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.

Held at the MEST Africa office in Ikoyi, the event brought together 17 high-performing startup teams, each comprising designers and developers, to tackle real-world challenges in health, education, and agriculture.

Themed: “Design. Develop. Collaborate,” the hackathon underscored a growing movement to dissolve silos between design and engineering teams.

It also reaffirmed Figma’s commitment to empowering African creators through its real-time collaboration tools and community-building efforts.

Figma Africa’s lead advocate, Namnso Ukpanah, kicked off the event with guidance on judging criteria, expectations, and a reminder of why collaboration matters.

GitHub’s Developer Advocate, Adewale Abati, also energized the room with pro tips on effective coding under pressure.

The challenge was simple in theory, yet ambitious in scope: to develop effective entrepreneurial solutions that address societal challenges efficiently.

Claire Butler, Figma’s Global Community Lead, flew in from the U.S. to witness the innovation firsthand.

“Seeing this level of talent, energy, and heart from the African tech ecosystem is inspiring,” she said, after meeting with several teams.

Entrepreneurs pitched before a three-person judging panel, each a respected leader in the African tech ecosystem.

The judging panel includes: Dara Oke, a product manager and designer with experience at Microsoft, Twitter, and Intel, who brought a unique lens on accessibility and user empathy.

Her recent work has focused on making design more inclusive through empathy-driven research and systems thinking.

Yemi Johnson, a technology maverick and Chief Operating Officer at Hotels.ng, provided deep insights into business operations, user acquisition, and online marketplaces.

A serial entrepreneur, Johnson previously exited his startup before joining Hotels.ng to scale its growth and operational backbone.

Prosper Otemuyiwa, a globally recognized tech advocate and Developer Advocate at Apollo GraphQL, who has played a pivotal role in expanding developer communities across Africa.

A leading voice in the ForLoop Africa movement, Prosper’s passion for mentoring and open-source development made him a perfect judge for a hackathon centered on community and impact.

Each of the 17 teams took the stage to pitch their solutions. In third place, Team Sirocco developed a health management platform accessible via web, mobile, and USSD for universal access in Nigeria.

In second place, Team Exolve developed a food distribution app that connects local farmers with distributors to mitigate food scarcity.

And the winning team of the 2018 Figma x GitHub Hackathon was Team Brookly, who built an EdTech platform targeting inefficiencies in Nigeria’s public education system.

Cash prizes of $200, $300, and $500 were awarded, respectively, and other perks, including access to exclusive support from Figma and Ingressive for Good.

The hackathon closed with a community-wide Kahoot! Quiz, Figma swag giveaways, and an invitation to join the growing Figma Africa Slack community.

“Design is a team sport and a very critical part of building strong technology products that solve real-life problems,” said Ukpanah in his closing remarks, echoing the event’s core philosophy. “And this weekend proved that when entrepreneurs, designers, and developers collaborate early and often, they can build not only better products but a stronger tech ecosystem.”

With Lagos as the backdrop and innovation as the focus, the Figma Africa Hackathon wasn’t just a competition.

It was a celebration of Africa’s rising digital talents and a preview of what the future holds when collaboration leads the way.