penpot README

The project's README from github.com/penpot/penpot. As one markdown file: README.md.

Verified DPG Penpot Community Managed with Taiga.io Gitpod ready-to-code

Website • User Guide • Learning Center • Community

Youtube • Peertube • Linkedin • Instagram • Mastodon • Bluesky • X

Penpot video

Penpot is the open-source design platform for teams that build digital products at scale.

Penpot’s key strength lies in giving you full ownership of your design infrastructure. Built on open source and designed for self-hosting, it puts teams in complete control of their design environment supporting strict compliance and governance requirements. Whether used in the browser or deployed on your own servers, Penpot works with open standards like SVG, CSS, HTML, and JSON.

Real-time collaboration strengthens this foundation, helping teams scale and bring design closer to the product through top-tier capabilities. Additionally, developers feel at home using Penpot, because design is expressed as code, enabling a direct translation and shipping products faster.

Best-in-class native Design Tokens provide a single source of truth between design and development. They ensure consistency, improve collaboration, and make it easier to manage complex design systems.

The MCP server takes it further by enabling multi-directional workflows between design and code. A powerful open API and plugin system makes the workspace programmable, enabling automation, AI-driven workflows, and integrations with the tools and systems you already use.

With CSS Grid and Flex Layout, teams can design responsive interfaces that behave like real code from the start.

Combined, these features turn Penpot into a full-stack design platform for building scalable design systems and fully integrated product development processes.

If your organization is scaling and needs extra support, we’re here to help. Talk to us

Table of contents

Why Penpot

Penpot connects design, code, and AI workflows through a code-based approach, making designs readable by developers and AI via the MCP server. This approach helps teams ship what’s actually designed and manage design systems at scale with powerful design tokens. As a self-hosted, open-source and real-time collaboration platform, Penpot offers full flexibility, security, and ownership without vendor lock-in. Learn more about why Penpot is the platform for your team.

Plugin system

Penpot plugins let you expand the platform's capabilities, give you the flexibility to integrate it with other apps, and design custom solutions.

Designed for developers

Penpot was built to serve both designers and developers and create a fluid design-code process. You have the choice to enjoy real-time collaboration or play "solo".

Inspect mode

Work with ready-to-use code and make your workflow easy and fast. The inspect tab gives instant access to SVG, CSS and HTML code.

Integrations

Penpot offers integration into the development toolchain, thanks to its support for webhooks and an API accessible through access tokens.

Building Design Systems: design tokens, components and variants

Penpot brings design systems to code-minded teams: a single source of truth with native Design Tokens, Components, and Variants for scalable, reusable, and consistent UI across projects and platforms.

Penpot Design Systems

Getting started

Penpot is the only design & prototype platform that is deployment agnostic. You can use it in our SAAS or deploy it anywhere.

Learn how to install it with Docker, Kubernetes, Elestio or other options on our website.

Community

We love the Open Source software community. Contributing is our passion and if it’s yours too, participate and improve Penpot. All your designs, code and ideas are welcome!

Want to go a step further? Become a Penpot Ambassador and help grow the Penpot community in your region while contributing to a global, open design ecosystem.

If you need help or have any questions; if you’d like to share your experience using Penpot or get inspired; if you’d rather meet our community of developers and designers, join our Community!

Categories include:

Pentpot Community

Code of Conduct

Anyone who contributes to Penpot, whether through code, in the community, or at an event, must adhere to the code of conduct and foster a positive and safe environment.

Contributing

Any contribution will make a difference to improve Penpot. How can you get involved?

Choose your way:

To find (almost) everything you need to know on how to contribute to Penpot, refer to the contributing guide.

Penpot hub

Resources

You can ask and answer questions, have open-ended conversations, and follow along on decisions affecting the project.

💾 Documentation

🚀 Getting Started

✏️ Tutorials

🏘️ Architecture

📚 Dev Diaries

🧑‍🏫​ UI Design Course

License

This Source Code Form is subject to the terms of the Mozilla Public
License, v. 2.0. If a copy of the MPL was not distributed with this
file, You can obtain one at http://mozilla.org/MPL/2.0/.

Copyright (c) KALEIDOS SUBSIDIARY SL

Penpot is a Kaleidos’ open source project

penpot (penpot/penpot)

Searching Database…

61.3K ·GitHub
Penpot
What is this?Penpot is an open-source design platform for product teams, letting them design UI, prototype, and build design systems with full self-hosting control instead of relying on a proprietary SaaS tool.
Is this a Figma alternative I run myself, or a hosted service?It is a self-hostable web app (design and prototyping tool), often described as an open-source Figma alternative, built with open standards like SVG, CSS, HTML and JSON.
How do I get it running?The README points to a dedicated Getting Started guide for installation and first steps, rather than inline setup commands.
Is this aimed at designers, developers, or both?Penpot is built to serve both designers and developers, enabling a fluid design-to-code workflow with real-time collaboration or solo work.
Does self-hosting Penpot give me control over my design data?Yes, self-hosting gives teams full ownership of their design infrastructure and complete control over compliance and governance requirements.
Can I get code from my designs?Yes, the Inspect mode gives instant access to ready-to-use SVG, CSS and HTML code generated from your designs.
Does Penpot support design tokens and design systems?Yes, it has native Design Tokens plus Components and Variants, giving a single source of truth between design and development for scalable design systems.
Can I extend Penpot with plugins or AI workflows?Yes, Penpot has a plugin system and an MCP server that enables multi-directional workflows between design and code, plus an open API for automation and AI-driven integrations.
Does it support responsive layout design?Yes, Penpot supports CSS Grid and Flex Layout so teams can design responsive interfaces that behave like real code.
What are similar projects?open-pencil-cloud, openpencil, oil-ui, superdesign-skill, tweakcn, transitions.dev, awesome-design-md, logseq
Which topics is it in?ux-design, figma-alternative, clojure, prototyping, design-tools, ui-design, webhooks, design-system, collaboration, design, real-time, plugin
Creator
penpot
Size
411.6 MB
Stars
61.3K
Updated
CommitOct 17Release2.18.3Oct 06
Age
10y
Commits · 90 Days