What Is Penpot? The Open-Source Design Tool, and Is It Free?

What is Penpot, in short?

Penpot is an open-source design and prototyping tool, and its own site describes it as the open-source design platform for teams building digital products. It is presented as a Figma alternative that you can self-host. The pitch is simple: designers and developers work in the same place, on files built on open web standards rather than a closed format. You open it in a browser, so there is nothing to download to start.

According to Penpot's website, the tool is built for designers, developers and AI agents, with a stated aim of deeper collaboration across design, code and AI workflows. The site highlights an open file format and open standards such as CSS, HTML, SVG and JSON. That emphasis on SVG is a real difference from tools that keep drawings in proprietary formats.

In the directory, Penpot sits in the Design & Creative category and is marked installable, so a supporting browser can offer to add it as an app window. It is not marked as working offline, which matters if you often draw on trains or planes. If you are new to the idea, the Design & Creative hub shows what else is available.

What can you design in Penpot in the browser?

Penpot's site lists UI design first: responsive and rules-based interfaces, wireframes, interactive prototypes, and layouts using CSS Grid and Flex. That means you can lay out a screen the way a front-end developer would build it, rather than only placing fixed boxes on a canvas. Alongside that sits a vector editor for drawing shapes and icons. You can start with a rough wireframe and refine it into a clickable prototype.

For larger projects, the site points to design systems: design components, native design tokens and shared libraries. These let a team define a button or a colour once and reuse it across screens. Penpot also advertises code inspection, where you can inspect and integrate code that, in its words, matches the design, using CSS, HTML, SVG and JSON.

A further part of the pitch is AI. The site invites visitors to try its open MCP Server and says any agent can design in Penpot, with workflows spanning code-to-design, design-to-code and design-to-design. Whether those workflows suit you depends on your tools, so read the site's AI section before relying on them. For plain mockups and prototypes you can ignore them entirely.

Is Penpot free, and where are the current terms?

The official Penpot site shows a Sign up for free button and the line Sign up, it's free, so creating an account at no cost is clearly on offer. As of October 2026 that is the headline; for anything more specific, such as limits on projects or team size, the vendor's pricing page is the place to look.

The site's footer and navigation list a Pricing page, a Contact Sales button, and a Penpot Enterprise section for businesses, which hints that paid options exist for organisations with larger needs. Details of what those include are not something to guess at, so open the pricing page directly and check it on the day you decide, since plans and limits can change.

Free also has a second meaning here: open source. Penpot's site describes itself as an open-source platform and offers a self-host install route, which means the software itself is not locked behind one company's servers. Signing up for free and hosting it yourself are different things, so decide which one you actually want before comparing it with other tools.

What does Penpot not do compared with other design tools?

Comparing tools feature by feature is risky, and this article does not claim that Penpot matches any rival item for item. Figma, for example, presents itself as a collaborative canvas for design, code and AI, with dev tools and its own built-in agent. Both tools talk about design, code and AI together, so the overlap is real, but the details differ.

One clear difference is where the tool can run. Penpot's site offers a self-host install next to its sign-up button, while Figma's front page points to getting started, logging in or contacting sales. A team that wants its design files on its own infrastructure therefore has an offered route with Penpot. If you collaborate with clients who already use Figma, check how files will move between the two before committing.

Penpot is aimed at interface design, not at loose sketching. If you want quick boxes and arrows rather than finished screens, Excalidraw is a free, open-source whiteboard with a hand-drawn feel that works offline, which Penpot is not marked to do. Excalidraw is the wrong choice for high-fidelity UI mockups, though, so use Penpot for the screens and a whiteboard for the thinking that comes before them.

Can you self-host Penpot, and where is its listing?

Self-hosting means running the software on a server you control instead of using the vendor's hosted service. Penpot's site shows a Self-host install link beside its sign-up button, and its Resources menu lists a help centre and release notes. The idea appeals to teams that want ownership of their files, but it also means someone has to look after the server, which is a real ongoing task.

This article deliberately stops at the idea and gives no installation steps. The vendor's own help centre is the right place for current instructions, requirements and upgrade notes, and it will be more reliable than a summary written here. Open it before you plan any rollout, and read the release notes to see what has changed.

To try the hosted version first, open the Penpot listing, which links to the official site and notes that it is free and installable. Compare it with Figma if your team already works there, or browse our related guide, Design & Creative PWAs: Free Browser Design Tools Beyond Photopea, for lighter tools. Pick one real project, such as a single landing page, and build it end to end before judging.

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