Hype check: Hype
Figma ships more AI features, adoption still uneven
Figma's product blog keeps adding AI-assisted tools, but plenty of teams — especially smaller or open-source-curious ones — aren't using them fully yet.
figma.com
Practice brief · Design tools
Penpot keeps making its case as a real Figma alternative
Published 1 September 2026 · Source dated 1 December 2025
Used for: Design-system tidy; Portfolio proof; Tool experiment. Practice brief for the gate you are in — not an industry digest dump.
Hype check: Hype. Sourced 1 December 2025 (9 months ago). Aged-bad claims stay on the ledger so you can find them again. Way back on the hype ledger. Aged hype.
Saves the claim and source date (1 December 2025) on this device. No account.
Penpot's community is still actively pitching open-source, self-hostable design tooling as more than a hobby project — no vendor lock-in, W3C-aligned tokens, full API access.
Threads on Penpot's own community forum keep circling the same pitch: you own your files, you can self-host, and its token system follows the open W3C spec rather than a proprietary format. That matters if you ever work somewhere security-conscious or just don't want to be stuck if pricing changes.
It's not a Figma killer yet — plugin ecosystem and polish still lag — but it's mature enough to actually build in, which is more than you could say a couple of years ago. Worth having hands-on familiarity even if your day job runs on Figma.
Coach
Rebuild one screen from your portfolio in Penpot this week and note the three biggest differences from your Figma workflow.
Source: community.penpot.app ·
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medium.com