head to head · open source
Excalidraw vs Penpot
Excalidraw has 132,233 GitHub stars, 15,326 forks, 3,445 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Penpot has 60,094 stars, 4,108 forks, 777 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Excalidraw leads on adoption by 120% (132,233 vs 60,094 stars). Excalidraw is written in TypeScript under MIT; Penpot is written in Clojure under MPL-2.0. Excalidraw has attracted 12% as many forks as stars, Penpot 7%. 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
| Excalidraw | Penpot | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 132K | ★ 60K |
| License | MIT | MPL-2.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | Clojure |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 15K | ⑂ 4.1K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Excalidraw if
- You weight community size — 132K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Penpot if
- You want the Penpot feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MPL-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Clojure
- You evaluated both and Penpot fits your workflow better
About Excalidraw
Excalidraw is an open source virtual whiteboard application built in TypeScript, designed for sketching hand drawn style diagrams, wireframes, and freeform ideas. It lives within the web based productivity and design visualization ecosystem, offering a lightweight alternative to commercial tools like Figma, Miro, and Canva. The project includes both a standalone web app at excalidraw.com and an embeddable npm package for integration into third party applications.
read the full Excalidraw overview →
About Penpot
Penpot is an open source design and prototyping platform for product teams that need scalable real time collaboration, self hosting, and full ownership of their design infrastructure.
read the full Penpot overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Excalidraw or Penpot more popular?
Excalidraw has 132,233 GitHub stars and Penpot has 60,094. Excalidraw has the larger community by that measure.
Are Excalidraw and Penpot free?
Both are open source. Excalidraw is licensed under MIT and Penpot under MPL-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Excalidraw and Penpot?
Excalidraw is written in TypeScript and Penpot in Clojure. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Excalidraw or Penpot?
Choose Excalidraw if you want the larger community (132,233 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose Penpot if its feature set, stack or MPL-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.