head to head · open source
Penpot vs Tldraw
Penpot has 61,995 GitHub stars, 4,361 forks, 777 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Tldraw has 51,207 stars, 3,597 forks, 649 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Penpot leads on adoption by 21% (61,995 vs 51,207 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%. Tldraw 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 | ★ 62K | ★ 51K |
| License | MPL-2.0 | Custom / other |
| Written in | Clojure | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 4.4K | ⑂ 3.6K |
| 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 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
[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 Tldraw
Build infinite canvas apps in React with the tldraw SDK. Docs · Examples · Starter kits Feature highlights tldraw provides a feature complete infinite canvas engine designed to be the foundation for any canvas app. Create custom shapes, tools, bindings and UI components for a custom experience. Use the default whiteboarding tool set or use the library's primitives to build entirely new shapes and interactions. Multiplayer — self hostable real time collaboration with @tldraw/sync Drawing and diagramming — pressure sensitive drawing, geometric shapes, rich text, arrows, snapping to shapes, edge scrolling, image…
read the full Tldraw overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Penpot or Tldraw more popular?
Penpot has 61,995 GitHub stars and Tldraw has 51,207. 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 (61,995 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.