Figma open source alternatives

The one thesis that will save you a week

There isn't an open-source Figma. There are two very different projects that each solve half of what Figma is used for. Penpot is a real vector design tool with components and prototypes. Excalidraw is a sketching tool with the world's best whiteboard feel. Trying to make either replace the other will end in frustration. So the honest question isn't "which is the Figma clone." It's are you doing product design, or are you doing rough thinking on a whiteboard?

Answer that and the two projects below sort themselves in about a minute.

Why teams are leaving Figma in 2026

Adobe's acquisition attempt failed but the price hike didn't reverse. Three complaints keep repeating in r/UXDesign and r/selfhosted:

1. Per-editor pricing scales badly. Professional is $12/editor/mo. Organization is $45/editor/mo. A design team of 8 on Organization is $4,320/year — and that's before FigJam and Dev Mode add-ons.
2. Files live on Figma's servers. Enterprise self-host is a phone call and a big number. Regulated industries (defense, healthcare, finance) can't use Figma at all.
3. Vendor risk after the Adobe drama. Adobe is still Figma's largest strategic partner. Teams that survived the near-acquisition remain nervous.

The open-source answer is smaller than most people expect: two projects, sharply differentiated, no confusion about which is which.

The two that matter

Penpot — the actual Figma alternative

Penpot (55k stars, pushed within days, MPL-2.0) is the only open-source project seriously trying to be Figma. Vector design, components, variants, auto-layout, design tokens, real-time collaboration, prototyping, developer handoff — all of it. It's built on web standards (SVG + CSS) rather than a proprietary rendering engine, which means every design you make in Penpot is portable in a way Figma's aren't.

The polish gap has narrowed dramatically in 2025-2026. Penpot 2.0 shipped design tokens as first-class citizens (before Figma did). Penpot 2.5 added variables and expressions. The last remaining gaps are around plugin ecosystem depth and the AI-assisted features that Figma has pushed hard.

Pick Penpot if: you're doing genuine product design and you need components, prototypes, dev handoff. Also pick it if design tokens matter to you — Penpot's implementation is best-in-class open source.

Skip Penpot if: your team relies heavily on specific Figma plugins (Iconify, LottieFiles, illustration libraries). Penpot's plugin ecosystem is real but a fraction of Figma's size.

Excalidraw — the whiteboard everyone actually wants

Excalidraw (127k stars, pushed within days, MIT) is the sketchy, hand-drawn whiteboard tool. Not a design tool. Not trying to be one. It replaces FigJam, Miro, and the "quick diagram in Figma" use case — the times when you don't need a pixel-perfect design, you need to think out loud with rectangles and arrows.

The 5-minute install and infinite canvas are the reason engineering teams have been quietly switching to it for two years. Real-time collaboration works. Export to PNG or SVG is one click. Files live in localStorage or your own S3-compatible bucket. Zero login required.

Pick Excalidraw if: your team's Figma use is really 60% architecture diagrams, 30% brainstorming, and 10% actual UI mocks. You'll pay for it in "wait where's my old sketch" moments and save it in ease of use.

Skip Excalidraw if: you need vector components, design systems, or dev handoff. That's not what it's for.

Decision framework: pick by what you actually do all day

Product designer building UI

Pick Penpot. Nothing else is close. Expect a 2-4 week ramp period; the shortcuts and gestures aren't identical to Figma's.

Engineer sketching architecture diagrams

Pick Excalidraw. You were reaching for the wrong tool if you were using Figma for this.

Small team, mixed workload

Run both. They don't compete. Penpot for design, Excalidraw for everything else. Both self-host in an afternoon.

Regulated industry, files must stay on your infra

Pick Penpot self-hosted. Add Excalidraw self-hosted for the whiteboard layer. This is the setup Figma cannot compete with at any price.

Solo designer or small studio

Try Penpot Cloud (their hosted version is free for individuals). Excalidraw at excalidraw.com is free and stores in your browser.

Deploy difficulty on a $6 VPS

• Under 30 minutes: Excalidraw. A single docker command runs it. Trivial.
• 1-2 hours: Penpot. Docker-compose stack (Postgres, Redis, backend, frontend, exporter). Docs are thorough. Set the frontend URL right the first time or fix it later in three places.

