Penpot vs Scalar
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 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 Scalar with
choose an app… Excalidraw lazygit Hoppscotch json-server Strapi NocoDB dive Windows lazydocker Redoc Swagger Editor Self-Hosted Prism Mock
Feature Penpot Scalar Category Developer Tools & Git Developer Tools & Git License MPL-2.0 MIT Language Clojure TypeScript Setup difficulty Medium Easy Min. RAM 2,048 MB 256 MB Deployment docker, kubernetes docker, source GitHub stars ★ 58,249 ★ 15,865 First released 2020 2023 Replaces Figma Stoplight, ReadMe
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 Scalar if… Released under the MIT license Easy to set up — beginner-friendly First-class Docker support for quick deployment Mature project with 15.9k GitHub stars Scalar details
Frequently asked questions Is Penpot or Scalar better? Neither is universally better. Penpot has the larger community, while Scalar is simpler to set up (easy difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.
Are Penpot and Scalar free and open-source? Yes. Penpot is licensed under MPL-2.0 and Scalar under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Penpot and Scalar with Docker? Penpot: yes. Scalar: yes.