Brilliant vs Lunacy

Lunacy is the closest thing in this comparison to Brilliant's own shape, and the page only works if it says so up front. It's a free, native desktop vector editor from Icons8 that runs on Windows, macOS, and Linux, opens and saves .sketch files natively, and stores its own work in .free, an open, MIT-licensed format with a public spec. It has a real pen tool, boolean operations, auto layout with hug, fill, and fixed sizing, components, prototyping, and, unusually for a free tool, a write-capable MCP server it shipped back in mid-2025. If you want a genuinely free, cross-platform desktop editor with a Sketch pipeline, Lunacy is an excellent answer, and this page is going to concede that generously before it draws any lines.

Brilliant's editor is free too: the full tool, on the free tier, with paid plans covering AI chat volume and private cloud work rather than editor features. Where it differs is the aim. It's built agent-native from the start: bring-your-own-key AI with a model you choose, a full design-token system rather than color presets, plain-text files that diff in Git without unzipping, and Figma interop that goes both ways. This is a comparison between two tools that respect the same values and split on a few specific ones, so we'll be precise about the splits.

Lunacy facts on this page are current as of August 2026, checked against Lunacy Version 14.

Where Lunacy is genuinely ahead

Several of these are real, and some are things Brilliant doesn't offer at all.

• It's free, with no feature gating in the editor. Icons8 puts it plainly: "there's no hidden charges, ads, or locked features." The paid tiers touch asset licensing, cloud storage, and team seats, never editor features. Brilliant's shape is the same on this axis (the full editor is free; paid covers AI chat volume and private work), so call this one shared ground rather than a difference.

• Real Linux support, not a web tab. Native builds for Ubuntu-based distributions, Snapcraft, and Flatpak, on a deliberately low hardware floor. Brilliant ships a Linux desktop app too, so this is parity rather than a loss, but Lunacy has held the line here for years.

• Native Sketch read-write on every platform. Lunacy opens, edits, and saves .sketch files, including recent versions, on Windows and Linux where Sketch itself doesn't run. For a non-Mac team in a Sketch pipeline, that's the practical answer.

• An open, MIT-licensed native format. .free is a documented ZIP of JSON with a public spec, a C# reference implementation, and an explicit third-party extensibility field. This is a real openness claim, and it rivals Brilliant's own; more on the narrow difference below.

• It ships prototyping. Ten triggers, seven actions, animations, and scroll behaviors. Brilliant is a static canvas today, with no interactive prototyping at all.

Agent access: the same idea, a different shape and safety story

Lunacy is unusually far ahead of most free tools here, and it earns credit for it. Its local MCP server shipped in June 2025 and became write-capable the next month, with a release note reading "Now LLM can edit Selection over MCP." It also exposes a local HTTP automation API with example plugins in five languages. For a free product, that's a serious agent surface, and it predates most of the competition.

The differences are about shape and safety rather than whether the capability exists. Lunacy documents its MCP client setup for Claude Desktop only, and it publishes no exact MCP tool names, so the surface can't be fully audited from the docs. Its HTTP automation API, by its own reference, runs on localhost with no authentication and no rate limiting ("Current implementation places no restrictions on request frequency"). Brilliant documents seven agent clients with step-by-step setup, from Claude Code and Cursor to Codex, Copilot, Windsurf, and Antigravity, publishes exactly what an agent can do, keeps MCP unlimited on every plan including Free, and drives the same hundred-plus canvas commands you use, each with full undo. Both tools let an agent write your canvas; they differ in how much of that surface is documented and gated. What an agent can do in Brilliant →

Your key, and a real design-token system

Lunacy's built-in AI Chat is a nice convenience with a specific trade-off. It offers Claude, Gemini, OpenAI, and Grok with "No API keys required, free to use," which is friendly, but it means Icons8 sits between your prompt and the model, and the feature currently has no documentation page at all. Brilliant is bring-your-own-key by design across six providers plus any OpenAI-compatible or local endpoint, with per-chat model and thinking-level selection and no Brilliant server between your prompt and the response.

