head to head · open source
Penpot vs Graphite
Penpot has 60,094 GitHub stars, 4,108 forks, 777 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Graphite has 27,269 stars, 1,259 forks, 562 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Penpot leads on adoption by 120% (60,094 vs 27,269 stars). Penpot is written in Clojure under MPL-2.0; Graphite is written in Rust under Apache-2.0. Penpot has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, Graphite 5%. Penpot was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (design), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
← all 8884 open source comparisons
Side by side
| Penpot | Graphite | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 60K | ★ 27K |
| License | MPL-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Clojure | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 4.1K | ⑂ 1.3K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Penpot if
- You weight community size — 60K 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 Graphite if
- You want the Graphite feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and Graphite fits your workflow better
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 →
About Graphite
Graphite is a browser based, open source procedural vector editor and 2D content creation application built with Rust. It operates entirely client side with no signup required and runs directly at editor.graphite.art. As an alpha stage project, it combines layer based compositing with a node based procedural graphics engine, evolving beyond traditional vector editing into a generalized graphics toolbox.
read the full Graphite overview →
More in Productivity & Utilities
Related comparisons
More Design & Visualization projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the Design & Visualization field.
Frequently asked questions
Is Penpot or Graphite more popular?
Penpot has 60,094 GitHub stars and Graphite has 27,269. Penpot has the larger community by that measure.
Are Penpot and Graphite free?
Both are open source. Penpot is licensed under MPL-2.0 and Graphite under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Penpot and Graphite?
Penpot is written in Clojure and Graphite in Rust. 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 Graphite?
Choose Penpot if you want the larger community (60,094 stars) or its MPL-2.0 licence terms. Choose Graphite if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.