Penpot vs draw.io
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?
Compare Penpot with
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Compare draw.io with
choose an app… Excalidraw lazygit Hoppscotch json-server Strapi NocoDB dive Windows lazydocker drawDB Drawio Desktop Server
Feature Penpot draw.io Category Developer Tools & Git Developer Tools & Git License MPL-2.0 Apache-2.0 Language Clojure JavaScript Setup difficulty Medium Easy Min. RAM 2,048 MB 256 MB Deployment docker, kubernetes docker GitHub stars ★ 58,249 ★ 7,378 First released 2020 2012 Replaces Figma Lucidchart, Visio
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 draw.io if… Released under the Apache-2.0 license Easy to set up — beginner-friendly First-class Docker support for quick deployment Mature project with 7.4k GitHub stars draw.io details
Frequently asked questions Is Penpot or draw.io better? Neither is universally better. Penpot has the larger community, while draw.io is simpler to set up (easy difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.
Are Penpot and draw.io free and open-source? Yes. Penpot is licensed under MPL-2.0 and draw.io under Apache-2.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Penpot and draw.io with Docker? Penpot: yes. draw.io: yes.