Penpot is the only truly open-source design and prototyping tool that is both free to use in the cloud and fully self-hostable. It was built by the team at Kaleidos and is written entirely on open web standards — SVG for rendering, CSS for styling, and standard web fonts — which means files are portable and not locked into a proprietary binary format.
The cloud version at penpot.app is free with no usage caps, no watermarks, and no “free tier” limitations that nudge you toward a paid plan. Teams of any size can collaborate in real-time without paying anything. For organisations that need full control over their data, the self-hosted Docker-based installation is well-documented and actively maintained.
Penpot’s feature set covers the core design workflow: vector editing, reusable components, constraints-based layout, prototype flows with transitions, and CSS code inspection. The plugin ecosystem is newer and smaller than Figma’s, but it is growing rapidly following the release of the Penpot Plugin API in 2024.
