Penpot and UXPin: Comparing Two Leading UX Design Tools

Penpot review

Not many design tools fall into the open source category. Penpot is different in this regard, aiming to "provide an open-source & open-standards platform." It's web-based, particularly suited to web design, and boasts all the features you would expect from this type of app. There is even a collection of editor tools. Part of Kaleidos, Penpot was launched in 2019 after a few years' development. As of 2024, 80,000 teams are cited, including groups at Google and Microsoft. This makes it a compelling option on any list of design software to consider. Our evaluation looks at Penpots features, ease of use, customer support, comparisons with competing tools, and its affordability. Three options area available for Penpot. First, the Free option, with unlimited teams, unlimited designers and developers, unlimited design files (including drafts), team libraries, and community support. The Professional tier has everything you get in Free, plus a preferred hosting region, and premium support. Meanwhile, the Enterprise option adds to the above with advanced admin, security, two-factor authentication, and single sign-on (SSO), a choice of cloud hosting (Penpot, your own cloud, or local cloud), team access controls, link sharing controls, logs and analytics, enterprise plugins, and certified builds. You will notice we haven't specified any pricing for the Professional and Enterprise options. Prices are available on request for both options, so you need to contact Penpot, probably after having run the Free version on a trial basis, to get a company-specific quote. Signing into Penpot for the first time, you'll find a polished design interface, with the tools to create flexible layouts for any display. Custom fonts, asset uploads, and other expected design features can be found. Each element of the design can be inspected, code checked and revised. Prototyping supports interactive flows, interactions, and transitions, allowing you to specify the aims of the app or site in real terms. Penpot is available purely as a browser app, with no downloadable version for Windows or Mac. However, while the software stores your data in the cloud, Penpot trumpets its open-source, open standards philosophy. In short, your creations are yours. Integrations with other elements of your design and development workflow are possible via the Penpot API. While Penpot is primarily web-based, that doesn't mean that you cannot host it yourself. Local deployment to Elestio and Docker are available, ensuring full privacy and control over your design and development data. We've reviewed a few browser-based UX tools, and one or two suffer from performance issues. This hasn't been the case with Penpot, which works effortlessly, smoothly handling demands such as adjusting layers, adding assets, and previewing work. Almost everything within the design pane can be controlled. Assets can be repositioned and re-aligned, layers brought forth and sent back, flipped, grouped, and more. While specific style controls can be found on the right pane, a context menu can summoned to aid with positioning elements. It's a little long, but doesn't include anything you won't use. Should the blank project seem a little intimidating, a collection of templates are included with Penpot. One of these can be loaded up and manipulated, giving you the opportunity to investigate the software's features. All design aspects can be viewed and tweaked, and interactions created. Links to other project boards can also be established - useful when developing new screens to an already released project. The biggest strength of Penpot is its focus on designers and developers. This is a UX design tool that allows designers to play to their strengths. Meanwhile, the developers can easily review the code of the creations, scaling and optimizing as necessary. This seamless workflow is conceived to align development and design teams, avoiding conflict. Running into issues with software can be frustrating. Fortunately, various support options are available with Penpot. Beyond the user guide and contributing guide (for reporting and tracking bugs) there is a detailed technical guide for getting local installation right. A vast collection of reference materials can also be referred to. These include community questions, FAQ, and troubleshooting tools. It's searchable, and there is even the opportunity to contribute your own Penpot-created libraries and templates. Don't forget this software is open source, and you can review the code and contribute on the Penpot GitHub page. If you can't find a solution in these resources, you can contact the Penpot team directly via email. Framer and UXPin are among Penpot's strongest competitors. Both of these offer a compelling prototyping experience, with advanced design options and enough for developers to get their hands dirty with. There is little between these tools in terms of functionality and outcomes. Design space features and previewing, libraries, templates, and the ability to get straight into the app, these tools are all similar. However, Penpot does have a key advantage with its open-source philosophy and clear statement of ownership concerning your creations. At a time when many design tools are introducing AI tools to "streamline" design, this is refreshing. The self-hosting aspect of Penpot is also refreshing, if you have the hardware. Penpot stands out among a crowded collection of design tools by offering an easy sign-up and attractive templates. They really highlight what is possible with this tool, which goes a long way towards becoming familiar with its features. As noted, this software is open-source. While in most cases it won't matter where it is hosted, simply having the option to run it from your own Docker set up is a huge advantage that competing tools don't offer. All this aside, perhaps the best thing about Penpot is that when you're done with the trial version, you can keep using it for free. You're not going to enjoy the advanced features this way, but for amateur designers or anyone training on the software, this is a key advantage. The lack of specific pricing is a shortcoming, however.

