Staxly

Penpot vs PocketBase

Open-source design + prototyping platform — Figma alternative, self-hostable
vs. Open-source backend in a single Go binary

Penpot (OSS) ↗PocketBase (OSS) ↗

Pricing tiers

Penpot

Free (Cloud)
$0. Unlimited files, unlimited projects, unlimited users. Full feature set.
Free
Self-Hosted (OSS)
Free forever. MPL 2.0 license. Docker Compose deploy. Full feature parity with cloud.
$0 base (usage-based)
Enterprise
Custom. Self-hosted support contract, SLA, training.
Custom
Penpot (OSS) ↗

PocketBase

Self-Hosted
MIT-licensed single binary. Run on any VPS / Docker / bare metal. No usage caps — only limited by your server.
$0 base (usage-based)
PocketBase (OSS) ↗

Free-tier quotas head-to-head

Comparing free on Penpot vs self-hosted on PocketBase.

MetricPenpotPocketBase
No overlapping quota metrics for these tiers.

Features

Penpot · 16 features

  • Accessibility Checks — Contrast + color blindness.
  • Animations — Transitions + effects.
  • Auto Layout — Responsive components.
  • Comments — In-file discussion.
  • Components + Variants — Reusable elements.
  • Design Canvas — Vector drawing + layout.
  • Design Tokens (W3C) — Named design variables.
  • Figma File Import — Migrate from Figma.
  • Flex + Grid Layout — Layout constraints.
  • Inspector + Code Export — CSS/HTML/React/Flutter code.
  • Native SVG — Not a proprietary blob.
  • Plugins API — Extend Penpot.
  • Prototyping — Interactive flows.
  • Self-Host (MPL-2.0) — Docker deploy.
  • Shared Libraries — Team asset libraries.
  • Version History — File revisions.

PocketBase · 12 features

  • Access Rules — Record-level access rules (filter expressions) referencing @request and @collect…
  • Admin Dashboard — Built-in web UI for schema + data management.
  • Auth — Email+password, OAuth2 (Google, GitHub, Facebook, Apple, Discord, Microsoft, etc…
  • Backups — Built-in backup/restore with S3 upload option.
  • Built-in Mailer — SMTP integration for verification, password reset, magic link emails.
  • Collections — Schema-defined record types with fields, validations, and record/admin/auth acce…
  • Embedded JS Engine — JavaScript VM (goja) lets you write hooks in JS without recompiling.
  • Extend as Go Library — Embed PocketBase in a larger Go app, add custom routes and events.
  • File Storage — Local filesystem or S3-compatible storage with access rules.
  • Hooks — Server-side Go or JavaScript hooks that run on CRUD events (OnRecordBeforeCreate…
  • Migrations — JS/Go migration scripts applied on startup.
  • Realtime Subscriptions — SSE-based subscriptions to collection changes.

Developer interfaces

KindPenpotPocketBase
SDKPenpot Plugins APIGo API (extend as library), pocketbase (Dart), pocketbase (JS SDK)
REST—REST API
OTHERDesktop App, Export + Inspect, Penpot Web, Self-Host (Docker)Admin Dashboard, Realtime SSE
Staxly is an independent catalog of developer platforms. Some links to Penpot and PocketBase may be affiliate links — Staxly may earn a commission if you sign up through them, at no extra cost to you. Pricing is verified against vendor pages at publication time — reconfirm before buying.

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