Penpot is a Solid Open-Source Figma Alternative to Look Out for!

Adobe is acquiring the popular design tool Figma for a whopping $20 billion.

As usual, it is the big tech eliminating the competition by acquiring businesses. So, not entirely a piece of exciting news.

But, what's exciting is we came across a free and open-source design tool that gets its inspiration from Figma and does a few things better!

Penpot: Free & Open-Source Design Tool in Development

Penpot is an open-source project in active development. It is in its beta phase following its launch on ProductHunt nearly two years ago.

Here's what makes Penpot interesting:

• Free and open-source (of course).
• Option to Self-host.
• Cross-platform.
• Using SVG as the native format.
• Web-based.
• Featuring industry-standard features (inspired by Figma).

You can watch its official video to know the basics of it:

The major highlight of Penpot is the use of SVG as its native format. With SVG files, you get compatibility with many vector graphics editing tools.

So you do not get locked down with a proprietary file format that can be accessed using a particular application.

Penpot gives you the absolute best of open standards.

The CEO of Penpot, Pablo Ruiz-Múzquiz, mentions more about it:

If you go for SVG (open standard, web, mobile, etc) at the storage level, you can suddenly integrate all your Penpot designs with your code repos. You could make changes to the actual representation of the design itself thanks to SVG and not yet another closed format. That opens the door to massive opportunities for designers AND devs. Also, SVG means we are low-code ready for free. You can pick any element in Penpot and ask for its SVG (and CSS) representation knowing it's actually what it is, no translation. That brings a more trustworthy relationship between designers and devs and allows frontend devs to try out their design skillset.

So, using SVG as the native format has a lot of advantages!

At the moment, the project is in its beta stage and constantly improving with plenty of skilled contributors in the project.

This can turn out to be the most useful open-source alternative to Figma, breaking out of big tech for design tools.

You can self-host it or use the cloud app to test it out. Sign up at its official website to learn and experiment with it.

You can also check out its GitHub page to explore more.

This also reminds me of Akira, which aimed to be a native Linux app for UI and UX design. It is still in its early development stage, but such efforts are always appreciated when it involves Linux or the open-source initiative.

💬 What do you think about Penpot as an open-source alternative to Figma?