When working in Figma, two of the most commonly used tools for organizing elements are Frames and Groups. Although they might appear similar at first glance, they serve distinct purposes and behave differently within your design structure. Understanding the difference between them is essential for building clean, responsive, and scalable designs.
What Is a Group?
A Group in Figma is a simple way to combine multiple layers or elements so they move and scale together. When you group items—like icons, text, and shapes—you can manipulate them as one unit. This is especially helpful for tidying up your layers panel and managing smaller UI elements without affecting their individual properties.
Key features of Groups
- Useful for quick bundling of elements
- Maintains individual element settings (e.g., fills, strokes, text)
- No layout logic or constraints applied by default
- Cannot be nested into Auto Layout or set with scrolling behavior
What Is a Frame?
A Frame, on the other hand, is much more powerful. It acts like a parent container that can include its own layout rules, positioning constraints, and even scroll behavior. Frames are often used as artboards, components, or sections of responsive layouts because they allow designers to define how child elements should behave inside the container.
Key features of Frames
- Support Auto Layout, padding, spacing, and alignment
- Can define constraints for responsive resizing
- Enable scrolling, clipping, and advanced nesting
- Frames can be used as standalone canvases (e.g., mobile screens, cards)
When to Use Each
- Use Groups when:
- You want to keep the layers panel tidy
- You don’t need layout behaviors
- You’re just moving elements together temporarily
- Use Frames when:
- You’re creating components, cards, screens, or responsive layouts
- You need to apply auto layout or constraints
- You want scrollable areas or nested frames
Bonus Tip: Frames Can Replace Groups
In many professional design systems, designers use frames instead of groups for nearly everything. Why? Because frames offer all the flexibility of groups—with the bonus of layout control. If you’re building a UI kit or working with developers, using frames makes your structure more consistent and easier to translate into code.
Summary
If you’re just starting out, think of Groups as lightweight wrappers and Frames as smart containers. As your designs grow in complexity, leaning into Frames will help you build more responsive and organized systems inside Figma.
Designilo 