Penpot 2.4 adoption drives designer movement toward open-source tools

The cost of design software

Figma is expensive. Designers increasingly adopt Penpot to escape the subscription models of Figma. Subscription fatigue in 2026 drives teams toward alternatives with predictable costs. Figma charges between €12 and €35 per user per month for Professional and Organization tiers. For a 10-person team using the Professional plan, the total cost exceeds €1,000 annually. Figma also provides a free Starter plan, but it limits users to two editors per file and 150 AI credits per day. Penpot offers a free tier for cloud users and charges $7 per editor per month for professional team plans.

This shift gained momentum after Adobe announced its intention to acquire Figma for $20B in mid-September. Following that news, Penpot raised $8M in a funding round led by Decibel. Other investors include Eric Wittman, Grace Francisco, and Dave Crossland. Penpot’s parent company, Kaleidos, also manages the project management platform Taiga, which has over a million users. You already know that Figma dominates the market, but the shift toward ownership is real. While Figma remains the industry standard for UI/UX design, its requirement for cloud connectivity limits its use in certain environments. Penpot provides an open-source alternative that offers full control over data, and Lunacy provides a different path for Windows-focused teams because it works entirely offline.

Technical deployment and developer handoff

Penpot simplifies developer handoff by using SVG and CSS as native formats. This approach allows designers to build components, variants, and design tokens for color, spacing, and typography. Because the platform uses web standards, the transition from design to code reduces the need for manual translation. Designers who require high-level collaboration and professional-grade prototyping often find that the cost of Figma subscriptions outweighs the benefits of its extensive plugin ecosystem and real-time multiplayer editing capabilities.

Organizations with strict privacy needs choose Penpot for its self-hosting capabilities. Self-hosting provides full control over data location and access. Users can deploy Penpot via Elestio, Docker, or Kubernetes. Elestio simplifies the process for non-technical users because it manages the server configuration. A basic deployment requires a dual-core processor, 4GB of RAM, and 10GB to 50GB of SSD storage. Teams should use 8GB of RAM for better performance.

Penpot currently serves 10,000 active users, including employees from Google, Microsoft, Red Hat, Tencent, ByteDance, and Mozilla.

Selecting a tool for your workflow

The choice of a design tool depends on the specific needs of a workflow. Solo designers or freelancers who want to avoid subscriptions often use Lunacy. Lunacy, which comes from Icons8, works on Windows and macOS, supports Sketch file compatibility, and allows users to store files in local drives. Designers who prioritize real-time collaboration in a browser choose Penpot. Penpot works on any operating system with a web browser, including Linux.

Small teams that want to avoid per-seat SaaS fees benefit from Penpot’s self-hosted version. This model replaces recurring monthly payments with a one-time infrastructure cost. Large enterprises with high compliance needs may still prefer Figma if they can afford the high-end enterprise costs. Figma provides advanced prototyping and a massive plugin ecosystem that Penpot does not yet match. Figma’s mobile apps are read-only, so users cannot edit designs on iOS or Android.

Designers who rely heavily on third-party plugins or advanced design-to-code integrations might find the transition to Penpot difficult. Moving to an open-source tool requires users to re-create workflows manually or use fewer automations. Does the benefit of data sovereignty and lower costs outweigh the loss of a massive plugin marketplace? Use Penpot if your priority is freedom from subscriptions and data control.