Penpot – SD Times Open Source Project of the Week

Penpot is a tool designed to bridge the gap between designers and developers and provide more collaboration throughout the process.

According to the project maintainers, there can be difficulty in handing off projects from designers to developers because they are often using different tools and the vision of the project may get lost along the way. 

In Penpot, the interfaces that designers create get expressed as code so that developers can pick up right from where the designers left off, eliminating some of those struggles that are common to the hand off process. 

It features a web-based multiplayer mode that allows for real-time collaboration because multiple people can be working within the same design at once. There is also a whiteboard feature that allows designers and developers to come together to brainstorm, test ideas, and organize workshops. 

Designers can also save their design elements and components so that they can easily be reused, allowing for better consistency between projects. 

Other features include the ability to add custom fonts, unlimited teams and projects, a presentation mode for sharing ideas, and support for over 30 different languages. 

As of August 2024, the project has 31K stars on GitHub and has over 150 developers contributing to it. It is used by companies like Cisco, Mozilla, and NYU. 

It was created by Kaleidos, which was originally a consulting firm, but has since pivoted to fully support the development and growth of Penpot. 

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