Penpot — Free Alternative to Figma Professional

At a glance

GitHub repo

penpot/penpot

GitHub stars

62,268 (checked 11 November 2026)

Licence

MPL-2.0

Main language

Clojure

Replaces

Figma Professional

Paid price it replaces

$16/full seat/month (billed annually; $20/month billed monthly)

Best for

Design teams who want Figma-style collaboration without $16 per seat per month, and developers who want clean SVG/CSS handoff.

Prices were checked on the vendor's pricing page on 11 November 2026 and may have changed since. Star counts are a snapshot from the same date.

What Penpot does

Penpot is an open-source platform for product design teams: interface design, prototyping, design tokens and real-time collaboration, with files exported as standard SVG and CSS that developers can use directly. It runs in the browser, so there is nothing to install to try it, and small teams can use the free cloud version.

The comparison is Figma Professional at $16 per full seat per month billed annually ($20 billed monthly). For a team of five designers that is $80 a month before any other cost. Penpot's open format is the deeper difference: design files are SVG, an open standard, so your work is not stored in a proprietary format that only one company can open.

Self-hosting is the other advantage. Run Penpot on your own server with Docker and you are not exposed to account lockouts or price rises — your files live where you put them. The interface will feel familiar to Figma users: frames, components, auto-layout-style flex layout, and a prototyping mode for clickable flows.

Penpot is not a pixel-perfect Figma clone, and its plugin ecosystem is smaller. But for teams designing interfaces, building a design system and handing clean SVG and CSS to developers, it is the credible free replacement — and the only one in this series where the file format itself is the selling point.

Why it is worth using for free

• Design files are open SVG, not a proprietary format — your work stays portable
• Self-host with Docker, so no account lockout and no surprise price rise
• Real-time collaboration, prototyping, design tokens and clean SVG/CSS export for developers
• Free cloud version is enough for small teams; no per-seat charge

How to use Penpot

Create a free account at penpot.app and design in the browser right away — no install needed. Start with a frame, add components, and prototype a clickable flow.

To self-host, deploy Penpot with Docker following the guide in the repo, then invite your team to your own instance.

Frequently asked questions