Penpot vs Gel
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
choose an app… Excalidraw lazygit Hoppscotch json-server Strapi NocoDB dive Windows lazydocker Bruno Streamlit Sentry Self-Hosted Gradio IT-Tools MindsDB Trivy CyberChef Refine just K9s mise Hasura SigNoz Delta Atuin Jujutsu OpenTofu Composio Harbor Swagger UI Reflex Gitleaks MongoDB Hoarder TruffleHog Huly Redoc Difftastic Pulumi asdf semantic-release ChartDB marimo Renovate Opik OpenObserve kubectx Hurl Yaak Wasp Motia Keploy Verdaccio ctop Semgrep NiceGUI Amplication GoReleaser Task Skaffold Scalar AWX pre-commit Semaphore UI Grype Infracost Convex Phabricator Devbox Posting Encore Netboot.xyz Kubeshark Komodo Kubescape Datasette Skopeo SonarQube OSV-Scanner Distribution InstantDB Sourcegraph usql Tilt Omni Tools Terragrunt reviewdog Sentry pgweb Swagger Editor Self-Hosted Syft Atlantis Buildah Checkov Atlas Lefthook Mockoon Flux CD kube-bench Evidently Adminer Manifest draw.io HedgeDoc WireMock Telepresence devenv Watchexec Headlamp Lura Popeye Rundeck Lightdash Redmine Weblate Mongo Express SQLPad DevSpace Mathesar CloudBeaver Prism Mock OpenGrok Flipt Stern Transmission (VPN) Judge0 CE LazySQL actionlint Dependency-Track Tolgee Chartbrew Overmind ATAC Garden Okteto Distribution Registry UI Schemathesis Kometa Git Town Svix SQLMesh DDNS Updater Spectral Baserow Lowdefy GitList Gitu Quay Restfox Gitnuro Plausible CE Process Compose Nexus Repository OSS zot SQLPage Hoverfly Azimutt Traduora Fusio GO Feature Flag Saltcorn Microcks ggshield regclient Featbit Step CI Zoekt DreamFactory Review Board Kubevious RedwoodSDK Accent LiveCodes Databunker Email OAuth2 Proxy Skooner Whoami GlitchTip Smocker Koillection Devpi Kottster autokitteh Anvil App Server Bencher cgit RhodeCode tRPC Panel klaus Phorge Fossil Gitiles Para RSS Graphweaver Drawio Desktop Server WebHook Tester Smallweb Cloudflared SeedSync Coder Envbuilder UI Bakery Mind Traefik Certs Dumper Hello World Hammond Planning Poker Barrage Limbas Flightlog RapidForge qDirStat Moneroblock Postfix Mail Relay Hook0 MDNS Repeater BrowserStack Automate TurboScale Cluster Control Django Unofficial Example Dont-code Services Imposter Moon OpenSpeedTest RepoFlow
Compare Gel with
choose an app… Excalidraw Supabase lazygit Hoppscotch json-server Strapi NocoDB PocketBase Appwrite dive Windows lazydocker Directus Wasp Nakama Convex InstantDB Manifest Kinto
Feature Penpot Gel Category Developer Tools & Git Developer Tools & Git License MPL-2.0 Apache-2.0 Language Clojure Python Setup difficulty Medium Medium Min. RAM 2,048 MB 1,024 MB Deployment docker, kubernetes docker, binary GitHub stars ★ 58,249 ★ 14,168 First released 2020 2019 Replaces Figma Firebase, Supabase
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 Gel if… Released under the Apache-2.0 license First-class Docker support for quick deployment Mature project with 14.2k GitHub stars Written in Python Gel details
Frequently asked questions Is Penpot or Gel better? Neither is universally better. Penpot has the larger community; both share a medium setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are Penpot and Gel free and open-source? Yes. Penpot is licensed under MPL-2.0 and Gel under Apache-2.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Penpot and Gel with Docker? Penpot: yes. Gel: yes.