head to head · open source
Penpot vs Chalk.ist
Penpot has 61,995 GitHub stars, 4,361 forks, 777 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Chalk.ist has 1,845 stars, 148 forks, 22 open issues and last shipped 10 months ago. Penpot leads on adoption by 3,260% (61,995 vs 1,845 stars). Penpot is written in Clojure under MPL-2.0; Chalk.ist is written in Vue under MIT. Penpot has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, Chalk.ist 8%. Penpot was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| Penpot | Chalk.ist | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 62K | ★ 1.8K |
| License | MPL-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Clojure | Vue |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-01-07 |
| Forks | ⑂ 4.4K | ⑂ 148 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Penpot if
- You weight community size — 62K stars and counting
- You want the MPL-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Clojure
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Chalk.ist if
- You want the Chalk.ist feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Vue
- You evaluated both and Chalk.ist fits your workflow better
About Penpot
[uri license]: [uri license image]: Website • User Guide • Learning Center • Community Youtube • Peertube • Linkedin • Instagram • Mastodon • Bluesky • X Penpot video Penpot is the open source design platform for teams that build digital products at scale. Penpot’s key strength lies in giving you full ownership of your design infrastructure . Built on open source and designed for self hosting, it puts teams in complete control of their design environment supporting strict compliance and governance requirements. Whether used in the browser or deployed on your own servers , Penpot works with open standards like…
read the full Penpot overview →
About Chalk.ist
Chalk.ist Create beautiful images of your source code Go to App Development License MIT Kasper Mikiewicz 2022
read the full Chalk.ist overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Penpot or Chalk.ist more popular?
Penpot has 61,995 GitHub stars and Chalk.ist has 1,845. Penpot has the larger community by that measure.
Are Penpot and Chalk.ist free?
Both are open source. Penpot is licensed under MPL-2.0 and Chalk.ist under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Penpot and Chalk.ist?
Penpot is written in Clojure and Chalk.ist in Vue. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Penpot or Chalk.ist?
Choose Penpot if you want the larger community (61,995 stars) or its MPL-2.0 licence terms. Choose Chalk.ist if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.