Resource footprint on that same CX22 (4 GB RAM):

• Excalidraw: ~200 MB RAM. Negligible.
• Penpot: ~1.5 GB RAM at rest, spikes to 2-3 GB during exports. Fits comfortably on a CX22 (4 GB). Give it a CX32 (8 GB) if a team of 10+ is hammering it.

License and commercial-use notes

• Excalidraw (MIT): Fully permissive. Embed in commercial products with no obligations.
• Penpot (MPL-2.0): File-level weak copyleft. You can build proprietary software on top; if you modify Penpot's own source files and redistribute them, those specific files must stay MPL. This rarely bites users; it primarily affects downstream forks.

Cost math (8-person design team, one year)

• Figma Professional, 8 editors: $1,152/year ($12 × 12 × 8)
• Figma Organization, 8 editors + FigJam: $4,320/year and up
• Self-hosted Penpot on DigitalOcean 4vCPU/8GB Droplet: ~$576/year infra + your time
• Penpot Cloud: free for individuals; paid tiers coming for teams (as of mid-2026 the beta had free unlimited teams)
• Self-hosted Excalidraw on DigitalOcean Regular Droplet: ~$290/year infra + minimal maintenance

Migration tips (Figma to Penpot)

• Penpot ships an official Figma import feature. It's improved massively through 2025 — components, auto-layout, prototypes, and most plugins now translate. Complex effects and some newer Figma features still don't. Test on one non-critical file first.
• Export design tokens separately (Figma Variables → Penpot Tokens). Both tools now support the W3C Design Tokens spec, so JSON exchange is realistic.
• Fonts don't come with the file. Have your custom fonts uploaded to Penpot before importing anything that uses them.
• Prototype interactions transfer for click and hover triggers. Complex conditional flows may need a manual pass.
• Run Figma and Penpot in parallel for the current sprint. Migrate finished projects, not in-flight ones.
• Component libraries need special handling — import your library file first, then files that consume it. Otherwise imports arrive with detached components.

What you shouldn't do

Don't try to force Excalidraw to be a design tool. The hand-drawn aesthetic is the point. If you find yourself annoyed that lines aren't perfectly straight, you're using the wrong tool.

Don't self-host Penpot for one designer. Penpot Cloud is free for individuals. Your time to maintain the stack exceeds the savings.

Don't migrate an active design system on a Friday. Do it during a natural gap between releases. Give yourself 2-3 sprints of parallel-tool time before pulling the plug on Figma.

Final recommendation matrix

• "I'm a product designer, I need components and prototypes" → Penpot
• "I sketch architecture diagrams and boxes" → Excalidraw
• "Small design team, want to leave Figma cleanly" → Penpot (self-hosted or Cloud)
• "Regulated industry, files must stay in-house" → Penpot self-hosted
• "Solo designer trying an alternative" → Penpot Cloud (free)
• "We really just used FigJam, not Figma" → Excalidraw

See also

Teams that leave one SaaS usually leave a few. Related guides:

• Notion open source alternatives — for docs + whiteboards alongside design.
• Slack open source alternatives — for the team collaboration layer around design work.

Frequently asked questions

Is Penpot really as capable as Figma in 2026?

For 80-90% of product design work, yes. Components, auto-layout, prototypes, dev handoff, real-time collaboration, design tokens — all present and mature. Where Figma still leads: the plugin ecosystem's depth, some AI features, and specific advanced typography features. If you don't rely on those, the gap is small.

Can I import my Figma files into Penpot?

Yes, via Penpot's official Figma import. The import quality has improved significantly through 2025-2026. Components, auto-layout, and prototypes translate. Test on a non-critical file first — complex effects and some plugin-generated content may need manual cleanup.

Does Excalidraw work offline?

Yes — the excalidraw.com PWA works fully offline, storing files in localStorage. Self-hosted Excalidraw also works offline. Sync between devices requires the collaboration server (excalidraw.com or your own).

Which is better for design systems?

Penpot, unambiguously. Components, variants, design tokens, and library sharing are all first-class. Excalidraw is a whiteboard tool, not a design system tool.

Is Penpot's cloud version really free forever?

As of mid-2026 Penpot Cloud is free for individuals and small teams. The Penpot company has signalled paid enterprise tiers are coming but the core Cloud offering remains free. If long-term pricing certainty matters, self-host — you own the deployment forever.

How often is the comparison data on this page updated?

GitHub metrics refresh daily. Editorial content revisits at least quarterly, sooner if a project changes materially. The header shows the last revisited date.