19 Brands Like Muji for Minimalist Lifestyle Essentials
You went in for one notebook. You came out with an acrylic drawer unit, a neck pillow and a bag of cookies you hadn't planned on. Muji does that to people.
The trouble with a shop that sells pens, sofas, shirts and face lotion is that no single aisle gets the brand's full attention. Muji's storage is sharper than its outerwear. Its stationery is sharper than either. These 19 brands like Muji each take one aisle of that shop and go further with it, and every price below comes from the brand's own site, in the currency that site displays.
Muji is the Japanese lifestyle retailer run by Ryohin Keikaku, and its US store covers stationery, homeware, furniture, clothing, beauty and food under one no-logo house style. Entry prices are low: a Polypropylene Cable Case with Stand is $2.90 and a Nylon Mesh Pen Case is $8.90.
Quick comparison. Uniqlo and Everlane cover the wardrobe half of Muji, while IKEA and The Container Store cover cheap storage. Muuto, HAY, Normann Copenhagen, Bolia and Audo Copenhagen make up the Scandinavian design tier, with Vitra and Ligne Roset sitting above them on price. Aesop and L'Artisan Parfumeur handle scent and skin, Simplehuman handles the kitchen bin, and Miniso, H&M Home, Francfranc and Citta are the affordable homeware picks. Herno is the odd one out, an Italian outerwear label with a homeware line attached.
| Brand | Price | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| HAY | From £11 (storage, GBP site) | Muji's storage logic in colour |
| Everlane | $17 to $98 (tops) | The wardrobe half of a Muji habit |
| Normann Copenhagen | Premium | Danish design with an odd streak |
| The Container Store | $0.89 to $119.98 (plastic bins) | Buying storage by the shelf-foot |
| IKEA | $55 to $1,249.99 (chairs) | Furnishing a whole room at once |
| Herno | Premium | One coat you keep for a decade |
| Aesop | $59 to $179 (skincare) | A bathroom shelf you leave on display |
| Miniso | Budget | Cheap desk bits with cartoon characters |
| Bolia | Premium (no US prices published) | A sofa you configure yourself |
| Francfranc | From ¥2,000 (ships in Japan only) | Japanese homeware with colour in it |
| Muuto | £225 to £1,049 (dining chairs) | One design chair, bought properly |
| H&M Home | Budget | Restocking linen and ceramics cheaply |
| Citta | $115 to $155 NZD (cushion covers) | Softer, warmer minimalism |
| Simplehuman | $35 to $160 (bins) | The kitchen things you touch daily |
| Vitra | Premium | Design classics, bought once |
| Ligne Roset | Premium | French upholstery, seen in person |
| Uniqlo | $7.90 to $29.90 (tees and socks) | Muji's clothing, with more colours |
| L'Artisan Parfumeur | $265 to $330 (perfume) | Scent, when the diffuser stops being enough |
| Audo Copenhagen | $215 to $1,165 (lighting and seating) | Warm Danish minimalism |
HAY
HAY is the Danish design brand that takes Muji's storage thinking and runs it in colour, with boxes, trays and desk organisers alongside furniture and lighting. The company is registered in Horsens, Denmark, and its own site describes it as part of the MillerKnoll collective.
Storage is the closest overlap. HAY's Colour Storage line starts from £11, the Colour Storage Jewellery Box is from £25.00 and the Colour Storage Tissue Box is from £16.00, all shown in pounds on hay.com.
Here's the catch worth knowing before you click. Hay.com is a catalogue rather than a shop: pick the USA and the prices disappear, replaced by a "find store" link. HAY's own US address sends you to Design Within Reach instead, so buying it in America means going through a stockist and paying that stockist's price.
Best for: Muji's storage logic with the colour turned up.
Everlane
Everlane covers the clothing half of Muji and nothing else, selling plain cotton basics in the same short palette. The Box-Cut Tee in Essential Cotton is $38.00 and The Tank in Essential Cotton is $17.00, which undercuts most of what Muji charges for the equivalent shape.
