Penpot vs FigCraft: Two Free Figma Alternatives, Compared by a Figma User
If you run a small studio, Figma’s price is easy to accept until the day it isn’t. One extra editor, a client who wants their own seat, a side project you’d rather not pay a monthly fee for, and the bill keeps creeping up. The free Starter plan doesn’t help much for real work either: Figma’s help center describes it as “a single team with one folder and 3 files.”
So you start looking at alternatives, and two names keep coming up: Penpot, the open-source tool that has been around for years, and FigCraft, a brand-new open-source app that went public in October. I use Figma day to day and have spent time in both of these.
For me, it came down to value. What I was paying for Figma no longer felt worth it.
This guide covers what each tool does, who it suits, what it costs and the catch with each. Prices were checked on the date at the top of this page.
Quick comparison
| Figma | Penpot | FigCraft | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Price for one editor | Free Starter (3 files), Professional $16/month billed annually or $20 monthly | Free Professional plan (up to 8 people, 10 GB), Unlimited $7 per editor | Free, no subscription |
| Open source | No | Yes (MPL-2.0) | Yes (MIT or Apache-2.0) |
| Runs in | Browser, desktop app | Browser, or your own server | Desktop app (macOS, Windows, Linux) and browser |
| Opens Figma files | — | Through the official “Penpot Exporter” Figma plugin | Best effort, not tested on real client files yet |
| Maturity | Mature | Mature (version 2.x) | Early alpha |
1. Penpot: the safe open-source choice
Penpot is a design and prototyping tool that runs in the browser. You can use the hosted version or run it on your own server, which matters if a client is strict about where their files live.
What it does well
- Components and variants, so a button or card can have states you swap between, much like in Figma.
- Layout built on real CSS Flexbox and Grid. When you inspect a design, the code you get matches how the layout actually behaves in the browser.
- Design tokens, prototyping, an Inspect panel that outputs SVG, HTML and CSS, and a plugin system.
In my own use, the big win is that it’s free and still has the full set of features I expect from a design tool. The interface is laid out differently from Figma, so I was confused at first, but once I got used to it, it was just as good to work in.
Who it suits: small teams who want something stable today, developers who care about clean CSS, and anyone who needs to self-host.
Price: the hosted Professional plan is advertised as having “no limits,” but the plan table caps it at 8 people, 10 GB of storage and 7 days of version history, and it is free. Unlimited is $7 per editor per month, capped at $175 a month, with 25 GB and 30 days of history. Self-hosting the open-source version is free.
The catch: Penpot can’t open a .fig file directly. You install the official Penpot Exporter plugin in Figma, export, then import the result into Penpot. Plan for some cleanup on complex files. And if you connect design tools to AI assistants, note that Penpot’s MCP connection was not stable in my use.
2. FigCraft: fast, offline and very new
FigCraft is an open-source design tool written in Rust. It runs as a native desktop app and in the browser, and saves your work as plain files on your own disk. There’s no account, no telemetry and no subscription.
What it does well
- Familiar building blocks for Figma users: auto layout, components and variants, vector networks and variables.
- Prototyping and code export to CSS, HTML, React, SwiftUI, Jetpack Compose and Leptos.
- Automation options most design tools don’t have: a command-line tool, plugins and an MCP server for AI agents.
I’m moving my own work to FigCraft for one practical reason: I connect my design tool to AI assistants through MCP, and that connection was not stable for me in Penpot.
Who it suits: designers who like to try new tools, want their files on their own machine, or want to automate parts of their workflow.
Price: free.
The catch: the project describes itself as early alpha. Real-time collaboration is still a preview (the default public collaboration server is not end-to-end encrypted), and opening .fig files is “best effort.” Keep client work in your main tool for now and work on copies. Download it only from the official GitHub repository. Several lookalike websites use the FigCraft name and are not connected to the project.
3. Figma: still the baseline
It’s worth being fair to Figma. It is the most mature of the three, almost every client and developer already knows it, and the plugin and community ecosystem is far larger than either alternative.
Who it suits: studios whose clients expect Figma links, and teams who need polished real-time collaboration today.
Price: Starter is free but limited to one team, one folder and 3 files. Professional is $16 per full seat per month billed annually, or $20 billed monthly. Developer seats ($12) and collaborator seats ($3) cost less, per month billed annually.
The catch: costs grow with every editor, and you can’t self-host it.
Which one should you pick?
- You need something dependable this month: start with Penpot. It’s mature, free for small teams and its CSS-based layout is a real advantage when you hand off to developers.
- You work alone, want local files, or like automating things: try FigCraft on a side project. It moves fast, but treat it as a tool you’re testing, not your only copy of client work.
- Your clients live in Figma: keep Figma for client-facing files and try an alternative for your own projects, templates and experiments.
Try the free plan first
All three have a free way in: Figma’s Starter plan, Penpot’s free Professional plan and FigCraft itself. Rebuild one small real screen, such as a pricing card or a landing page header, in each tool. An hour of that will tell you more than any comparison table, including this one.