Adobe killed the Figma acquisition, but the lock-in remains. These open-source design tools offer vector editing, prototyping, and team collaboration — on your own infrastructure.
Figma transformed collaborative design, but its proprietary cloud infrastructure and Adobe acquisition attempt spooked many teams. Self-hostable alternatives like Penpot now match Figma's core feature set — components, prototypes, and real-time collaboration — without the vendor risk.
Penpot is the first open-source design tool that works with web standards. Built for designers and developers to collaborate, it supports vector editing, components, interactive prototypes, and real-time collaboration — self-hostable on Docker.
$docker compose -f docker-compose.yaml up -dInkscape is the world's most capable open-source vector graphics editor, supporting SVG, PDF, EPS, and more. While not collaborative, it's the gold standard for standalone vector work — used by illustrators, designers, and engineers worldwide.
$sudo apt install inkscapeExcalidraw is an open-source, end-to-end encrypted virtual whiteboard for sketching hand-drawn-style diagrams. Instant collaboration, no sign-up required, and trivially self-hostable. Used heavily in engineering teams for architecture diagrams.
$docker run -d -p 3000:80 excalidraw/excalidrawtldraw is a very good whiteboard / infinite canvas tool with a best-in-class drawing experience. It's open-source and can be embedded in any web app as an SDK. Real-time collaboration is supported via its sync engine.
$npm install tldrawGIMP is the GNU Image Manipulation Program — the most powerful free and open-source raster graphics editor. It supports layers, masks, filters, scripting, and extensive plugin ecosystems. Better for photo editing than UI design, but indispensable.
$sudo apt install gimp