Penpot: Self-Hosted Design and Prototyping Platform

Penpot is an open-source design and prototyping platform for cross-domain teams. With over 44,000 GitHub stars, Penpot provides a web-based design workspace where designers and developers collaborate using open standards — SVG-native files, CSS-ready output, and a platform that runs in any browser. It is the leading self-hosted alternative to Figma and Sketch.

Self-hosting Penpot means your design files, brand assets, and team collaboration data stay on your own infrastructure with no dependency on a cloud design service.

Key Features

• Vector design editor with pen tool, boolean operations, grids, and component libraries
• Interactive prototyping with clickable flows, transitions, and user journey mapping
• Real-time multiplayer collaboration for teams working on designs simultaneously
• SVG-native file format ensuring designs are portable and standards-compliant
• Component and design system support with shared libraries across projects
• CSS-ready inspect mode for developers to extract styles, spacing, and assets
• Flex layout for responsive design patterns that mirror real CSS behavior
• Self-contained deployment with no external dependencies on cloud services

Why Self-Host Penpot?

Design asset protection. Your design files contain unreleased products, brand identity, and competitive UI innovations. Self-hosting Penpot ensures these assets stay on your servers — not on a cloud platform that could be breached, acquired, or change its terms of service.

No vendor lock-in. Figma's proprietary format means your designs are trapped in their ecosystem. Penpot uses SVG natively, so your files are standard and portable. If you ever move platforms, your designs come with you in an open format.

Unlimited seats, no per-user pricing. Design tool subscriptions charge per editor seat, which gets expensive for larger teams. Self-hosted Penpot has no user limits — invite designers, developers, product managers, and stakeholders without per-seat costs.

Open standards for developer handoff. Penpot's CSS-ready inspect mode and flex layout produce output that directly maps to CSS. Developers get design specs in the language they already write, reducing the translation gap between design and implementation.

System Requirements

Resource	Minimum	Recommended
CPU	2 vCPUs	4+ vCPUs
RAM	4 GB	8 GB
Storage	20 GB SSD	50 GB SSD
OS	Ubuntu 22.04+	Ubuntu 24.04

Penpot runs a multi-service stack with a Clojure backend, PostgreSQL, Redis, and an asset storage service. Design files with many components and high-resolution assets benefit from generous RAM and storage allocation.

Getting Started

The fastest way to deploy Penpot on your VPS is with Docker Compose through Dokploy. Our step-by-step deployment guide walks you through the full setup, including persistent storage, environment configuration, and SSL.

Deploy Penpot with Dokploy →

Alternatives

• Excalidraw — Open-source virtual whiteboard for quick sketches, diagrams, and hand-drawn style drawings
• Diagrams.net — Open-source diagramming tool for flowcharts, architecture diagrams, and wireframes
• Logseq — Open-source knowledge management tool with visual canvas and whiteboard features
• Wireflow — Open-source user flow prototyping tool for mapping out design interactions

FAQ

How does Penpot compare to Figma? Penpot covers core design and prototyping workflows — vector editing, components, prototyping, and team collaboration. Figma has a more mature plugin ecosystem and some advanced features like auto layout and Dev Mode. Penpot's advantages are open-source freedom, SVG-native files, CSS-native output, and no per-seat pricing.

Can I import Figma files into Penpot? Penpot supports importing SVG and Penpot-format files. There are community tools and converters that can export Figma designs to SVG for import into Penpot, though complex Figma-specific features may need manual adjustment after import.

Is Penpot suitable for large design teams? Yes. Penpot supports real-time multiplayer collaboration, shared component libraries, and team management. For organizations with many designers, self-hosting lets you scale the infrastructure to match your team size without per-seat licensing constraints.

Does Penpot work offline? Penpot is a web application that requires a connection to your server. For on-premises deployments, your team accesses it over your local network. Remote access requires an internet connection to reach your VPS. There is no offline desktop mode currently.

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App data sourced from selfh.st open-source directory.