1. Introduction

Akira’s Purpose

Open Source is about freedom.

Akira is about giving the freedom to designers who want to use Open Source.

I’m a Linux user myself, and I’ve been for years, but I’m the first to admit that the current status of the Linux Desktop, doesn’t allow designers to be productive and competitive in a world dominated by extremely fast, reliable, and modern proprietary applications for MacOS and Windows.

The sole purpose of Akira is to drastically change that.

What does it do?

The main purpose of Akira is to offer a fast and intuitive tool to create Web and Mobile interfaces, more like Sketch, Figma, or Adobe XD, with a completely native experience for Linux.

How is this different from Inkscape, Glade, or QML Editor?

It is drastically different in every aspect, from its purpose, to the different usability approach we're building.

While tools like Glade or Qt Creator are used to generate code and create working user interfaces that use specific toolkits like Gtk or Qt, Akira is a more general tool to design those interfaces before they're implemented - it's used for creating mock-ups, visualizations and vector graphics.

Inkscape is a great vector graphics tool, but it's mostly focused on print design and the user interface isn't ideal. Using Figma or Sketch, shows a different overall approach to the creative workflow, those tools are more intuitive and natural to use compared to Inkscape.

That's what Akira is striving for.