Figma Alternatives: Penpot vs Figma for Collaborative UI Design
Choose Figma if your team wants the smoothest UI design tool with huge plugin support. Choose Penpot if you want an open source Figma alternative that respects open standards, costs less, and works well for designers and developers.
Penpot vs Figma in plain English
Figma is the popular kid at design school. Everyone knows it. Everyone has a plugin for it. Your product manager has probably left a comment in it at 11:48 p.m.
Penpot is the clever open source cousin. It is less flashy in some places. But it is flexible, friendly to developers, and built around real web standards.
Both tools help teams design apps, websites, dashboards, design systems, and clickable prototypes. Both run in the browser. Both support real time collaboration. Both let people point at screens and say, “Can we make the button pop more?”
That last part may cause mild eye twitching.
Quick comparison
| Feature | Figma | Penpot |
|---|---|---|
| Best for | Fast product design at scale | Open source design and developer friendly teams |
| Price | Free plan, paid team plans | Free cloud plan, self hosting option |
| Collaboration | Excellent | Very good |
| Plugins | Huge library | Smaller ecosystem |
| Code friendly | Good | Very good, especially with SVG |
Where Figma wins
Figma feels polished. That is its biggest strength. Open a file, invite a teammate, drag a card, add a comment, and move on. It rarely feels confusing.
The collaboration is excellent. You can see other people moving around the file. You can follow their cursor. You can leave comments on exact parts of a design. It feels like Google Docs for interface design.
Figma also has a giant community. Need icons? There is a plugin. Need charts? Plugin. Need fake user names? Plugin. Need a tiny cat to judge your layout? Probably plugin.
This matters for busy teams. A designer can build a mobile app flow in the morning. A product manager can comment after lunch. A developer can inspect spacing and colors before the day ends.
Figma’s strengths include:
- Very smooth real time editing.
- A massive plugin and template library.
- Strong prototyping tools.
- Great design system support.
- Easy sharing with clients and teammates.
The catch is the price can creep up. One seat is fine. Ten seats are fine. Then someone adds Dev Mode, another team joins, and suddenly the monthly bill has gained confidence.
Where Penpot wins
Penpot is open source. That is not just a cool badge. It means teams can inspect it, improve it, and host it themselves. For schools, public groups, tiny startups, and privacy focused teams, that is a big deal.
Penpot also uses SVG as a core format. SVG is a real web standard. Developers like this because the design is closer to what the browser understands.
If your team has strong front end developers, Penpot can feel refreshing. Designers still get visual tools. Developers get cleaner handoff ideas. Nobody has to pretend that a mystery rectangle named “Group 582 copy final final” is fine.
Penpot’s strengths include:
- Free and open source roots.
- Self hosting for more control.
- SVG based design files.
- Good collaboration features.
- No vendor lock in feeling.
Honestly, it feels like Penpot was made for teams that got tired of renting every part of their workflow. You can still use the cloud version. Or you can run it on your own setup.
Collaboration: who makes teamwork easier?
Figma wins here for pure comfort. It has had years to smooth the rough edges. Comments, mentions, permissions, sharing, live cursors, and team files all feel mature.
Penpot is not far behind. You can work with teammates in the same file. You can share designs. You can collect feedback. For many teams, that is enough.
Still, Figma has the edge when lots of non designers are involved. Marketing, sales, support, founders, clients, and that one person who only writes “make it cleaner” all know how to use it.
Penpot works best when the team is a little more technical. Or when the team values control over perfect polish.
Design systems and components
Both tools support reusable design pieces. Think buttons, cards, inputs, headers, modals, and icons. This keeps your app from looking like five raccoons designed it in separate rooms.
Figma is stronger for large design systems. Variants, libraries, styles, and shared components are easier to manage. Big product teams love this.
Penpot also supports components and shared libraries. It is good for many use cases. But Figma still feels smoother when a system gets huge.
If your company has hundreds of screens and many designers, Figma is safer. If you have a smaller system and want more control, Penpot is a strong pick.
Prototyping and testing
Figma has excellent prototyping. You can create flows, overlays, transitions, hover states, and clickable demos. It is easy to send a link to a client.
Penpot also supports interactive prototypes. You can link screens and test user journeys. It works well for basic and mid level flows.
Figma wins if your prototypes need to feel close to a real app. Penpot works well if you need to explain structure, flow, and core actions.
Handoff to developers
This is where the fight gets spicy.
Figma has strong inspect tools. Developers can check spacing, colors, typography, assets, and CSS hints. But some features sit behind paid plans. That can annoy teams.
Penpot feels more developer friendly at its core. Its SVG focus helps. Its open format helps. Self hosting also helps when your company has strict rules.
It drives me crazy that handoff can become a pricing puzzle. Design specs should not feel like a locked drawer. Penpot gets points for keeping that spirit more open.
Pricing and ownership
Figma has a free plan, but serious teams often move to paid plans. That is normal. The tool is strong. But costs grow with seats and features.
Penpot is free to use in many cases. Its cloud option is easy to start with. Its self hosted option is great for teams that want ownership and privacy.
For a small startup, this can matter. Saving $100 to $300 per month may pay for hosting, user testing, or a very necessary pizza budget.
Which one should you pick?
Pick Figma if:
- Your team wants the most polished tool.
- You rely on plugins every day.
- You work with many clients or non designers.
- You manage a large design system.
- You need advanced prototyping.
Pick Penpot if:
- You want an open source design tool.
- You care about self hosting.
- You work closely with developers.
- You prefer open file formats.
- You want to reduce tool costs.
Final verdict
Figma is the best default choice for most collaborative UI design teams. It is fast, familiar, and packed with helpful features.
Penpot is the best Figma alternative for teams that want freedom, open source values, and developer friendly design files.
If you want the smoothest ride, use Figma. If you want more control and fewer closed doors, try Penpot. Either way, your buttons will still need better labels. Sorry.
