Figma auto layout: responsive spacing finally lands with Between, Around and Evenly

What this auto layout update actually changes

Figma just announced an update that looks minor on the surface but turns out to be remarkably useful day to day: auto spacing in auto layout gains two new behaviors. Until now, there was only one default logic, quietly renamed "Between" in this update. It remains unchanged: equal spacing between elements, nothing on the edges.

Two new options join this mode:

• Around: equal spacing between each element, with half that space repeated on each edge of the container.
• Evenly: every gap is strictly identical, edges included, no exceptions.

Nothing revolutionary on paper. But in practice, these are exactly the three values offered by the CSS justify-content property in flexbox (space-between, space-around, space-evenly). Figma is not reinventing anything here: it is finally aligning its vocabulary and behavior with the code that actually runs interfaces.

Why this detail is not just a detail

Anyone who has ever mocked up a card grid, a tag list or a navigation bar knows how quickly manual spacing turns into a headache. Adding or removing an element meant recalculating margins by hand, or hacking together invisible spacers to fake an even distribution effect. It was not just a waste of time: it was also a source of errors and inconsistencies between Figma screens and the final browser render.

By faithfully replicating CSS behavior, Figma closes a gap that has existed for years between the designer's intent and the developer's reality. An "Around" spacing in Figma now behaves exactly like an "Around" spacing in CSS. No more rough translation, no more "close enough".

One more step toward designs that already think in code

This announcement fits into a deeper trend at Figma: bringing the design tool ever closer to the real constraints of development. We already saw this with the recent updates around motion and shaders, where Figma is working to shrink the gap between what gets designed and what actually runs in a browser. Responsive spacing follows the same logic, at an even more fundamental level: the layout itself.

For a team working with a Design System, this kind of terminological and functional alignment carries value well beyond simple convenience. It means less documentation needed to explain "what the designer meant", and less interpretation required on the handoff side.

{{webdesign}}

Mazette.co's take

At Mazette.co, we use Figma every day, on every Webflow project. And honestly, this is the kind of update we had been waiting for. It is not a feature that will make headlines, but it is exactly the kind of improvement that changes a day's work.

In concrete terms, Webflow also relies on the same flexbox foundations. Spacing set to "Evenly" in Figma translates almost literally into distribute in Webflow. Less ambiguity, less back-and-forth between design and handoff, fewer "that is not quite what it looked like on screen" moments. For an agency living between these two tools every day, that is a real gain in fluidity, not just a gimmick.

We also appreciate the philosophy behind this announcement: Figma is not trying to impose its own vocabulary, it is adopting the web's. It is a sign of maturity moving in the right direction, that of a design tool that fully accepts its ultimate mission is to produce interfaces that work in code, not just mockups that create an illusion. If you want to see how we put this kind of nuance to work in our own process, take a look at our method or our Webflow expertise.