What makes Figma sticky is not the pen tool but the shared cloud around it: real-time editing, team libraries, prototypes, and developer handoff all living in one account. That is also where the friction starts, because your source files sit inside a vendor's cloud and the per-seat model gets awkward once engineers, clients, and occasional reviewers all need in. Open source design tools trade some of that polish for ownership of the design system itself - files you can keep locally or self-host, formats built on open standards, and collaboration that can sit closer to your own infrastructure. Not every option covers the full workflow, so the right pick depends on which part of the tool you actually live in.
Excalidraw is an open source virtual whiteboard for drawing hand-drawn style diagrams, wireframes, and sketches. It provides an infinite canvas with common diagramming tools, so teams and individuals can turn ideas into visual drawings in a browser.
Penpot is an open-source design platform for teams building digital products. It supports design and prototype work in the browser or on self-hosted infrastructure, giving teams ownership of their design environment and helping avoid vendor lock-in.
Graphite is a free, open source 2D content creation app for vector and raster graphics, available in alpha as an online editor. It began as a vector editor and is evolving into a broader graphics toolbox for graphic design, digital art, and interactive real-time motion graphics.
Akira is a native Linux design application for UI and UX design. It is built in Vala and GTK and targets web designers and graphic designers who want to use Linux as their main operating system.
Which one fits depends on whether you need a full design platform or a fast canvas.
Best all-around Figma replacement: Penpot Penpot is the closest thing here to a full Figma replacement, and the only one you can self-host on your own servers via Docker or Kubernetes. It covers components, variants, native design tokens, and real-time collaboration, and its inspect mode reads out SVG, CSS, and HTML for handoff. Because files are built on open standards, your design system is never trapped in a proprietary format.
Best for wireframes and diagrams: Excalidraw Excalidraw is not trying to be a pixel-perfect UI editor; it is a fast, infinite whiteboard for wireframes, diagrams, and sketching ideas. It runs as an offline-capable PWA that autosaves in the browser, supports end-to-end encrypted real-time collaboration, and exports to PNG, SVG, or its open .excalidraw JSON. For early-stage flows and system sketches it is quicker than reaching for a heavyweight design tool.
One to watch for vector and procedural work: Graphite Graphite takes a different angle: a nondestructive, node-based editor that combines vector and raster with procedural, generative design. It runs in the browser and is fully community built and funded under Apache 2.0. It is still in alpha, so treat it as a promising option for illustration and procedural graphics rather than a stable production replacement for Figma today.
The first decision is whether you are replacing Figma the canvas or Figma the operating model, because they are very different jobs. Drawing screens, editing vectors, and exporting assets are the easy parts to match; the hard parts are shared component libraries, multiplayer review, prototype links, and developer handoff, and no open tool reproduces all of them exactly. Of the options here, Penpot is the only one aiming at that full product-design workflow, with components, variants, design tokens, and an inspect mode, while Excalidraw deliberately stays a fast whiteboard for wireframes and diagrams rather than a pixel-perfect editor.
Expect the gaps to show up in fidelity and collaboration rather than basic drawing. Auto layout, variants, interactive prototype states, and plugin pipelines rarely transfer one for one, and browser-based coediting can behave differently under large files and many reviewers. Penpot builds its files on SVG, CSS, HTML, and JSON, which keeps them inspectable and closer to how engineers actually read a design, but you should still test a real design critique with designers, product managers, and engineers in the room before committing a whole team.
For the move itself, begin inside Figma with an inventory of files, libraries, fonts, and prototype links, then export finished screens as SVG, PDF, or PNG and keep the original Figma files as archives. Vector paths, images, and text usually import; components, variants, auto layout, comments, and version history generally need rebuilding. Migrate one product area first, recreate its component library by hand, validate handoff with engineers on a real feature, then freeze the old library once the new one holds up.
For product design, Penpot comes closest, since it covers components, variants, design tokens, prototyping, and real-time collaboration in the browser or on your own servers. Excalidraw replaces a different slice of Figma, the quick wireframing and whiteboarding, rather than high-fidelity UI. Graphite and Akira are still in alpha. So the honest answer is that you match one tool to the part of Figma your team actually depends on, not the whole thing at once.
Penpot is built around this, with browser-based real-time coediting plus an inspect mode that exposes SVG, CSS, and HTML for handoff, so engineers can read a design without a Figma account. Excalidraw supports end-to-end encrypted collaborative sessions for sketching together. The caveat is performance: test coediting with a realistic file and several reviewers present, because latency and conflict handling matter more than whether the feature exists on paper.
The cleanest exports are presentation formats: SVG for vectors, PDF for review, and PNG for raster deliverables, which is what Excalidraw and Penpot both read for finished screens. Text, frame boundaries, and vector paths often survive an import. Figma-specific structure does not: components, variants, auto layout, prototype wiring, comments, and version history should be treated as things to rebuild in the new tool rather than portable project data.
Penpot does, and that is what sets it apart from the rest of this list. It ships native design tokens, components, and variants, along with responsive layout built on CSS Grid and Flex, so a real design system can live in it rather than a folder of loose screens. Excalidraw has shape libraries for reusable elements but is not a component-and-token system, and Graphite and Akira are earlier-stage editors focused on drawing.
Yes. Penpot is designed to run on your own infrastructure through Docker, Kubernetes, or providers like Elestio, which is the main reason teams pick it over hosted design tools. Excalidraw takes a lighter route as an offline-capable PWA that autosaves in the browser, so files stay local by default. Self-hosting means you own backups and updates, but unreleased product flows never sit in someone else's account.
Handoff is usually where friction shows up first, since engineers lose familiar inspection panels and measurements. Penpot answers this with an inspect mode that reads out SVG, CSS, and HTML code, plus an MCP server aimed at design-to-code workflows. Before switching a team, run a handoff trial on a real feature and ask engineers what information is missing; you may still need a documented convention for specs, exported assets, and tokens alongside the file.
Excalidraw runs as an offline-first PWA, so you can keep sketching wireframes and diagrams with no connection and it syncs when you are back. If you specifically want a native Linux application rather than a browser tab, Akira is built in Vala and GTK for exactly that audience, though it is in early alpha and not ready for production work yet. Penpot and Graphite both run in the browser instead.
