Penpot vs Headlamp

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?
FeaturePenpotHeadlamp
CategoryDeveloper Tools & GitDeveloper Tools & Git
LicenseMPL-2.0Apache-2.0
LanguageClojureTypeScript
Setup difficultyMediumMedium
Min. RAM2,048 MB256 MB
Deploymentdocker, kubernetesdocker, helm, binary
GitHub stars★ 58,249★ 7,027
First released20202021
ReplacesFigmaLens, Kubernetes Dashboard

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 Headlamp if…

  • Released under the Apache-2.0 license
  • First-class Docker support for quick deployment
  • Mature project with 7k GitHub stars
  • Written in TypeScript
Headlamp details

Frequently asked questions

Is Penpot or Headlamp 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 Headlamp free and open-source?

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

Can I run Penpot and Headlamp with Docker?

Penpot: yes. Headlamp: yes.

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