The bigger gap is tokens, and Icons8 is candid about it. Lunacy's variables are "reusable solid color presets," with no number, string, or dimension variables and no modes or theme switching. Icons8 lists the fix as open roadmap: "We'll gradually implement full support for variables, including themes, groups, theme switching, field binding, and more." Brilliant compiles a Styles/*.ds source into a full system today: eleven-step OKLCH ramps from one seed, light and dark theming, modes as transforms, multi-brand overlays, a cascade across folders, and a resolved .gen.yaml that Style Dictionary and Tokens Studio read. Component reuse differs the same way: Lunacy's "component states" are a single-axis list, where Brilliant ships full component sets with variant properties and slots. How the token system works →

Two open formats, one that diffs without unzipping

This is the closest call on the page, and it needs careful wording, because Lunacy's format is genuinely open and Brilliant is not the only tool that can say so.

.free is open source under MIT, with a public spec and a reference implementation, and Icons8 designed it to be "compact, human-readable, back-compatible." That's real, and it's more than most tools offer. But the file as it sits on disk is a ZIP archive: pages, images, fonts, and metadata as JSON inside a compressed container. You can unzip it and read the JSON, but you can't git diff it in place, and no Icons8 page documents a Git or plain-text-on-disk workflow.

Brilliant's .bl files are plain, deterministic Blueprint text, one element per line, stable ordering, inline coordinates, hex colors, with nothing to unzip:

 c16fc75741feed85 fr p(80,80) s(480,320) rd(16) "Hero"
-  88625e475868c087 r p(24,24) s(160,100) f[(r1,#F8F8F8)] rd(8) "Panel"
+  88625e475868c087 r p(24,24) s(160,100) f[(r1,#0080FF)] rd(8) "Panel"

You can diff two versions and read the change, branch a design like a feature, and git blame a stray color, and a published Brilliant project is itself a real Git repository with a clone URL. Both formats are open. The narrow, honest difference is that one diffs in Git as it lives on disk and the other has to be unzipped first. Your designs live where your code lives →

Figma, and the way back

Lunacy's strongest interop is Sketch, which it reads and writes natively, and it offers an escape hatch outward by letting you take a .sketch file into Figma or XD. Figma itself is import-only: Lunacy imports .fig files, with Icons8's own caveat that component variants and complex vector shapes may display differently on import, and Figma variables that "won't be functional right away." There's no direct .fig export; the only way back to Figma is through .sketch.

Brilliant imports from Figma by URL, by page, or by node-id subtree, with a published carry-over list and a published list of what doesn't come across, and it also has Send to Figma, so a canvas can round-trip while a team is still deciding which tool to standardize on. It imports .sketch with page selection and SVG as native editable elements too. Coming from Figma →

What Brilliant has that Lunacy doesn't

• Bring your own AI key, with model choice. Six providers plus local endpoints, no vendor between your prompt and the model. Lunacy's AI Chat is hosted with no key of your own.

• A full design-token system. OKLCH ramps, modes, brands, and a resolved file external tools read, versus solid-color variables with no modes, which Icons8 lists as roadmap.

• Component sets with variant properties and slots, where Lunacy's "component states" are a single-axis list.

• Plain-text files that diff in Git without unzipping. .bl is line-oriented text; .free is an open but zipped container.

• Figma interop in both directions. Import by URL, page, or subtree, plus Send to Figma. Lunacy imports .fig only, with no export back.

• A documented, unlimited, write-capable agent surface across seven named clients, versus an MCP documented for Claude Desktop only with no published tool names.

What Lunacy has that Brilliant doesn't

• A genuinely free editor, with no feature gating and paid tiers only on assets, cloud, and seats.

• Native Sketch read-write on Windows and Linux, where Sketch itself won't run.

• Interactive prototyping. Ten triggers, seven actions, and animations. Brilliant is a static canvas today.

• Bundled Icons8 asset libraries and content helpers built into the editor.

• A very low hardware floor, a deliberate product position for older or lighter machines.

Lunacy's .free format is open and MIT-licensed, it reads and writes native .sketch on platforms Sketch can't touch, and it ships prototyping, all of which are real. If a free, cross-platform desktop editor with a Sketch pipeline is what you need, take it.

At a glance

A new dance

Lunacy and Brilliant share more than most pairs in this set: native desktop apps, an open file format, real vector editing, and an agent you can point at the canvas. They split on a short, specific list. Lunacy is the free, cross-platform editor with the best Sketch pipeline going, and if that's the center of your need, it wins cleanly. Brilliant is the agent-native tool with the model bill in your own name, a real design-token system, and files that diff in your Git history exactly as they sit on disk. Concede Lunacy everything it has earned, and the choice comes down to which of those two shapes fits the way you work.

Read the full manifesto to see the rest of the argument, or install Brilliant and try it for yourself.