head to head · open source
Penpot vs Tldraw
Penpot has 60,094 GitHub stars, 4,108 forks, 777 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Tldraw has 50,422 stars, 3,517 forks, 649 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Penpot leads on adoption by 19% (60,094 vs 50,422 stars). Penpot is written in Clojure under MPL-2.0; Tldraw is written in TypeScript under a custom or non-standard licence. Penpot has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, Tldraw 7%. 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.
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Side by side
| Penpot | Tldraw | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 60K | ★ 50K |
| License | MPL-2.0 | Custom / other |
| Written in | Clojure | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 4.1K | ⑂ 3.5K |
| 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 Tldraw if
- You want the Tldraw feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and Tldraw 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 Tldraw
Tldraw is a free, open source TypeScript and React SDK for building infinite canvas applications — the engine behind tldraw.com — aimed at developers who need whiteboarding, diagramming, or real time canvas collaboration embedded inside their own product rather than hosted as a separate destination site.
read the full Tldraw overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Penpot or Tldraw more popular?
Penpot has 60,094 GitHub stars and Tldraw has 50,422. Penpot has the larger community by that measure.
Are Penpot and Tldraw free?
Both are open source. Penpot is licensed under MPL-2.0, and Tldraw has no licence declared in this registry. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Penpot and Tldraw?
Penpot is written in Clojure and Tldraw in TypeScript. 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 Tldraw?
Choose Penpot if you want the larger community (60,094 stars) or its MPL-2.0 licence terms. Choose Tldraw if its feature set, stack or Custom / other licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.