Compare / Penpot vs Excalidraw
Penpot vs Excalidraw
Pick Penpot if you want the published Figma / Adobe XD / Sketch stack (components and a prototype). Pick Excalidraw if you want that MIT whiteboard.
Facts checked 25 Oct 2026. License, language, and GitHub activity come from the catalog or the project's own repo. "Not in the catalog row" means the public catalog dump does not store that number.
Penpot in the catalog Excalidraw in the catalog Start on Railway
How they compare
| Penpot | Excalidraw | |
|---|---|---|
| License | MPL-2.0 (catalog) source | MIT (catalog) source |
| Language | Clojure (catalog) | TypeScript (catalog) |
| GitHub activity | 61,620 stars in the catalog source | 134,498 stars in the catalog source |
| Self-host | Published as /stacks/penpot-design. Frontend, backend, Postgres, Redis, assets. | Published as /stacks/excalidraw-whiteboard. Room server plus storage. |
| Best for | The published Figma replacement. | A whiteboard if Penpot is not the shape. |
Self-hosting and resource needs
Penpot is the published lander — /stacks/penpot-design. Excalidraw is the whiteboard already on /stacks/excalidraw-whiteboard. Inkscape is a desktop SVG editor, not this pair. Neither has a one-click c17 Railway template.
FAQ
- Figma or Adobe XD?
- Same published design file — /replace/figma and /replace/adobe-xd.
- Is this Miro?
- A whiteboard stays on /replace/miro (Excalidraw). Penpot is the product-design file.
- Are these free?
- Penpot is MPL-2.0. Excalidraw is MIT. You pay hosting.
- How do I deploy Penpot?
- Open /stacks/penpot-design. Persist Postgres, Redis, and assets. Import one library.
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