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Both cover design & graphics. Here is what separates them on price, billing, what you can take with you, and coverage.
| Penpot | Spline | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | From $7 | From $15 |
| Pricing model | Free plan, paid tiers | Free plan, paid tiers |
| Free tier | Yes | Yes |
| Billing | Not stated | Monthly or annual |
| Free trial | 14 days | None |
| API | Yes | Not stated |
| Data export | Not stated | Not stated |
| Their cut | Not stated | Not stated |
| Runs on | Web | Web |
| Covers | Design & Graphics | Motion Graphics & Animation, Design & Graphics |
| Works with | Nothing in particular | Nothing in particular |
| Founded | Not listed | Not listed |
| Reader rating | No reviews yet | No reviews yet |
| Live deals | 1 | None right now |
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.
3D scenes that run in a browser
Spline is a 3D editor in the browser whose output is an interactive scene rather than a rendered file, so the thing you made can sit on a web page and respond to a cursor. Video export and code export are there for when it needs to be flat or embedded properly. The learning curve is much shorter than the desktop tools it competes with.
Our note
Spline is the fastest route from nothing to a 3D thing on a web page, and the free plan is enough to find out whether you enjoy it. Blender is free and does everything, and will take you a month to reach the point Spline reaches in an afternoon.
Only on this side
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.