Penpot vs Sketch Comparison 2026
Penpot is open source and self-hostable, with a free plan that is fully featured rather than crippled: unlimited files and teams for up to eight members. Paid Unlimited is $7 a user a month, capped at $175 a month no matter how large the team grows. Sketch has no free plan at all and only runs on Mac, but only counts editors toward the price, so unlimited viewers cost nothing, at $12 an editor a month billed yearly, or $120 a seat once for a licence that keeps working after its year of included updates ends. Sketch's own listing sends teams on mixed operating systems to Penpot or Figma directly. Both cap what a growing team eventually pays, just through different mechanics.
At a glance
- Penpot starts cheaper, at $7.
- Only Penpot has a free tier.
Side by side
Penpot | Sketch | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price (they differ) | From $7 | From $12 |
| Pricing model (they differ) | Free plan, paid tiers | Free trial, then paid |
| Free tier (they differ) | Yes | No |
| Billing | Not stated | Not stated |
| Free trial (they differ) | 14 days | 30 days |
Penpot
Open source design you can host yourself
Penpot does the job Figma does and is open source, which matters if you would rather keep design files on a server you control than on somebody else's. The free plan is fully featured rather than crippled, and paying mostly buys storage, version history and a bill that stops rising past a point. Files are standards-based, so what comes out is SVG and CSS rather than a format only one company reads.
Our note
The capped bill is the quietly good part of this: it removes the sting from adding the ninth person to a team. Take it seriously if you are choosing tools for an organisation that cares about lock-in, and stay on Figma if you just need to draw a thumbnail.
Sketch
Interface design with a one-time licence
Sketch draws interfaces in a Mac application and puts the reviewing half in a browser, so somebody signing off a screen needs no licence to open it. Editors are counted and viewers are not, which keeps a project's cost tied to the people actually moving pixels. Two ways to pay sit side by side: a subscription per editor, or a single payment that keeps working after the year of updates it includes runs out. Anybody designing on Windows is ruled out, because the editor itself is Mac only.
Why people weigh these two
- Sketch instead of Penpot
- Sketch is bought as a one-time licence rather than run as a hosted service, Mac-only interface design software instead of Penpot's browser-based, host-it-yourself approach.
- Penpot instead of Sketch
- Penpot is the other cross-platform option Sketch's own guidance names, open source and self-hostable, with a free tier before a $7 plan.
Which one should you pick
Pick Penpot if design files need to live on a server you control, or the team is not all on Mac. The free plan has no file or team limits, and Unlimited never costs more than $175 a month regardless of headcount, which removes the sting of adding a ninth person.
Pick Sketch if the whole team designs on Mac and you want the option to pay once and stop: $120 a seat buys the app outright with a year of updates, cheaper than the subscription within a year for most people. Only editors count toward the price, so a large group of reviewers and stakeholders costs nothing extra, but anybody on Windows is excluded outright.
Common questions
- Does Sketch recommend Penpot for some teams?
- Yes, directly: its own listing says a team that needs everybody editing on mixed operating systems should look at Figma or Penpot instead, since Sketch's editor is Mac only.
- Which is cheaper for a large team, Penpot or Sketch?
- Penpot, likely: Unlimited never costs more than $175 a month regardless of team size. Sketch charges per editor with no such cap, though viewers are free on Sketch, so a team with many reviewers and few editors can still come out cheaper there.
- Can I pay once and stop paying, like pCloud, on either of these?
- Yes, on Sketch: a $120-a-seat one-time licence includes a year of updates and keeps working after. Penpot has no one-time option; its cost control is a capped monthly bill instead, at $175 a month maximum.
- Is Penpot's free plan actually usable, or a limited demo?
- It is described as fully featured: unlimited files and teams, plugins and up to eight team members with unlimited viewers, 10GB of storage and seven days of version history. Sketch has no free plan at all, only a 30-day trial with no card required.
Ratings are the average of reviews readers left. The facts are stated by each tool’s own listing and are not verified by CloutStack. How we make money.