For years I did basically all my design work in Adobe XD. It's such a simple piece of software that I've loved since the first minute. It's so simple, so minimal. Completely different to how Adobe software usually is.
However, as we all know, it's always been a buggy mess.
It actually feels like it has become increasingly buggy, and the development seems to have slowed down a lot where the same bugs have been there for years. At some point it just felt like time to move on from Adobe.
I've also tried to use Figma many, many times and have tried really hard to like it (being industry standard and all), but it never really clicked for me. It always felt soo sluggish compared to XD. Maybe it is because it runs in the browser, maybe it is just personal preference.
Recently I decided to give Penpot a proper try.
Like Figma, Penpot runs in the browser and the interface feels very similar. It is not as snappy as XD, but it is good enough for the kind of work I do - most of the time I am not designing full projects anyway. I mainly use design tools for quick wireframes and ideas before jumping into Webflow.
So far I have used Penpot for a couple of Webflow projects and some social media mockups, and everything has worked well. I have had a few random crashes when exporting images, but otherwise it has been solid.
What I really like about Penpot is that it is a European open source project. And somehow it is completely free. Mindblowing.
I have to be honest that I still miss Adobe XD quite a bit, but Penpot is slowly growing on me. You should try it out too.
