Penpot vs ctop

A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted developer tools & git options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.

Not the right match-up?
FeaturePenpotctop
CategoryDeveloper Tools & GitDeveloper Tools & Git
LicenseMPL-2.0MIT
LanguageClojureGo
Setup difficultyMediumEasy
Min. RAM2,048 MB32 MB
Deploymentdocker, kubernetesbinary, docker
GitHub stars★ 58,249★ 17,811
First released20202017
ReplacesFigmaDocker Desktop

Why pick each one

Choose Penpot if…

  • Released under the MPL-2.0 license
  • First-class Docker support for quick deployment
  • Kubernetes-ready with Helm charts available
  • Mature project with 58.2k GitHub stars
Penpot details

Choose ctop if…

  • Released under the MIT license
  • Easy to set up — beginner-friendly
  • First-class Docker support for quick deployment
  • Mature project with 17.8k GitHub stars
ctop details

Frequently asked questions

Is Penpot or ctop better?

Neither is universally better. Penpot has the larger community, while ctop is simpler to set up (easy difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.

Are Penpot and ctop free and open-source?

Yes. Penpot is licensed under MPL-2.0 and ctop under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.

Can I run Penpot and ctop with Docker?

Penpot: yes. ctop: yes.

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