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.

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.

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.

What replaces Figma

The main alternative

Penpot

🟢 Beginner⏱️ ~5 min to installSave €20/mo

Penpot is not a hobby clone of Figma: the project is ten years old, has over 60,000 stars on GitHub, around three hundred contributors, an MPL-2.0 licence and commits every day. You find what you do in Figma: screens, reusable components, variants, shared libraries, clickable prototypes with interactions and flows, comments, real time collaboration, and design tokens to hold a brand together. The difference comes from a technical choice: Penpot draws in SVG and lays out with Flex and CSS Grid, the same tools the browser uses. 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. Two ways to use it. The online version, penpot.app, has a complete free plan: every feature, no file counter, up to eight team members, unlimited viewers, 10 GB of storage and seven days of history. Or you install it on your own server with Docker, and then nothing is capped. What is missing against Figma: there is no equivalent to the FigJam whiteboard or the latest in house products, the plugin library is smaller, and moving a large existing 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 at €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.

See the full page →See the tool ↗

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, €12/month more

Figma ↗

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, €12/month more
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

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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