And why Penpot?

Penpot brings universal access to design and prototype. There are four key elements that make Penpot different from other design and prototyping tools:

• 1. Penpot is Open Source. This is a game-changer for the design and prototype world. It means you can trust your designs are your own.
• 2. We use SVG. We are the only platform that enables full compatibility with other vectorial tools. Developers will love the fact that the design is the code and designers will no longer suffer from “lost in translation” issues due to proprietary formats. The fact that we don’t go for yet another proprietary format is a breath of fresh air!
• 3. Our focus is on cross-domain teams. Penpot aims to deliver the perfect tool for visual designers that is wholeheartedly embraced by developers too. We encourage designers and developers to use it professionally!
• 4. Our app is browser orientated. No platform dependencies. Penpot requires a browser, that’s all. If you prefer to host your own Penpot instance, that’s fine too! And remember, you get real-time collaboration out of the box!

What about the pricing?

There are no short or mid-term plans for any pricing model on our SaaS, through supported self-hosting or enterprise-oriented features. We are lucky to have the bandwidth and the resources to make this happen! We need to prove many things first, primarily to ourselves, before we go out and ask for any money.

We need to keep focusing on the product and the community around it and that demands every bit of bandwidth our team can offer. Of course, we haven’t come this far to put everything at risk because we suddenly discover that we have no sustainable plan, it’s just something not relevant now.

What will make us ditch the Beta label? Is it close?

It’s close, very close. But more importantly, we know what we need to deliver in order to get out of BETA. It all comes down to vision execution.

Feature-wise, we need Autolayout and possibly a better version of Components. These are the two biggest roadblocks for a massive migration from other tools as well as feeling you have a complete end-to-end designers tool with all the modern perks.

User Experience-wise, we need to deploy an onboarding system. Penpot doesn’t have one and it’s painful. If we want to be true to our “universal access” value, we need to make sure whether it’s your first or nth time on Penpot, you feel at home.

Infrastructure-wise, we need to make room for all the growth we are experiencing, so we’re migrating to a much bigger elastic setup. This also takes a bit of time.

Stability-wise, it’s critical that you get an almost zero-bug non-clunky experience. The design process demands that on top of knowing you own your data and your designs through an open source platform, you get 100% satisfaction with your daily work.

So, exiting BETA is around the corner and it will provide a solid design tool. And then, we can start building on the platform aspect of Penpot and executing our core vision of redefining the design process and allowing developers to be part of it and never look back to the old days of a handoff mindset.

Can I try something fast to get a feeling on Penpot’s current status?

We suggest you create an account and then go to Templates and download any one that you might relate to and import it while creating your first Penpot project.

Some come from the Penpot team but others are contributions coming directly from the community!!