Figma vs Penpot
Figma charges by the kind of seat, while Penpot charges by the editor and stops billing at a ceiling. On Figma a full seat runs from $16 on Professional to $90 on Enterprise, with Dev and Collab seats priced lower. Penpot's Professional plan is $0 for teams of up to eight, and a second plan charges $7 per editor with a monthly ceiling of $175. The other split is where the files live: Figma is a hosted service from a California company, and Penpot ships under MPL-2.0 from Madrid and can be run on your own server.
Sebastiaan SmitsFounderVendors can pay for more visibility on this website, for example a higher place in a ranking or more room on a page. Commercial relationships can also affect which products we feature and how prominently. Every vendor link is marked the same, whatever the arrangement behind it. How that works.
Choose Figma ifyou want one hosted service where designers, developers and reviewers pay different seat prices, and your company is comfortable under a California-governed contract. You will watch AI credit use against your plan.
Choose Penpot ifyou want design files you can host yourself or keep with a Spanish operator, and you like paying a capped monthly total. You do not need advanced print or illustration tooling in the same app.
Figma and Penpot side by side
| Figma | Penpot | |
|---|---|---|
| Our graphic design software rank | #7 of 13 | #1 of 13 |
| Established in | United States | Spain |
| List price, 7 November 2026 | Per seat per month in USD: Professional $16 full, $12 Dev, $3 Collab; Organization $55; Enterprise $90; Starter is free | Editor-based: Private Server $50k a year; Enterprise $25 per member; Unlimited $7 per editor with a $175 monthly ceiling; Professional $0 |
| Free tier | Yes | Yes |
| Open source | — | Yes |
| Self-hostable | — | Yes |
| Built for | Product and brand teams designing together who can budget per seat type | Product teams and agencies that want design files they can host and keep |
| Not for | Solo print designers who only need static vector drawing tools | Print studios needing CMYK separations and advanced illustration tooling |
Both are reviewed in full in our graphic design software ranking: Figma and Penpot.
Where they differ
Figma 1 · Penpot 5 · open 0- 01
Full, Dev and Collab seat prices
Figma Professional charges $16 per month for a full seat, $12 for a Dev seat and $3 for a Collab seat, while Organization is $55, $25 and $5 and Enterprise is $90, $35 and $5, the last two billed annually. Penpot has no seat types: Unlimited is $7 per editor and Enterprise is $25 per member. A team of ten editors pays about $70 on Penpot Unlimited and $160 for Figma full seats on Professional, so Penpot is cheaper at that size.
Edge: Penpot
- 02
The $175 ceiling
Penpot Unlimited bills $7 per editor per month but caps the total at $175 regardless of team size, so editors beyond the 25th add nothing. Figma publishes no ceiling on its per-seat tiers, so thirty full seats on Professional would come to $480 a month at the listed rate. A large design organisation therefore pays far less on Penpot at that size. Figma's Organization tier does add centralised admin tools and shared libraries across teams, which Penpot's pages describe less clearly.
Edge: Penpot
- 03
What the free plan includes
Figma's Starter plan is free with limited access to its products, unlimited drafts, and a daily allowance of 150 AI credits that tops out at 500 a month. Penpot's Professional plan is listed at $0 with the wording that it is free and fully featured for up to 8 members with unlimited viewers. Penpot offers a 14-day trial on paid tiers, and Figma's pricing page mentions no trial. For a small studio, Penpot's free plan is the more complete of the two.
Edge: Penpot
- 04
Where Figma has the wider toolbox
Figma sells Figma Draw for vector illustration and Buzz as products on its pricing page, names Slack, Notion, Jira and Google Workspace as integrations, and lets Organization and Enterprise connect several GitHub organizations. On paid plans, reviewers can look at files and leave comments with no seat. Professional includes advanced Dev Mode inspection and an MCP Server. Penpot also has an open MCP Server, but the Penpot pages we read name fewer integrations and no illustration or marketing products, so Figma wins on breadth.
Edge: Figma
- 05
Self-hosting and keeping the data
Penpot's pricing page offers Cloud, where Penpot hosts, and Self-host, where you do, and its repository describes the project as designed for self-hosting, so upgrades, backups and security fall to your staff. Enterprise brings SSO and a hosting-region choice, while Private Server is $50k a year for dedicated infrastructure. Figma says key parts of Figma and FigJam files can be hosted in the EU, though it does not state which plan includes that. Penpot is the one with a real self-hosted route.
Edge: Penpot
- 06
Kaleidos in Madrid, Figma in California
Penpot's terms identify Kaleidos Subsidiary S.L. at an address in Madrid, governed by Spanish law with Madrid courts, and its about page says Kaleidos moved from consultancy to an open-source product company, with a team based in Europe. Figma's terms name Figma, Inc. at a San Francisco address, governed by California law, and its legal page shows no separate country. Only Penpot gives you a contracting party inside Europe, which can ease a procurement review.
Edge: Penpot
When neither fits
If your work is print layout, illustration or photo templates rather than interface design, look at Inkscape or Canva instead. Both sit in our graphic design ranking, and their own pages will show whether their pricing and file formats suit a studio.
Figma or Penpot: questions
3 answersIs Penpot's Unlimited plan really capped at $175?
The pricing page lists Unlimited at $7 per editor per month and says the total is capped at $175 a month regardless of team size. That cap is reached at 25 editors. Enterprise is priced separately at $25 per member.
Can reviewers comment on a Figma file for free?
According to Figma, people on paid plans can open files and comment without an extra seat. Collab seats at $3 on Professional or $5 on the higher tiers are for people who need more than that. The Starter plan has limited access to Figma products.
Which of the two can be installed on my own server?
Penpot can, through a Self-host install route and a Private Server plan at $50k a year. Figma's pages describe a hosted service, with EU hosting for parts of files. Self-hosting Penpot puts upgrades and backups on your own staff.
Sources
Checked 7 November 2026- Figma pricing page: seat prices on each tier, Starter AI credits, viewer comments without a seat, EU file hosting and named integrations.
- Figma terms of service: Figma, Inc. with a San Francisco address and California governing law.
- Penpot pricing page: the 8-member free tier, editor price and monthly ceiling, the Enterprise and Private Server prices, trial and hosting choices.
- Penpot terms: the contracting entity, its Madrid address and Spanish governing law.
- Penpot GitHub repository: MPL 2.0 as the repository licence, plus its self-hosting purpose.
- Penpot about page: the shift from consultancy work to an open source product, team based in Europe.