Penpot

Penpot is an open source design and prototyping platform developed by Kaleidos, a Spanish software company based in Madrid. Launched as an alpha in 2021 and reaching version 2.0 in 2024, Penpot is the first open source tool to offer a professional-grade alternative to proprietary design tools like Figma and Sketch. It is built on open web standards, using SVG as its native format.

The platform supports real-time collaboration, interactive prototyping, component libraries, design tokens, CSS-native layout tools (Flex Layout and Grid Layout), and a powerful plugin system. Because Penpot uses SVG natively, designs can be directly inspected and exported without proprietary format lock-in. Developers and designers can collaborate more seamlessly since the inspect panel provides ready-to-use CSS code for every element.

Penpot can be used as a cloud-hosted service at penpot.app or self-hosted on your own infrastructure, giving organizations full control over their design assets and intellectual property. The project is backed by Kaleidos and supported by the European Commission's Next Generation Internet initiative. With a growing community of contributors and over 30,000 GitHub stars, Penpot represents a significant step toward open, sovereign design tools for European teams and beyond.