web Standards?

Regardless of how you view Adobe, the company has a long history of acquiring promising web‑design firms. The Figma acquisition raises the question of how it will influence web standards, since Figma is one of the most impressive design tools built on open web technologies.

Last year, media named Figma among the top five internet technologies of 2021, highlighting its use of WebGL for rendering effects without plugins.

“This interactivity previously required Flash or similar plugins, but Figma achieves it with Web standards, especially WebGL,”

Flash, once acquired by Adobe’s predecessor Macromedia in 2005, had already been on a decline curve and was completely discontinued by the end of 2020 after Apple’s 2010 decision to drop support. Web standards have since become the dominant multimedia platform on the internet.

Figma represents the post‑Flash era of web design, now absorbed by Adobe.

For some Figma users, the acquisition feels like biting into an unripe, bitter apple because Figma originally positioned itself as an Adobe desktop‑app alternative.

When Figma launched in December 2015, co‑founder and CEO Dylan Field said Adobe “doesn’t understand collaboration” and that Adobe Creative Cloud was “just a name in the cloud.” After securing the $20 billion deal, he set aside that rivalry.

Open‑Source Figma Foundation

Figma’s success is largely built on WebGL, JavaScript, and later WebAssembly—core web‑standard technologies. Using WebGL and Web graphics libraries, Figma delivers an experience similar to Flash but via a JavaScript API that renders 2D and 3D graphics directly on an HTML canvas without plugins. WebGL, developed by Khronos, is widely supported by all major browsers.

Figma leverages these web standards to enable designers to create impressive experiences, which helped justify its $20 billion valuation.

Importantly, Figma’s underlying platform is completely open and accessible.

Designers should appreciate how Figma has helped popularize SaaS‑based web design over the past six years.

There was once concern that mobile internet and desktop applications (like those from Apple and Adobe) would become a battleground for developers. In the mid‑2010s, Figma proved that browser‑based SaaS opportunities are still abundant.

Web Design Platforms Balance the Competitive Landscape

Ultimately, we owe thanks to major browser vendors—such as Google and Microsoft—whose APIs have made today’s advanced web‑application platforms possible.

We must also remember independent developers like the Three.js creators (Igalia and Ricardo Cabello) and Figma co‑founder Evan Wallace, who left Figma to develop the open‑source JavaScript and CSS bundler esbuild.

Following the acquisition, the open‑source alternative Penpot has gained attention on Twitter and topped Hacker News, raising the question of whether it can capture part of Figma’s market. Designers skeptical of Adobe can now more easily migrate their work to Penpot, preserving the benefits of web‑standard applications.

Author: 天外来客 Reference: https://thenewstack.io/adobe-buys-figma-what-does-this-mean-for-web-standards/