Penpot
Depends
Confidence: Medium
Buy if you want a free or self-hosted design tool and can accept rougher edges than Figma.
Comparison
Penpot vs Figma
Penpot and Figma both land on Depends.
Figma
Depends
Confidence: High
Buy it if you are a product or design team building user interfaces together every week . it is the category standard and the free tier is genuinely usable.
| Compare | Penpot | Figma |
|---|---|---|
| Verdict | Depends | Depends |
| Best for | Startups dodging per-seat design bills | Product and UX teams shipping software who design together daily |
| Who it's not for | Teams already fluent in Figma | Solo freelancers or small teams that only need occasional simple mockups . a paid seat plan here is overkill; Penpot, Balsamiq, or even a template will do |
| Privacy | Active 2026 CVE record . including a critical MCP remote code execution . though the vendor publishes a security whitepaper and supports self-hosting.10 | Figma advertises SOC 2 Type 2, SSO, and a trust center, but 2025 was rough: Figma's own Data Processing Addendum discloses a security breach caused by a command injection, a command-injection CVE exists in Figma Desktop for Windows, and two RCE vulnerabilities were found in the third-party Framelink Figma MCP server that many teams connect to Figma. |
| Public sentiment | Users praise the free open-source model, but many say Penpot still trails Figma on polish.⁵ | Aggregate sentiment is strongly positive on the core product . 4.6 stars on G2 with real-time collaboration as the standout strength and users saying it speeds up layout work significantly.14 |
| Biggest gotcha | Community openly asks how long the free tier stays free; pricing may shift | Seat-type sprawl is the big trap: full editor seats, Dev Mode seats, and cheap collaborator seats (around $5/month) mean your real cost depends on who touches files . model this before committing |
Pick Penpot when
- Startups dodging per-seat design bills
- Teams needing self-hosting or data control
- Design-dev duos wanting open standards
- Open-source-first orgs
When Penpot is not a fit
- Teams already fluent in Figma
- Anyone wanting Figma-level polish and plugin breadth
- Security-sensitive orgs without staff to patch or self-host
- Buyers wanting turnkey enterprise support
Pick Figma when
- Product and UX teams shipping software who design together daily
- Design systems teams maintaining shared component libraries
- Startups through enterprises that want designers and developers on one canvas
- Teams that want the de facto industry tool with the largest community and plugin ecosystem
When Figma is not a fit
- Solo freelancers or small teams that only need occasional simple mockups . a paid seat plan here is overkill; Penpot, Balsamiq, or even a template will do
- Non-design teams (marketing, ops) that just want a whiteboard . Miro or Google Slides is the right-sized tool
- Budget-sensitive orgs planning to put many engineers on it . Dev Mode seat pricing drew open revolt from users, so the bill scales badly with dev headcount
- Buyers who need offline or self-hosted control of design data . Figma is cloud-first, and offline-first alternatives exist for that reason
Sources
- Penpot review | TechRadartechradar.comreview
- Penpot Reviews 2026 | G2g2.comreview
- Penpot Reviews | SoftwareAdvicesoftwareadvice.comreview
- Experience using Penpot | Redditreddit.comreview
- I stopped using Figma and switched to Penpot | XDAxda-developers.comreview
- Should you ditch Figma for open-source? | LogRocketblog.logrocket.comreview
- Penpot Pricing | officialpenpot.appofficial
- Penpot draws up $12M | TechCrunchtechcrunch.comnews
- Penpot Raises $8M Series A | BusinessWirebusinesswire.comnews
- CVE-2026-45805 Penpot MCP RCE | SentinelOnesentinelone.comsecurity
- CVE-2026-26202 | NVDnvd.nist.govsecurity
- Penpot MCP AI workflows | Smashing Magazinesmashingmagazine.comnews
- Figma Review: The Good and Bad (Crazy Egg)crazyegg.comreview
review
official