Penpot’s future as Figma’s acquisition fallout reshapes open-source design tooling

Figma’s market value collapsed to under $10 billion by June 2026, a sharp decline from its July 31, 2025 IPO close at $56.3 billion. This financial erosion followed the mutual abandonment of Adobe’s $20 billion acquisition proposal in December 2023, a deal that failed after regulatory investigations by the US Department of Justice and the European Commission. The collapse of that merger left Figma independent but exposed its vulnerability to antitrust scrutiny and shifting investor sentiment. In this environment, Penpot emerges as the primary open-source alternative for teams seeking full ownership of their design infrastructure without vendor lock-in.

Ownership and deployment control

Penpot is a Kaleidos open-source project built on open standards like SVG, CSS, HTML, and JSON. Unlike proprietary tools, it allows organizations to self-host the platform on their own servers, ensuring strict compliance with security policies and privacy regulations. Teams can deploy Penpot using Docker, Kubernetes via Helm charts, or managed services like Elestio, which sets up an instance in just three minutes. This deployment agnosticism means users decide where data resides and who accesses it, eliminating third-party dependency.

The platform supports real-time collaboration and provides native Design Tokens as a single source of truth between design and development. Developers inspect designs directly through code snippets in the inspect tab, translating UI elements into production-ready assets faster. An MCP server enables multi-directional workflows between design and code, allowing AI agents to interact with design files programmatically. For enterprises, Penpot Enterprise offers advanced governance, SSO integration, and centralized admin consoles for both cloud and self-hosted environments. You already know the basics of design handoff; here is how Penpot changes the infrastructure layer beneath it.

Market pressure and competitive positioning

Figma’s recent strategic moves include acquiring Israeli AI startup Weavy for over $200 million in October 2025 and integrating Anthropic’s Claude Code and OpenAI’s Codex via the Model Context Protocol in February 2026. These additions aim to keep engineers within Figma’s ecosystem, reducing the need for external tools. However, the stock price drop below $20 signals deep uncertainty about the company’s long-term trajectory. Mike Krieger resigned from Figma’s board in April 2026 after reports that Anthropic’s upcoming Claude Opus 4.7 model would include design tools competing directly with Figma’s core product.

Penpot positions itself against this closed ecosystem by emphasizing transparency and extensibility. Its plugin system and open API allow automation and integrations with existing systems, avoiding the proprietary constraints of Figma’s expanding suite. While Figma boasts 13 million users and a massive plugin library, Penpot appeals to organizations that prioritize data sovereignty over raw user base size. The question remains whether open-source adoption will scale fast enough to challenge a publicly traded giant with significant capital reserves.

The negative reality is that Penpot lacks the sheer brand recognition and marketing budget of Figma. Yet, for teams facing strict data governance requirements, the ability to run the entire design pipeline on private infrastructure is a decisive advantage. Figma’s struggle to maintain valuation post-IPO suggests that investors are wary of high-growth tech companies facing regulatory headwinds. Penpot’s community-driven development model ensures continuous improvement without corporate gatekeeping. Teams must decide if the operational overhead of self-hosting outweighs the benefits of total control.