Open-source alternatives to Figma and Canva

Figma and Canva get lumped together, but they do different jobs, and that decides everything on this page.

Figma is for people who design websites and apps. A Professional full seat is $16 a month, so a five-person design team pays $960 a year, and the Organization plan jumps to $55 a seat. Canva is for everybody else: social posts, flyers and slide decks, made quickly from templates. Canva Business is £180 per person a year, so five people pay £900.

There's one open-source tool here worth your time, and it's a rival to Figma. It isn't really a rival to Canva, and I'd rather tell you that now than have you find out after moving.

Penpot

Penpot is a browser-based design and prototyping tool, and it's the real deal. If you've used Figma, the idea will feel familiar: everyone works in the same file, at the same time, in a browser.

• Real-time collaboration, so designers and developers can work in one place.
• Components and variants for reusable parts of a design.
• Native design tokens, which keep colours, spacing and type consistent between design and code.
• CSS Grid and Flex layouts, so designs behave the way a real web page does.
• Interactive prototypes to show how a product will work.
• An Inspect tab giving developers SVG, CSS and HTML straight from the design.
• Plugins, an API and an MCP server for connecting it to other tools and AI assistants.

The thing I like most is that it's built on open web standards. Designs are SVG, CSS, HTML and JSON under the hood, rather than a closed format. That means developers get something closer to what they actually need, and you aren't tied to one company's file format.

You also have a choice most tools on this site don't offer, because Penpot has a generous hosted version. Its Professional plan is free. The Unlimited plan is $7 per editor a month, capped at $175 a month however big your team is. So you can try it, and even run a small team on it, without touching a server.

If you do want to self-host, the official route is Docker Compose. That brings up the frontend, backend, an exporter, a PostgreSQL database and Valkey, and you'll need to look after DNS and a reverse proxy. Penpot strongly recommends HTTPS, and the clipboard doesn't work over plain HTTP. You'll want to add email sending as well, for invitations.

Moving from Figma is possible, with care. There's an official Figma plugin that exports your files in a format Penpot can read, but Penpot says itself that it may not be 100% reliable because the two tools work differently, and large files can be slow or fail. Treat it as a head start, not a clean move.

What about Canva?

This is where I'd be careful. Penpot has libraries and templates, but it's a professional design tool. It expects you to understand layouts and components. Someone in the office who wants a smart Instagram post in five minutes will find it harder going than Canva, and won't find the same huge template library or the same drag-and-drop simplicity.

I haven't found an open-source tool that properly matches Canva for non-designers. At £100 a year for Pro, I wouldn't try too hard to replace it, either. If you're paying for Figma and Canva, the money to save is on the Figma side.

The UK angle

Honestly, this isn't a big one. Design files are mostly logos, layouts and mock-ups, not customers' personal details, so Figma and Canva being US-based companies is fine for most small firms.

There are a few cases where it's worth a thought:

• Real customer data in mock-ups. If your designs use screenshots with real names and addresses in them, that's personal data under UK GDPR, wherever it's stored. The easy fix is to use dummy data.
• Client confidentiality. If you're designing something that's commercially sensitive, or a client has asked for it to stay on servers you control, self-hosting gives you a simple answer.
• Who owns your work. You own your designs either way, but having them in open formats on your own server means nobody can change the terms under you.

Penpot's Enterprise plan lists a choice of hosting region. If UK hosting matters, self-hosting is the straightforward way to get it.

Honest drawbacks

• It isn't a Canva replacement. Non-designers will struggle, and the template library isn't comparable.
• Figma's ecosystem is bigger. Designers will miss some plugins and community files, and new hires are more likely to know Figma.
• Figma is moving quickly on AI. Its paid seats include monthly AI credits. Penpot's approach is plugins, an API and MCP, which is more flexible but less ready-made.
• Moving files isn't perfect. Budget time to check and rebuild anything important after exporting from Figma.
• Self-hosting means several containers to update, and the hosted free plan may suit you better anyway.
• Enterprise extras cost money, such as single sign-on on the hosted service, at $25 per member a month.

Which one?

My pick is Penpot on the free hosted plan, for any team designing websites or apps. Try it on a real project first, then think about self-hosting if you have a reason to. The main drawback is that it replaces Figma, not Canva: anyone who just wants quick social posts from templates will be better off staying on Canva.

• Designing websites and apps, and paying for Figma seats: Penpot.
• Developers and designers working closely together: Penpot, for the tokens and the inspectable code.
• Making social posts, flyers and slides: stay on Canva.

If your design work needs turning into a real product, the team at Dev Partners can build it as custom software.

Sources

• Penpot on GitHub
• Penpot pricing
• Penpot user guide
• Penpot self-hosting guide
• Penpot Docker Compose guide
• Penpot Docker Compose file
• Penpot: switching from Figma
• Penpot's Figma exporter plugin
• Figma pricing
• Canva UK pricing