12 tools that do a similar job, and what makes each one different.
Penpot is an open-source design and prototyping tool that runs in a browser and can be hosted on your own infrastructure. It is aimed at teams who want their design files on hardware they control, and at designers and developers who would rather work in the same file format than hand work across a wall. The distinguishing decision is that Penpot builds on open web standards rather than a proprietary rendering model. Layouts follow CSS behaviour, so what a designer arranges on the canvas corresponds to how a browser will lay it out. Designs can be expressed directly as HTML, CSS, JSON and SVG, and the tool generates code in those formats, which makes the handoff a matter of reading the file rather than reinterpreting a picture of it. Developers can pull detailed specifications of styles and content from any object. Several people can work on the same file at once, in real time. Projects and files are unlimited on every plan. Custom fonts can be uploaded and managed as a shared team library. Objects export to PDF, SVG, PNG and JPG. Wireframing and prototyping are built in and work on any device, since the whole thing is a web application. It extends through a built-in plugin system, with community plugins available and the option to write your own. There is an open API, webhooks for integrating with external applications, and a GitHub integration for teams keeping design and code alongside each other. Pricing is unusually simple. The Professional plan is free at zero dollars per user per month and is the one most individuals and small teams will use. The Unlimited plan adds 30 days of autosaved version history. Enterprise extends that to 90 days and adds single sign-on. Because the project is open source, the self-hosted route is available at any of these sizes, and a team that outgrows the hosted service or needs its files inside its own network can move without changing tools.
