Free alternative
Free alternative to Figma
Figma costs €20 a month. Penpot does the same job for free, in open source: you install it on your machine or a small server, and you stop paying.
Public entry price, taken from Figma’s website (figma.com). Over a year, that is €240 that stays in your pocket.
How much does Figma cost in 2026?
Figma’s public plans, checked on 7 October 2026 on figma.com.
Starter
€0
Unlimited drafts, but no more than 3 Figma Design files in the team space, and up to 500 AI credits a month.
Professional
€20 a month
Per Full seat, with 3,000 AI credits a month. Dev seat €15, Collab seat €5. €16 a month billed yearly.
Organization
€55 a month, billed yearly
Per Full seat, with 3,500 AI credits a month. Dev seat €25, Collab seat €5.
Enterprise
€90 a month, billed yearly
Per Full seat, with 4,250 AI credits a month. Dev seat €35, Collab seat €5.
Prices in euros shown for France. See the official pricing page ↗
What replaces Figma
The main alternative
Penpot
Penpot is the open source alternative to Figma. You get reusable components, variants, shared libraries, clickable prototypes, real time collaboration and design tokens. Penpot draws in SVG and lays out with Flex and CSS Grid, just like the browser: a mockup built properly comes out as code your developer recognises, and code inspection is open to everyone, while Figma charges a Dev seat for it. Online, the penpot.app free plan gives you every feature, up to eight team members, 10 GB of storage and seven days of history. On your own server with Docker, nothing is capped. Before leaving Figma: no FigJam equivalent, fewer plugins, and moving a large Figma file over is not a simple copy and paste.
Loucash’s verdict on Penpot
8/10
It is the most upvoted suggestion in the library, and it holds up. Penpot is no garage project: ten years old, 60,000 stars, three hundred contributors, updates every three weeks. For a freelancer or a small team, the free online plan has no catch: every feature, as many files as you want, while Figma's free plan stops you at three. What I find clever: the choice of SVG and CSS Grid. Your mockup is no longer a picture the developer has to guess at, it is a layout they find again in their browser. And code inspection is open to everyone, while Figma sells it as a Dev seat from €12 a month. What may bite: on a very heavy file, Penpot stays less snappy than Figma. The plugin library is thinner. There is no FigJam style whiteboard. And if you have three years of Figma files behind you, moving over is not a simple import: plan on rebuilding rather than converting.
Who it is for: You design alone or in a small team, you pay Figma mostly to get past the three free files, and you work with a developer. If your team lives in FigJam and in plugins, keep Figma.
Penpot versus Figma: the match
Price
Penpot
€0 online, every feature included
Figma
€20/month per seat, €16 yearly
Number of files
Penpot
Unlimited, only your storage counts
Figma
Three files on the free plan
Reading a mockup's code
Penpot
Open to everyone
Figma
Dev seat, €15/month (€12 yearly)
| VS | Penpot | Figma ↗ |
|---|---|---|
| Price | €0 online, every feature included | €20/month per seat, €16 yearly |
| Number of files | Unlimited, only your storage counts | Three files on the free plan |
| Reading a mockup's code | Open to everyone | Dev seat, €15/month (€12 yearly) |
| Prototypes and components | Yes, with variants and shared libraries | Yes |
| Layout | Flex and CSS Grid, what the browser actually uses | In house auto layout |
| Where your files live | Their cloud, or your server with Docker | Figma's cloud |
| FigJam style whiteboard | No equivalent | Yes, as an extra |
The prompt that installs Penpot
Paste this prompt into Claude: it checks the repository, asks you its questions and installs the tool step by step.
Je veux passer de Figma à Penpot (l'outil de design open source, dépôt GitHub penpot/penpot, site penpot.app). Demande-moi d'abord si je veux utiliser la version en ligne gratuite sur penpot.app (plan Professional à 0 euro, toutes les fonctions, jusqu'à huit membres d'équipe, 10 Go de stockage) ou l'héberger moi-même avec Docker, et explique-moi ce que je gagne et ce que je perds dans chaque cas. Pour l'auto-hébergement, guide-moi pas à pas avec le docker-compose officiel de la documentation Penpot, en me disant ce qu'il faut comme machine, comment régler l'envoi des mails et comment sauvegarder mes fichiers. Ensuite, fais-moi créer un premier projet : une maquette d'écran, un composant réutilisable, un prototype cliquable avec deux écrans reliés, et montre-moi comment un développeur lit le code CSS de ma maquette. Explique-moi enfin comment reprendre mes fichiers Figma existants et ce qui passe mal dans cette reprise. Review the GitHub repository and check whether it is safe to install given my machine and my infrastructure. Ask me as many questions as possible, using widgets, to clarify my request and be as precise as you can.
Frequently asked questions
- How much does Figma cost?
- Starter: €0; Professional: €20 a month; Organization: €55 a month, billed yearly; Enterprise: €90 a month, billed yearly. Prices checked on 7 October 2026 on figma.com.
- Is Figma free?
- Partly, with limits. Unlimited drafts, but no more than 3 Figma Design files in the team space, and up to 500 AI credits a month. Beyond that, the Professional plan costs €20 a month. Penpot does the same thing for free, in open source.
- Is Penpot really free?
- Yes. Penpot is open source: the code is public and installing it costs nothing. At most you pay for hosting if you put it on a server, often a few euros a month. Figma, on the other hand, costs €20 a month.
- Do I need to code to install Penpot?
- No. The level is beginner and the install takes about 5 minutes with the prompt from the page: Claude does the work, you answer its questions.
- How is it different from Figma?
- Penpot does most of what Figma does, without a subscription, and your data stays with you. The point by point comparison is on the page.
- Do I own my data?
- Yes. With an open source tool installed on your side, your files stay on your machine or your server. Nobody can close your account or change the price.
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