Fabric detail sits on the product page rather than in a footer. Everlane states that its organic cotton styles use "organic cotton" outright and ties the choice to lower water use, and it filters by Supima and Tencel across the range.
Move up the shirting and prices climb fast. The Must-Have Oxford Shirt is $59.00 and The Boxy Oxford is $98.00 for a similar amount of cloth, so the cut you pick matters more here than the fabric does. We line it up against its own alternatives in brands like Everlane.
Best for: Plain tees and oxfords when Muji's clothing range runs thin.
Normann Copenhagen
Normann Copenhagen makes Danish furniture, lighting and homeware with a stranger silhouette than Muji ever attempts, and it sits at the premium end of this list. Think curved plastic and lacquered steel where Muji uses birch ply and polypropylene.
One caveat. The brand's site sat behind a bot check every time we tried it, so we couldn't read current prices off the page and won't guess at them. Treat the tier as the guide and check the figure yourself before you commit.
Best for: Danish design when plain has started to feel too plain.
The Container Store
The Container Store sells the acrylic-drawer end of Muji at American warehouse scale, with 153 products in plastic bins and baskets alone. The 20 gal. Clear Weathertight Trunk is $25.79, reduced from $42.99, and the 103 qt. Weathertight Tote with Wheels runs $17.99 to $22.79.
Plastic bins across that category start at $0.89 and top out at $119.98, so you can kit out a garage or a single desk drawer without changing shops. The retailer now sits alongside Bed Bath & Beyond and Kirkland's under Beyond Inc., which shows up as a brand bar across the top of its site.
Best for: Buying storage by the shelf-foot rather than the piece.
IKEA
IKEA shares Muji's flat-pack pragmatism and beats it on scale, price and how much of the room you can finish in one trip. The SKÅLSTA Chair is $55.00 and the RAMSNÄS Chair in anthracite with Vissle dark grey is $100.00.
Chairs on that page span $55.00 to $1,249.99, which tells you what IKEA does that Muji doesn't: it carries the whole ladder, from a plastic stacking seat to an upholstered armchair, under one roof.
The finish is where Muji keeps its edge. IKEA's cheaper pieces lean on foil-wrapped particleboard, and next to Muji's oak and steel that reads as the compromise it was meant to be.
Best for: Furnishing a whole room in an afternoon.
Herno
Herno is the Italian outerwear house for anyone who likes Muji's clean coat shapes but wants the version that lasts a decade, and it also runs Herno Habita, a homeware line covering tableware, décor and baskets. Its product pages assert "Made in Italy" and list treatments such as "water-repellent treatment" on the technical pieces.
Pricing depends where you sit. On a UK-served session the Shirt in Tropical Wool showed at £319 and a Coat in New Linen at £725, down from £1,035. Herno sets currency by region and we couldn't force a US view, so we don't trust any dollar figure for Herno and we've left it out.
Note the domain too. Herno.it redirects to herno.com, and herno.com is the one to link and buy from.
Best for: One coat, bought once, worn for years.
Aesop
Aesop makes botanical skincare and hand wash in amber bottles with typographic labels, which is the closest anyone gets to Muji's bathroom shelf at a premium price. Both brands treat packaging as something you leave out rather than hide in a cupboard.
Prices sit well above Muji's. Parsley Seed Anti-Oxidant Intense Serum is $95.00 for 2 fl.oz., with a refill at $93.00, and Resolute Facial Concentrate is $179.00. Purifying Facial Exfoliant Paste at $59.00 is the cheapest way to find out whether the texture suits you.
Best for: A bathroom shelf you're happy to leave on display.
Miniso
Miniso is the budget answer to Muji, a Guangzhou-based lifestyle retailer selling stationery, home goods, beauty and toys at the cheapest prices on this list. Its own site claims more than 7,700 stores across 112 markets, and it points US shoppers to its e-shop at miniso-us.com.
The character licences are the difference. Miniso leans hard on collaborations with Harry Potter, PEANUTS, One Piece and Chiikawa, plus blind boxes and plush, so the shelf reads playful where Muji reads blank. If the no-logo part of Muji is what you love, this one will grate.
