Figma is hard to replace, and for many professional design teams, there’s no reason to try. It’s super fast and collaborative, and it’s deeply embedded into most modern design workflows. Even as a solo designer, Figma used to be my go-to. But I’ve been gradually moving my graphics tools and productivity stack off the cloud, which is where Penpot comes in.

It’s a self-hosted and open-source design app that’s almost a mirror of Figma, but with a few key differences. Beyond the control and ownership factor of using Penpot on your own server, it also gives you more to work with on the free plan and uses open standard formats.

However, Penpot isn’t a drop-in replacement for every design scenario. And switching to a self-hosted setup is hardly ever a frictionless experience. These are some of the reasons why Penpot might not be a good fit for you…

What exactly is Penpot?

The self-hostable Figma alternative

Penpot is an open-source design and prototyping tool primarily built for UI and UX work. When you first open it, it looks and behaves a lot like Figma: you design on a canvas, the layers, tools, and property panels are in the same places, you work with frames and components, and you build interactive prototypes for interfaces and flows. The biggest difference is in how it’s built and distributed.

The hosted version runs in your browser, but it’s also fully self-hostable, so you can deploy it on your own server and completely own your data. It’s built on open web technologies and uses SVG as its native format, which makes designs more portable and easier to integrate with other tools.

It supports components, shared libraries, grids, constraints, versioning, and real-time collaboration, which covers most of the UX workflow. For developers, it also includes inspections and export features for handoff, all without keeping you in a proprietary format.

So far, it’s served me well as a solo designer, and it’s also capable of accommodating professional teams. However, there will be a few trade-offs that might not make switching from Figma to Penpot worth it…

Penpot doesn’t have a built-in whiteboard

You have to download the whiteboard kit separately

One of the biggest benefits of keeping your design workflow in Figma is the tight integration with its whiteboard offerings, namely FigJam. It’s a whiteboarding tool for the early stages of design that involves things like user research, user flows, information architecture, and general brainstorming. And it can be used inside right alongside your Figma design projects.

Penpot does have a whiteboard kit, but it needs to be downloaded separately, which adds extra steps before use or collaboration is possible. The shapes also aren’t pregrouped, so you’ll have to manually combine elements to create things like sticky notes. FigJam is overall just more polished and user-ready, all you need to do is open the tool and you have whiteboard-specific tools at your disposal right away.

The collab features

Figma has more collaboration depth

Penpot supports real-time collaboration and multiple users can edit the same project simultaneously, but its commenting system and feedback loop aren’t as refined or integrated into review workflows.

Figma’s real-time collaboration features, on the other hand, are more expansive and integrative. You can comment anywhere on the canvas, and it also supports threaded and nested comments, so feedback can get extremely specific. Plus, it lets you resolve comments to clear up active comments from view.

Furthermore, Figma lets you tag specific team members in comments and lets you see the full comment history in the side panel. And although a paywalled feature, dev handoff is also more mature and feature-rich. Overall, Figma is still the better option for teams.

Of course, you can get by with Penpot’s collaboration offerings, but you’ll need some external tools to log comments, names, changes, and so on.

Figma still has superior prototyping features

Penpot doesn’t quite measure up

Figma’s prototyping tools give designers more flexibility and realism than Penpot currently offers. The Smart Animate system lets you control motion between states with multiple easing options, which makes movement look natural to the human eye, whereas Penpot’s animation options are a bit simplistic in comparison.

Penpot’s Flex Layout does apply inside prototypes, but Figma’s Auto Layout is more tightly coupled with variants and animation. This lets layout changes respond automatically during interactions instead of requiring you to manually change them in all their states.

Penpot is the right tool under certain conditions

Penpot is great for solo users, first and foremost, because you don’t have to worry about inviting anyone to your server. But things get a little more complicated once you’re working as part of a team. This is where Figma still takes the lead - it has superior collaboration features meant for teams that need to move fast with as little friction as possible. Real-time co-editing is smoother, comments and cursors are more responsive, and features like shared libraries and permissions are built around a multi-designer workflow.

Penpot also doesn’t have the same plugin ecosystem or complementary tools like Figma has with FigJam. Being able to use the whiteboard without any additional setup right next to your designs is critical for serious or fast-paced design work. Moreover, Figma still has better prototyping functionality. Penpot isn’t a bad choice by any means, but there will be some trade-offs.