Penpot vs Refine
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 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 Gel 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 Refine with
choose an app… Excalidraw lazygit Hoppscotch json-server Strapi NocoDB dive Windows lazydocker Bruno Streamlit Sentry Self-Hosted Gradio Appsmith IT-Tools MindsDB ToolJet Trivy CyberChef just K9s mise Hasura SigNoz Delta Atuin Reflex Budibase Windmill Amplication Lowdefy Anvil App Server
Feature Penpot Refine Category Developer Tools & Git Developer Tools & Git License MPL-2.0 MIT Language Clojure TypeScript Setup difficulty Medium Medium Min. RAM 2,048 MB 256 MB Deployment docker, kubernetes source, docker GitHub stars ★ 58,249 ★ 35,481 First released 2020 2021 Replaces Figma Retool
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 Refine if… Released under the MIT license First-class Docker support for quick deployment Mature project with 35.5k GitHub stars Written in TypeScript Refine details
Frequently asked questions Is Penpot or Refine 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 Refine free and open-source? Yes. Penpot is licensed under MPL-2.0 and Refine under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Penpot and Refine with Docker? Penpot: yes. Refine: yes.