In 2025, Figma was still the top professional interface design platform with an estimated 70% global market share among design teams and more than 13 million active monthly users, widely adopted by large corporations including nearly 95% of Fortune 500 companies.
At the same time, Penpot, the open-source alternative, crossed the threshold of over 1 million registered users after 300% year-on-year growth, closing roughly 85% of the feature gap with Figma’s core features.
- One tool has become the industry default, embedded in teams, education and workflows.
- The other is a quickly maturing alternative that challenges assumptions about expense, management and collaboration.
In Africa, where budgets are tight, connectivity varies, and in-house management can be critical, this comparison is important.
Figma and Penpot: How Each Tool Defines Value
Figma: The Established One
Figma has grown beyond a simple design canvas. Today it is a full design-to-production platform with advanced prototyping, version history, real-time collaboration, and features that extend into web publishing and AI-assisted workflows.
Teams choose it because it just works at scale, with plugins, templates, design systems libraries and third-party integrations that are entrenched in enterprise workflows.
Penpot: The Open-Source Challenger
Penpot is built on standards like SVG, CSS and HTML, not proprietary file formats. That means design outputs are inspectable web formats, and can be self-hosted with full data ownership.
Because it’s open source, every organisation can use it without paying per-seat fees. And contribution is global; community developers influence its roadmap directly.
Collaboration, Team Dynamics on the Ground
Figma’s Case
Figma’s real-time editing is seamless. Designers, product managers and stakeholders can literally work together in a file, comment inline, and use branching/merging like a code repository. Some features, such as advanced Dev Mode, are behind paid plans but solidly polished.
Penpot’s Missing Link
Penpot also supports real-time work and comments. But its collaborative experience is guided by community contributions, not corporate roadmaps. That means it’s good, and improving, but not yet as tightly integrated for large distributed teams.
In Africa’s context, where teams can be hybrid, informal, and cost-sensitive, Penpot’s unlimited shared access without licensing restrictions can be a real advantage.
Performance, Real Use vs Theory
Figma’s underlying tech, WebAssembly and compiled back-end components, gives smoother interaction with large files, rapid zoom, and minimal lag on big design canvases.
Penpot, based on SVG rendering, can find it difficult with large, complex documents in some browsers, though workarounds and improvements are underway.
- Figma can be more responsive to heavy design projects.
- Penpot can be slower on complex screens, though running it locally or serving from strong infrastructure helps.
For teams mindful of infrastructure costs and on-premise requirements, the ability to self-host and optimise Penpot performance may outweigh the smoothness that Figma achieves on powerful cloud systems.
Ecosystem Maturity: Plugins, Libraries, Support
Figma
Figma has a massive ecosystem with thousands of plugins covering accessibility, animation, asset generation, workflow automation and more.
The network effect is real, design schools, agencies and businesses build around it, and that makes knowledge transfer easier.
Penpot
Penpot’s ecosystem is smaller, but it’s growing. It doesn’t yet match Figma’s plugin breadth, though emerging libraries and community resources are closing gaps. Penpot’s approach emphasises native standards over plugin dependency.
Reliance on external plugins can be weak where connectivity is inconsistent. Tools based on open standards can be more predictable.
Developer Handoff, Where Formats are important
Design-to-code handoff is necessary in lean teams. Figma’s Dev Mode gives developers measurements, assets, and snippets, but it’s still tied to a proprietary format.
Penpot’s advantage is that designs are native web structures; CSS properties, SVG and HTML that resemble actual code. This can cut implementation time significantly for developers who know web standards, because there’s no “translation layer.”
For African startups where designer–developer roles are fluid, this tight coupling between design and code is more than academic, it’s practical.
Cost, Accessibility and Suitability in Africa
Figma’s pricing starts free but quickly escalates with team size and advanced features. Professional plans are typical for established teams, but for small and growing organisations the costs add up.
Penpot, by contrast, is free and doesn’t gate core features behind paywalls. You can use it in the browser or self-host it on your own servers, retaining full control of your design assets.
That autonomy is useful where budgets are small, or where data governance and sovereignty are organisational priorities.
Adoption Trends: Where Things Are Headed
Figma keeps innovating and expanding its footprint globally, recently investing in new products like web publishing tools and AI-assisted workflows.
Penpot’s growth, from a high-growth base, shows demand for non-proprietary tools is real. It’s not yet mainstream in professional hiring ads or agency workflows, but momentum is building.
In the African tech sector, where startups scale fast but still face local challenges, both Figma and Penpot have a future. But they serve different philosophies of work.
Figma or Penpot? Here’s how I see it:
- Figma is great in performance and ecosystem depth. It’s the default for many professional teams today.
- Penpot is where expense, management and standards are necessary. It challenges proprietary assumptions and aligns design with real web implementation.
If your priority is industry-standard workflows with maximum ecosystem support, Figma is the safe choice.
If you want ownership, openness and tighter design-to-code alignment with minimal cost, Penpot is worth a serious look, especially in contexts like Africa where autonomy and budget are key.