UXPin review

Presenting an online service through a website or app requires a design that the isn't just usable, but also feels right. On one had, the presentation needs to encourage intuitive interaction, and on the other, the app should represent the service, with branding and voice. UX tools like UXPin are the preferred solution, and increasingly these tools feature generative AI, ostensibly to save design time. UXPin is a US-based product which launched in 2010. It offers a browser app, desktop apps for Windows and macOS, and a prototype "mirror" app for Android and iOS. If you're considering UXPin for your next project, we have evaluated it, focusing on price, features, usability, customer support, and how it compares with the competition. Monthly and annual payment plans are available with UXPin. You can start off with the free trial, which can then be upgraded into one of four scaled plans. (Alternatively, stick with the free version, with its limitations.) These are Essentials, Advanced, Merge AI, and Company. The Essentials plan is aimed at beginners, and affords 20 prototypes, interactions, animations, and states, and stakeholder approval system. Billed annually, the Essentials plan is $6 per editor, per month (annual billing - witjh monthly billing it is $8 per editor). With the Advanced plan, you get all of the above but with unlimited prototypes, custom fonts, and conditional logic, expressions, and variables. Advanced is $29 per editor per month ($39 per editor with monthly billing). Merge AI adds generative AI to everything above, plus setting roles and permissions. The AI element adds creation of AI components, themeable React libraries, and Tailwindd CSS integration. This plan is $39 per editor per month, or $49 with monthly billing. With the Company option, you get everything from the other plans plus a 30-day version history, storybook integration, npm integration, patters, and a components manager. This is $119 per editor per month, or $149 when billed monthly. If your operation needs even more from UXPin, an Enterprise option is available, with quotes on request. Both desktop and browser versions of UXPin offer the same collection of UX wireframing and prototyping design tools. The main design interface offers the usual collection of drawing tools, rulers, and drag-and-drop components. It is a little small though, and benefits from a larger physical display. UXPin launches with a quick start guide, and a number of templates are provided. While useful, these are quite advanced examples - the tool is heavily geared towards complex prototypes, and supports imports from Sketch. Figma projects can also be imported, while projects can be integrated with Fullstory for usability testing. It also includes drag and drop support for React libraries (including MUI, Ant-Design, and Bootstrap, or import your own). Other integrations include Git, Storybook, Adobe Fonts, Google Fonts, and Slack. While a number of support resources are provided (see below), the main thing you notice using UXPin for the first time is the sparsity of the design window. The lack of basic templates means you need to take the time to carefully explore the app. So, while the menus are all populated with useful components, and each component has properties that you can directly edit (e.g. CSS, HTML, JSX), finding and manipulating them can take time. A result of this is that UXPin initially feels more suited to basic wireframing rather than in-depth design. The learning curve is steep. So, how do you dig into UXPin and experience its true power? If you're using the integrations - e.g. bringing projects across from Figma - then UXPin is easy to get started with. In fact, if you're new to this undoubtedly powerful tool, importing your work from another platform is the best way to unlock its features. It suddenly evolves beyond wireframing and becomes a tool for more advanced UX design work. The developers at UXPin are keen for you to make the most out of their software. With the very first login, a pop-up appears, listing various "essential resources." These include video tutorials, product documentation, and step-by-step tutorials. These take you through everything from downloading and using the software (and its mobile variants) to importing from other tools. A chat box is available both within the development window and on the UXPin website. Here, you can get answers for technical and billing issues, with automated responses in place if your question is outside of business hours. UXPin has also published a collection of eBooks and white papers. While these don't provide support or guides, they communicate important concepts and design philosophies. We're not short of choices when it comes to UX prototype and design tools. UXPin is up against a number of alternatives, each with their own strengths and shortcomings. As UXPin is available as both a desktop and browser tool, comparison with similar tools seems appropriate. Figma and Framer are both key competitors to UXPin, with both desktop and browser versions. In all cases, the experience is consistent between desktop and browser versions. This makes using the software on unsupported desktops easy. It also has advantages in work environments where installing your own software isn't possible. While all three are good choices, we found Figma to lag somewhat in the browser version. UXPin does not have this shortcoming. We're also very impressed with its collection of resources and support chat, which was responsive and informative. Compared with some of the other tools out there, UXPin almost feels like a specialist, in-house product that shouldn't be shared with the public. It really is an impressive piece of software, under-(UX)Pin-ed by an excellent set of resources and support tools. The browser version works as well as the desktop apps, the integrations are impressive, and the ability to import from Figma and Framer is useful. UXPin is free to use long-term if necessary. This is useful if you feel you need more time with its tough learning curve.