We also couldn't get a price to render on the US site's product pages, so treat the budget tier as the guide.
Best for: Cheap desk and bag bits, cartoon characters included.
Bolia
Bolia sells premium Danish furniture built around configuration, so a sofa such as Lomi, Cosima or Noora comes as a family of shapes and fabrics rather than one fixed product. That's a different proposition from Muji's single-option approach, and it's why people end up spending an evening on the configurator.
Bolia's US site trades but prints no prices on its category pages, so there's no US figure to quote here. Its UK store does publish them once you filter to a single product family: the Acorn portable lamp is £199 and the Ø32cm table lamp £789, both in FSC-certified oiled oak with opal glass. Read those as the shape of the range, not as US pricing.
Best for: A sofa you specify yourself instead of taking as-is.
Francfranc
Francfranc is the Japanese homeware chain that does what Muji won't: colour, pattern and some gloss, across interiors, furniture and kitchen bits. Its Ceramic Bag Flower Vase runs ¥2,000 in the small size and ¥3,500 in the medium.
The limitation is plain, and it's a hard one. Francfranc's terms of service state that delivery is within Japan only, so this isn't a store you can order from abroad no matter how the checkout looks. The site runs in Japanese and prices in yen, tax included. Treat it as a list for your next trip, filed next to a Muji flagship.
Best for: Japanese homeware with the colour left in.
Muuto
Muuto is a Copenhagen design brand selling seating, tables, shelving, lighting and accessories, and it's where Muji's plain shapes go when they get a designer's name and a twenty-year warranty on taste. The Fiber Side Chair with a tube base showed at £225,00 and the Cover Armchair at £449,00.
Dining chairs span £225,00 to £1.049,00, labelled on the site as recommended retail price including VAT. Currency follows your location, so a US visitor sees a different figure and should check it before ordering.
Best for: One design chair, bought properly, kept for years.
H&M Home
H&M Home is the homeware arm of H&M, and it's the cheapest way to put linen, ceramics and neutral textiles into a room that already looks like a Muji catalogue. Bedding, cushions and small storage are the overlap.
Two things to flag. The brand's name is written correctly here as H&M Home, since older versions of this article carried a mangled rendering of it. And H&M's site blocked every automated request we made, so we've quoted no prices and stuck to the budget tier.
Best for: Restocking bedding and ceramics without much thought.
Citta
Citta is the New Zealand homewares brand founded by Margot Acland in 1989, now running ten stores from a Mt Eden base in Auckland, and it brings a softer, warmer version of the pared-back look. The Carnaby Cushion Cover is $115.00 NZD and the Fine Striped Linen Cushion Cover is $155.00 NZD.
Textiles are the strong suit: cushions, bed linen, rugs and towels in earthy tones, with furniture and lighting alongside. Citta also stocks other brands, Vitra among them, which makes it a useful single stop.
Worth knowing that the brand dropped "Design" from its name, so the old cittadesign.com now redirects to citta.com. Prices show in New Zealand dollars.
Best for: Minimalism with warmth rather than chill.
Simplehuman
Simplehuman applies Muji's fixation on everyday function to the objects you touch most in a kitchen: bins, soap pumps, mirrors and dish racks. The 4.5L Round Step Can is $35.00 and the 45L Semi-Round Sensor Can is $160.00.
Sensors are what you pay for. The Sensor Pump Dish is $120.00 in brushed steel at 14 fl.oz., or $100.00 in the 9 fl.oz. size, against $12.00 for a dish soap refill bottle, so the running cost stays modest once the hardware is bought.
This is the one brand here that costs more than Muji for a plainer-looking object, and it earns that on mechanism rather than looks. If a bin lid that closes slowly doesn't move you, skip it.
Best for: The kitchen objects you use twenty times a day.
Vitra
Vitra is the Swiss furniture company that produces the design classics Muji spent forty years quoting from, and it prices accordingly. Chairs and accessories here are the originals rather than the interpretation.
