Penpot vs Photopea: Complete Comparison (2026)
Choosing between Penpot and Photopea is a common decision for design tools buyers in 2026. Photopea has been in the market since 2013, giving it a 7-year head start over Penpot (founded 2020). Penpot serves 350K+ users while Photopea has 20M+ users globally. Penpot differentiates with vector design and prototyping, while Photopea leads with psd file support and layer-based editing. In this head-to-head comparison, Photopea earns a higher hiltonsoftware.co score of 92/100 — but the right choice depends on your specific needs, budget, and team size.
Quick Comparison
Feature-by-Feature Comparison
Pros & Cons at a Glance
After comparing Penpot and Photopea across features, pricing, and user satisfaction, Photopea takes the lead with a score of 92/100 versus Penpot's 90/100. Photopea's key advantages include "opens real psd files in browser" and "completely free to use". That said, Penpot has its own strengths — particularly "free and open source" — making it a viable alternative for specific use cases.
Both Penpot and Photopea offer free plans, lowering the barrier to entry. Penpot's paid plans start at Free (cloud) while Photopea begins at $5/mo. Evaluate which paid features — Real-time collaboration, Self-hosting (Penpot) vs Vector tools, Batch processing (Photopea) — justify upgrading for your team.
Bottom line: Choose Penpot if you need teams wanting a free, open-source, self-hostable figma alternative. Go with Photopea if your priority is anyone needing a free, browser-based photoshop alternative for psd editing. Both are strong design tools tools — we recommend trying the free plan of each before committing.
Teams wanting a free, open-source, self-hostable Figma alternative.
Anyone needing a free, browser-based Photoshop alternative for PSD editing.