Penpot: The Open-Source Figma

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

Project & Company Context

  • Penpot is positioned as a self-hostable, open-source alternative to Figma, founded by a European team of ~45 people with prior funding.
  • Team emphasizes uniting designers and developers, using declarative/semantic design concepts and close alignment with CSS-style layout.
  • They dislike the “open-source Figma” label, claiming a broader platform vision.

Technology Stack & Architecture

  • Core is Clojure/ClojureScript (no Java on the frontend), running on the JVM plus JS; new rendering engine is Rust + Wasm + Skia.
  • Original implementation relies heavily on DOM/SVG/XML; this is widely seen in the thread as the source of scaling issues.

Performance and Stability

  • Multiple reports of severe lag, browser crashes, and server memory spikes (tens of GB) on larger documents or many pages.
  • Others report stable operation for small teams via Docker self-hosting.
  • Figma is also criticized as a memory hog and sluggish on large documents, but many still find it more robust at scale.
  • Penpot maintainers say the upcoming canvas-based engine aims explicitly to fix performance problems.

Self‑Hosting, Desktop, and Offline Use

  • Docker-based self-hosting works for some, but others find it complex or fragile (email verification issues, crashes).
  • An unofficial “desktop” wrapper exists but just embeds the web app and can spawn a local Docker stack; it disappoints users expecting a lightweight, offline binary like GIMP/Inkscape.
  • Heated debate over running a full “SaaS-style” stack locally: some see Docker/Postgres/Minio as acceptable modern app overhead; others strongly object on resource and complexity grounds.

Features, Workflow, and Ecosystem

  • Praised as a pleasant vector/UI editor with good layout/export flow, reminiscent of early Sketch, and useful for icons and small UI pieces.
  • Major limitation: text cannot be converted to paths, making SVG exports unreliable across machines without identical fonts; this is a deal-breaker for some.
  • Reports of layout glitches (elements changing size when switching pages) erode trust for production work.
  • Lack of Sketch import and uncertainty about available component libraries make migration from Figma harder.

Pricing, “Unlimited” Storage, and Business Model

  • Hosted Penpot is perceived as cheaper and more generous than Figma, including “unlimited storage” on top tiers.
  • Long sidebar debate about “unlimited” claims: some accept soft “fair use” limits; others call the term inherently misleading.
  • Broader skepticism toward open-core SaaS patterns (feature gating, slow “enshittification”), but also recognition that large open projects need sustainable funding.

Open Source, AI, and Future Direction

  • Several commenters are explicitly willing to pay a “performance tax” in exchange for owning their design stack and avoiding proprietary lock-in.
  • Others note that in design culture, tool quality and industry standardization usually trump open-source ideals.
  • Figma’s AI features are cited as expanding design-tool use cases (e.g., auto-generated slides and games); Penpot responds with an MCP integration and “design as a graph” AI research, with demos already shared and more planned.