Penpot is a web-based, open-source design and prototyping platform built for collaborative product teams. It enables designers and developers to work in the same environment without traditional “design handoff” friction, using open standards like SVG, CSS, HTML, and JSON to ensure designs translate directly into code.

The platform is designed around the idea of “design as code,” where UI elements are not just visual artifacts but structured, inspectable outputs that developers can directly use. It supports UI design, wireframing, interactive prototyping, and full design system management within a single workspace.

Penpot is also notable for being fully open-source and self-hostable. Teams can run it in the cloud or on their own infrastructure, giving full control over data, privacy, and deployment—an approach aimed at avoiding vendor lock-in common in proprietary design tools.

A core part of Penpot is its emphasis on collaboration between designers and developers. It allows developers to inspect designs and extract production-ready code formats such as CSS, SVG, and HTML, while designers build interfaces using components, libraries, and reusable design systems.

The tool also includes modern layout systems (such as flex and grid-based design), interactive prototyping, and design token support for scalable design systems. It is widely used as an open-source alternative to proprietary UI design platforms, especially in teams that prioritize transparency, extensibility, and control.

Penpot is developed by Kaleidos, a software company based in Spain, and is supported by a global open-source community.

Key features include:

• UI design, wireframing, and interactive prototyping in one platform
• Open standards-based workflow (SVG, CSS, HTML, JSON)
• Design systems with components, libraries, and tokens
• Developer-friendly “inspect” mode with code-ready output
• Real-time collaboration between designers and developers
• Self-hosting option for full data control
• Fully open-source (no vendor lock-in)

Common use cases include:

• Designing web and mobile interfaces
• Building scalable design systems
• Collaborative prototyping
• Replacing proprietary design tools
• Creating developer-ready UI specifications