Vitra's site returned a bot challenge on every page we requested, so no price or product detail below the brand level is verified and we've published none. Città lists Vitra among the brands it stocks, which is one route in if the direct site fights you too.
For the wider case on buying few, expensive, plain things, see our quiet luxury brand picks.
Best for: Design classics bought once, in the original.
Ligne Roset
Ligne Roset is the French furniture house behind sofas, armchairs and glassware with more curve and more upholstery than anything Muji makes, and its own site dates the family business to 1860 with production in the Bugey area of Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes.
Its US category pages are well stocked, with 98 armchairs and 80 vases and bowls listed, though the Sandra Armchair is marked in-store only and points you at a dealer.
Now the awkward part. Ligne Roset publishes no prices at all on its US site, and the product pages show placeholder zeros, so any dollar figure you read elsewhere for a Ligne Roset piece didn't come from the brand. Budget for a showroom visit.
Best for: French upholstery you want to sit in before buying.
Uniqlo
Uniqlo is Muji's closest counterpart in clothing, another Japanese retailer built on plain, functional staples, with a far wider colour range and its own fabric technologies in HEATTECH and PUFFTECH. HEATTECH Socks are $7.90 and a PEANUTS UT Graphic T-Shirt is $29.90.
The graphic tee range is the clearest split between the two. Muji keeps its chest blank as a matter of principle, while Uniqlo licenses artists and characters by the hundred, so you can shop it either way.
Uniqlo's site blocks automated readers on some paths, which is a bot wall rather than a sign of trouble. Our full list of alternatives sits in brands like Uniqlo.
Best for: Muji's clothing philosophy with more colours and warmer fabrics.
L'Artisan Parfumeur
L'Artisan Parfumeur is a French fragrance house selling perfume and home scent, and it's where Muji's essential-oil diffuser habit goes once a room spray stops being enough. The bottles carry the same restraint Muji applies to its packaging, at a premium price.
The house has been running since 1976, when Jean Laporte founded it in France. Mûre et Musc Extrême is $265.00 for 100ml and Abyssae is $330.00 for 75ml. Sample before you commit, because niche fragrance is the least returnable thing on this list.
Best for: Scent, when the diffuser has stopped doing the job.
Audo Copenhagen
Audo Copenhagen is the Danish design brand that used to trade as MENU, selling furniture, lighting and home décor in a warmer, softer register than most Scandinavian minimalism. The Mauro Dining Chair is $475.00, the Carrie Portable Lamp is $215.00 and The Penguin Wooden Lounge Chair is $1,165.00.
The furniture collection lists 89 products, so this is a real catalogue rather than a handful of hero pieces. The brand runs Audo House in Copenhagen as its hub and is part of the Flos B&B Italia Group.
If you're updating an old bookmark, note that menu.as no longer resolves and menuspace.com now redirects to audocph.com. The name on the label changed, not the design team's instincts.
Best for: Danish minimalism with the chill taken out of it.
Where to Start, Depending on What You Buy at Muji
Work backwards from the aisle you raid most. If it's the acrylic drawers and the polypropylene boxes, The Container Store and IKEA cover that ground cheaper and deeper, and HAY does it with colour if you can buy through a stockist. If it's the linen shirts and the plain tees, Uniqlo is the closest match on price and Everlane on cut.
If it's the bathroom shelf, Aesop and L'Artisan Parfumeur are the upgrade, and both cost several times what Muji charges. And if you're furnishing rather than restocking, the Danish tier of Muuto, Audo Copenhagen, Normann Copenhagen and Bolia sits between IKEA and the Vitra end of the market.
One practical warning across the whole list: several of these brands price in a currency other than dollars, publish no prices at all, or ship only within their home market. Francfranc is the strictest case, delivering inside Japan only. Check the figure and the shipping page before you fall for anything. More picks in the same register sit in our minimalist brand guide.
If you purchase through our links, we may receive a commission. Our editorial team is independent and only endorses brands we believe in.
Written by
Spencer Lanoue
