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Penpot

The free alternative toFigma

🟢 Beginner⏱️ ~5 min to installYou save €20/mo

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.

Screenshot of Penpot, the free open source alternative to Figma
GitHub stars62,115
View on GitHub ↗

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)

Figma ↗

How to install it (even from zero)

The simplest path: a free account on penpot.app, nothing to install, every feature unlocked. If you want your files on your own machine or server, the prompt also does the Docker install.

  1. 1

    Paste this prompt into Claude (Code or Desktop)

    It asks whether you stay online or host it yourself, then walks you through your first mockup:

    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.
  2. 2

    Start with a fresh project

    Moving a big Figma file over rarely goes well. Build your next mockup straight in Penpot and judge from there.

  3. 3

    Invite your developer

    They read the CSS of every element without a paid seat. That is where Penpot saves a small team the most money.

What you actually do with it

Your mockups without a file counter

Figma's free plan stops at three files. Here you open as many projects as you want, with every feature.

Design that already speaks code

Flex and CSS Grid instead of a bespoke system: what you place on screen, the developer finds in their stylesheet.

A design system nobody can shut down

Components, variants, colour and typography tokens, hosted at home if you want. No vendor can change the rules.

Project health, at a glance

Before installing an open-source tool, one question matters: is the project alive? These scores are computed from public GitHub data. They are not made up.

99/100

Excellent

Very active, well-maintained project: go ahead with confidence.

Activity
100

Is the code moving? (commits in the last 30 days)

Maintenance
100

How fresh is the latest update? Fresher is better.

Community
97

Stars and contributors: people around means help and fixes.

Maturity
100

Project age. Old enough to be solid, still alive.

Momentum
100

Current pace versus its usual pace: speeding up or dozing off?

The repo in numbers

GitHub stars
62.1k
Forks
4.4k
Contributors
322
Commits
24.6k
Project age
10.9 yrs
Last commit
today
Size
427.8 MB
License
MPL-2.0

Built with

  • Clojure 73.6%
  • JavaScript 6.8%
  • Rust 6.6%
  • TypeScript 5.8%
  • SCSS 3.2%

Scores computed automatically from the GitHub API (last-30-days activity, update freshness, community size, project age). Refreshed daily.

Loucash’s take

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.

It’s for you if: 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.

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