Excalidraw
Penpot
| Feature | Excalidraw | Penpot |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Free / from $7/mo | Free / from $8/mo |
| Free Plan | ✓ Yes | ✓ Yes |
| Rating | 4.7 / 5 | 4.3 / 5 |
| Best For | developers, product-teams, educators, brainstorming-sessions | open-source-teams, privacy-focused-designers, developers, educational-institutions |
| Founded | 2020 | 2015 |
| Freehand Drawing | ✓ | ✗ |
| Real Time Collaboration | ✓ | ✓ |
| Component Library | ✓ | ✗ |
| Export Options | ✓ | ✗ |
| End To End Encryption | ✓ | ✗ |
| Embeddable | ✓ | ✗ |
| Shapes And Arrows | ✓ | ✗ |
| Vector Editing | ✗ | ✓ |
| Prototyping | ✗ | ✓ |
| Components | ✗ | ✓ |
| Design Tokens | ✗ | ✓ |
| Css Output | ✗ | ✓ |
| Self Hostable | ✗ | ✓ |
✓ Excalidraw Pros
- Beautiful hand-drawn sketch aesthetic
- Completely free and open source core
- Real-time collaboration with shared links
- Library of reusable components and templates
- Embeddable in other applications
✗ Excalidraw Cons
- Limited formatting compared to structured diagramming tools
- No presentation mode built-in
- File management basic without Excalidraw+
✓ Penpot Pros
- Open-source and self-hostable for free
- CSS-based design outputs production-ready code
- Real-time collaboration (Figma-like experience)
- SVG-native (no proprietary formats)
✗ Penpot Cons
- Performance slower than Figma on complex files
- Smaller plugin and community ecosystem
- Missing some advanced design features
The Verdict
Excalidraw is built for developers and product teams, with a focus on freehand-drawing and real-time-collaboration. Penpot targets open source teams and privacy focused designers and leads with vector-editing and prototyping.
Pricing is close: Excalidraw starts at $7/mo versus $8/mo for Penpot — not a deciding factor on its own.
Both offer free plans, so you can test each with your real workflow before committing to a subscription.
Excalidraw edges out on user ratings (4.7 vs 4.3). While both are well-regarded, that gap reflects real differences in user satisfaction worth considering.
Both tools are a solid fit for developers — in those cases, the decision often comes down to workflow style and how your team prefers to organize work.
Bottom line: Excalidraw has a slight overall edge — but if open-source and self-hostable for free matters most to you, Penpot may still be the right call.