Penpot adoption trends for privacy-first product teams in 2026

Data sovereignty and the cloud trap

Figma stores all design data on American servers. This subjects design files to the US CLOUD Act, which allows US authorities to compel access to data regardless of where a company physically stores it. For European teams in regulated industries like finance or healthcare, this creates a massive compliance problem. Penpot provides a way out. It is an open-source platform from the Spanish company Kaleidos. Teams can self-host Penpot on their own infrastructure using Docker, Kubernetes, or Rancher by SUSE. You know the drill with cloud-only tools and data residency. Penpot provides complete control over where data lives through deployment options like OpenShift or TrueNAS. This makes it a top choice for organizations that must satisfy GDPR or HIPAA requirements. Because Figma acts as a cloud-only provider, organizations that require all design work to stay inside isolated or on-premises networks find it impossible to meet their most stringent regulatory, legal, and privacy compliance needs. Using Figma in Europe requires Standard Contractual Clauses and transfer impact assessments. Penpot data uses AES-256 encryption at rest and TLS 1.2+ in transit. This matters because 88% of organizations now use AI in at least one business function, and generative AI spending reached $37 billion in 2025.

Penpot is MIT-licensed.

Native code and the handoff wall

Penpot uses real CSS Flex and Grid layouts on its design canvas. When a designer arranges elements with Flex, the code matches what a developer writes in production. This eliminates the translation errors seen in proprietary tools. Figma uses a variables system for design tokens, but those tokens function primarily within the Figma ecosystem. Penpot uses W3C standards for its design tokens. This architecture relies on open web standards like SVG, HTML, and JSON. Designers in Penpot create layouts that developers can use directly. This is different from Sketch, which is a Mac-only tool that costs $10 per editor for the Standard plan or $20 for the Business plan. Sketch provides a web app for viewing and inspecting designs. This is a major difference for teams that prefer a native Mac app for performance. 84% of developers use or plan to use AI tools, and 51% of professional developers use AI daily. GitHub Copilot reached 20 million users and is deployed at 90% of Fortune 100 companies. Penpot provides a dual API system with an RPC API for resource management and a Plugin API for workspace interactions. The team behind Penpot, Kaleidos, built open-source tools starting in 2011.

Figma owns the plugins.

The cost of switching

Adobe XD entered maintenance mode in 2024. It receives only bug fixes and security patches. Designers cannot buy it as a standalone app. New users must pay $69.99 per month for Creative Cloud Pro to access it. Figma is the main replacement. However, Figma pricing scales heavily. A full seat for Figma Design costs $90 per seat. For those on the Professional plan, the cost is $15 per editor per month. Organizations pay $45 per editor for the Organization plan and $75 for Enterprise. This high cost follows the failed Adobe acquisition of Figma in 2023. The Figma XD importer is imperfect and requires manual cleanup for complex prototypes.

Penpot provides a different pricing model. It uses flat monthly pricing rather than per-seat billing for Enterprise. Penpot Enterprise starts at $950 per month. A private server costs $50,000 per year. This allows large teams to scale without massive per-user fees. This is a significant shift from Lunacy, which is a free tool that requires attribution for Icons8 assets on the free tier. Lunacy is a native desktop app for Windows, macOS, and Linux. For teams using Sketch, the monthly fee is $10 for the Standard plan or $20 for the Business plan.

Can Penpot replace Figma?