Penpot vs Kottster
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 Kottster with
choose an app… Excalidraw lazygit Hoppscotch json-server Strapi NocoDB dive Windows lazydocker
Feature Penpot Kottster Category Developer Tools & Git Developer Tools & Git License MPL-2.0 Apache-2.0 Language Clojure TypeScript Setup difficulty Medium Medium Min. RAM 2,048 MB 512 MB Deployment docker, kubernetes docker GitHub stars ★ 58,249 ★ 1,154 First released 2020 2026 Replaces Figma —
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 Kottster if… Released under the Apache-2.0 license First-class Docker support for quick deployment Active community (1.2k GitHub stars) Written in TypeScript Kottster details
Frequently asked questions Is Penpot or Kottster 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 Kottster free and open-source? Yes. Penpot is licensed under MPL-2.0 and Kottster under Apache-2.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Penpot and Kottster with Docker? Penpot: yes. Kottster: yes.