Free alternatives to Penpot

Lunacy is a free native design app from Icons8 for Windows, macOS, and Linux, covering UI design, components, and prototyping like Penpot. The difference is that it runs as a real desktop app with a genuine offline mode and unlimited local documents, so there is no server to keep alive and no browser-performance ceiling on large files. As of July 2026 the free plan allows 10 cloud documents and teams of up to 3 members.

• Free plan, paid from $4.99/month (as of July 2026)

Best for:

Designers who want Penpot-style UI work in a native offline app, without running a server

The catch:

It is closed source freeware, so unlike Penpot there is no community fork if Icons8 changes the terms.

Figma is the tool Penpot is modeled after, and it still leads on the two things people miss most in Penpot: a huge plugin and template community, and years of performance tuning that keeps big files responsive. The catch is price. The free Starter plan stops at 3 design files with no Dev Mode, and a Full seat is $16 per month billed annually (as of July 2026), where Penpot gives you unlimited files free.

• Free plan, paid from $16/month (as of July 2026)
• United States

Best for:

Teams that live on plugins or push very large files and can absorb per-seat pricing

The catch:

The free tier caps you at 3 files, so real usage means paying per seat, exactly what Penpot avoids.

Inkscape is not a UI design tool, but if what you actually needed from Penpot was drawing vector artwork, it goes further. Pen tools, boolean operations, mesh gradients, and native SVG are all free under the GPL, with no tiers or caps of any kind (as of July 2026). It is a desktop app, so you trade Penpot's collaboration and prototyping for a deeper illustration toolkit you own outright.

• Completely free (as of July 2026)
• Open source (GPL-2.0-or-later)

Best for:

Logos, icons, and detailed vector illustration rather than screen design

The catch:

No real-time collaboration, no prototyping, and the interface takes real learning time.

If your Penpot files were marketing graphics and slides rather than product UI, Canva's free tier is the faster route. You get unlimited designs, a large free template and stock library, and 5GB of storage (as of July 2026). It is built for people who do not think of themselves as designers, which is a different audience from Penpot's.

• Free plan, paid from $144/year (as of July 2026)
• Australia

Best for:

Non-designers making social posts, decks, and flyers from templates

The catch:

It is not a vector or UI tool, and there is no editable export, so your work is locked into Canva's format.

Excalidraw covers a different part of the process: quick, low-fidelity sketching before you open a real design file. Open excalidraw.com and you are drawing wireframes with collaborators in seconds, no account, with end-to-end encrypted sessions (as of July 2026). It is MIT licensed, so you can self-host it, though it does no UI design or prototyping.

• Free plan, paid from $6/month (as of July 2026)
• Czech Republic
• Open source (MIT)

Best for:

Sketching wireframes and flows before committing to a real design file

The catch:

The free app stores one scene in your browser, and the hand-drawn style is wrong for polished UI.

tldraw is the other whiteboard option next to a design tool: it loads in about a second, needs no account, and has no published board limits (as of July 2026). Its output is cleaner and straighter than Excalidraw's sketchy style, which suits diagrams and rough wireframes. It does not do UI design, so it complements Penpot rather than replacing it.

• Completely free (as of July 2026)
• United Kingdom

Best for:

Fast, tidy diagrams and rough wireframes without signing up

The catch:

The code is source-available under a custom license, so you cannot self-host it freely the way you can Penpot, and there is no design or prototyping toolkit.