A browser editor you can run yourself, and a Mac application you can buy once, sit at opposite ends of the same category.
TL;DR
Penpot is open source and browser-based: cloud Professional at $0 per user, Unlimited at $7 per editor a month capped at $175, Enterprise at $25 per member, Private Server at $50,000 a year, and a free self-host install. Sketch is a native Mac app sold by subscription: Standard at $12 per editor a month billed yearly, Professional at $24, Enterprise at $44, or a $120 per seat perpetual licence including one year of updates. Pick Penpot when the team is mixed-platform or wants to host the tool; pick Sketch when the work happens on Macs and a one-time licence matters.
Penpot's pricing page offers two columns: cloud, hosted by Penpot, and self-host, run by you. The cloud Professional plan is $0 per user and described as fully featured with no limits. Unlimited is $7 per editor a month with a cap of $175 per month regardless of team size. Enterprise is $25 per member a month for governance and secure collaboration, and a Private Server is $50,000 a year for dedicated infrastructure. The self-host install is published on the site, the editor runs in a browser, and Penpot now ships an MCP server so agents can work directly in its design files.
Sketch sells access to a native macOS application. Standard is $12 per editor a month billed yearly, Professional is $24, Enterprise is $44, and each tier adds features such as single sign-on at Professional and SCIM provisioning at Enterprise. The page also lists a perpetual licence at $120 per seat that includes one year of updates and keeps working after that year ends, plus a free trial. Sketch's own copy highlights working offline with the native Mac app and documents hosted online for preview and sharing.
| Feature | Penpot | Sketch |
|---|---|---|
| Free tier | Cloud Professional at $0 per user, fully featured | Free trial before the subscription starts |
| Entry paid plan | Unlimited at $7 per editor a month, capped at $175 | Standard at $12 per editor a month billed yearly |
| Mid tier | Enterprise at $25 per member a month | Professional at $24 per editor a month billed yearly, with SSO |
| Top tier | Private Server at $50,000 a year | Enterprise at $44 per editor a month billed yearly, with SCIM |
| One-time option | Self-host install at no licence cost | Perpetual licence at $120 per seat including one year of updates |
| Hosting | Penpot-hosted cloud or self-hosted on your servers | Native Mac application, with documents shared online |
| Platform | Browser-based, any operating system | Native app for macOS |
| Offline mode | Needs a running Penpot instance, hosted or self-hosted | Native Mac app works offline; licence is yours to keep |
| Collaboration | Editors, viewers and a shared self-hosted workspace | Real-time collaboration in the app, with hosted documents for preview |
| Cost ceiling | Hard $175 monthly cap on the Unlimited plan | Linear per-editor cost, or $120 once per seat |
Pick Penpot if
Penpot runs in a browser and can be installed on your own servers, so the team is not restricted to one operating system and the files do not have to sit in a vendor's cloud. The pricing does the rest: $0 at entry, $7 per editor beyond it, and a $175 monthly ceiling that makes headcount growth predictable.
Pick Sketch if
Sketch charges $12 per editor a month billed yearly for a native application that works offline, and it also sells a $120 per seat licence that keeps working after the first year of updates. Studios standardised on Mac hardware and uncomfortable with recurring per-seat costs tend to prefer that shape.
No independent reviews or user ratings were collected for Penpot or Sketch on this page; the bullets are each vendor's own wording from penpot.app/pricing and sketch.com/pricing, and every price quoted here comes from those two pages.
The cloud Professional plan is listed at $0 per user with no feature gate, and self-hosting the open-source application costs nothing in licence fees. Paid cloud options are Unlimited at $7 per editor a month with a $175 monthly cap, Enterprise at $25 per member and a Private Server at $50,000 a year.
Sketch sells subscriptions by editor: Standard at $12 per editor a month billed yearly, Professional at $24 with single sign-on, Enterprise at $44 with SCIM provisioning. It also sells a perpetual licence at $120 per seat that includes one year of updates, plus a free trial before either route.
Sketch highlights its native Mac application as the offline option, with the licence staying yours to keep. Penpot runs in a browser against a Penpot instance — cloud or self-hosted — so it needs a server to reach, which matters for teams that travel without connectivity.
No. Sketch's client is a native macOS application, while Penpot runs in a browser on any operating system and can also be self-hosted. For a team split across Windows, Linux and Mac, Penpot is the only one of the two that offers a single shared editor.
Penpot's Unlimited plan would be $42 a month at $7 per editor, well under its $175 cap. Sketch Standard for six editors is $72 a month billed yearly, or $720 once per seat on the perpetual licence — the cheaper route depends on whether the team will keep the tool for more than a year.
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