Complete Guide to Building and Deploying Your First App with Replit
Deploy your designs as working apps
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As a designer, it’s easy to feel like you're building an app
UI is flowing. Figma looks good. AI is helping. Your prototype works.
But then… reality hits.
Where do I store data?
How do I connect OpenAI keys?
Why does it work locally but break on deploy?
How do I move from localhost to a real, live URL?
That’s the moment where vibe-coding ends and real product-building begins.
🪄 What we’ll go through today:
Where vibe-coding ends
How to build a real app
Managing multiple tools vs using one
How to deploy your app or website with Replit
Why Replit is the best place to start if you're a designer learning to ship
My story: From Figma to a live app
I started vibe-coding when the tools came out. However, I always felt stuck because I couldn’t find a way to push my app live. It happened 7 months ago, when I published the Design Token Generator via Replit.
But let’s rewind.
I had an idea: Generate names for design tokens, based on different naming structures.
I started by building a Custom GPT. Then I tried Lovable, V0.dev, a few other low-code tools. Prototypes looked cool. But nothing worked end-to-end. I was getting UI… but not the functional app that would have repeatable and useful results for the user.
Then I tried Replit, and wow, it worked!
How does Replit work?
The main features for Replit are:
Built-in database
Built-in deployment
Environment variable UI that makes sense
No GitHub setup
Instant hosting
No CI/CD tears
If you’re a solo builder looking to get something live, try Replit.
But how? You can start with the prompt or import (Figma design, GitHub, Lovable, Bolt).
1 Import from Figma
I took one of my earlier dropdown experiments (you may recall it from a previous newsletter) and attempted to import it directly from Figma.
👇 Here’s what I got:
It nailed the:
✅ Colors
✅ Fonts
✅ Interaction logic (open, hover, close)
✅ Layout
Pretty amazing, especially considering I hadn’t even written a prompt yet. It felt less like starting from scratch and more like picking up right where the design left off.
2. Start with prompting
If you don’t have any designs, then you can describe what you need and add inspiration.
Prompting does matter. It’s not magic, it’s a skill.
Good prompts help you:
Tailor model output
Improve accuracy
Complete complex tasks
Reduce bias and junky results
Replit even has an option to improve your prompt. Example 👇
→ My initial prompt (intentionally very basic :)
Build a website that shows bookmarks
User Interface
When you're working inside Replit, you're not juggling 10 tools.
Everything is in one place:
Code editor
Terminal
Built-in database
Environment variable manager
Web preview
Deployment system
Deploying the app
Once you are satisfied with your result, you can hit “Run,” and your app is live. If you want a custom domain, you can add that too (also possible through Replit).
💡Pro tip: Anytime you get something that you wanted, make a checkpoint or even duplicate the whole project (this tip is valid for any AI tool :)
Suggestions
Based on what you are building, you get a set of suggestions. If you need, you can connect various other tools (for example, OpenAI).
🧠 My recommendations
Choose Replit when you want to:
Use Import (your existing code or design)
Build an app or prototype and deploy it online without any struggle
Want a full-stack AI buddy who knows what to do in code
Want to build a fully functional app (or MVP)
Build with environment variables from day 1
Connected articles
📚 Figma MCP and the most useful Figma resources for designers
🔗 Keep Airtable and GitHub in sync
Enjoy exploring. ✌️
— If you enjoyed this post, please tap the Like button below 💛 Thank you.
💎 Community Gems
Supa Design Tokens (New Figma plugin for managing design tokens by Angelo Libero)
🔗 Link
Include – Accessibility Annotations (Figma plugin by ebay)
Include is a tool built to make annotating for accessibility (a11y) easier—easier for designers to spec and easier for developers to understand what is required. The intent is to have accessibility considerations included during the design phase of any project, and to help with the designer-developer collaboration. Ultimately creating digital experiences that anybody can use!
🔗 Link
Purposeful vs Aesthetic Naming by Nathan Curtis
Favoring semantics isn’t always ideal, and blending both is worse
🔗 Link
🎉 Into Design Systems Conference 2025 - Recordings
Recordings are now available to purchase. I had so much fun presenting, and I am so glad to read testimonials (below) that people felt the same way. 🥰
🔗 Link
I'm curious, what would be your top choice or recommendation: Replit or Cursor? Does Replit have the capabilities of Cursor, such as multiple agent models support, and what else? It seems these days, every code editor should have agents. The options are endless. :)