Orbit · Explore

Web Dev · by Khalid Al Zahrani · 2026-10-16

Design systems: worth building in-house?

Our in-house system took a year and two people. Adopting an open source one would've been faster, but customization hurts.

43 sparks · 15 comments

Comments

Rapid Coder · 2 likes

I think design systems sound simple until you try building one with real constraints.

Cozy Sparrow · 12 likes

fair, but I'd still try it once

Olena Shevchenko · 10 likes

this. so much this

Lucas Silva · 2 likes

We tried design systems last quarter, worked great for small stuff, got messy at scale

Avery Johnson · 2 likes

Yeah, it got messy at scale for us too.

Emir Kaya · 1 likes

Would love to see actual data on design systems instead of vibes. Anyone have links

Theo Bennett · 1 likes

My manager read one article on design systems and now it's our whole roadmap lol

Imogen Clarke · 4 likes

Yeah, roadmap by article.

Lucas Silva · 0 likes

agree mostly, though not for every case

Mateo Ramírez · 1 likes

As someone who does this for a living, the biggest cost with design systems is the stuff nobody puts in the demo

Sofía Hernández · 10 likes

lol my cat has stronger opinions on it than I do

Quiet Sparrow · 0 likes

The beginner friendly path for design systems is way better than a year ago, that part is underrated!

Jiho Lee · 0 likes

Is anyone else tired of the hype around design systems, feels like every other post is about it :)

Rohan Mehta · 0 likes

Fair enough

Emma Tremblay · 0 likes

Yeah, the hype gets tiring.