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Comment by codetrotter | Hacker News Reader

More people should adopt the open source Penpot app instead of using Figma. Then the problem will be solved.

I don't think switching to the open source alternative is a viable option for many, mainly because a lot of them just don't work as well.

This article lists a large amount of pitfalls when trying to do just that: https://fasterthanli.me/articles/just-paying-figma-15-dollar...

And this isn't some esoteric use case used as an excuse. The core need the author has is "export my diagram to SVG and have it render the same in all browsers".

That's probably by historical incident. I'm a big advocate of open source design tooling, and I think the reason they haven't taken off as much is because design tools are generally ignored by developers. We spend loads of free time building open source developer tools, but there doesn't seem to be as much excitement as building solutions for the design side.

There's an element of that, but I think design tools tend to be ignored by designers as well. It took well over a year to get my last design team to even consider looking at Figma seriously. I've worked with several that have big gaps in understanding their day to day software. To some degree the issue can be lock in, but people also just seem to want get in and bang something out, even if the process is sub-optimal (and that can be valid.)

I've used several tools over the years and am not afraid to jump into a new UI or workflow, but have come to believe that's an exception and probably driven by the dev part of my brain.

Yeah I can see this. I think Figma might have changed the culture a bit, though that perception could be driven by the more vocal explorers on Twitter who post about new features and such.

It could be that much of design tool "output" is source-of-falsity, i.e. experiments, drafts, non-production work that is left in an ideation stage. For stuff like that, there's more breathing room for less-sophisticated products to shine.

Penpot is pretty great even in production environments. It hews much closer to web standards in for things like layout (flexbox and grid), supports working completely offline and doesn’t use a proprietary file format.

What they don’t have is the inertia of Figma and being as-good-as or maybe a little better isn’t enough to get the traction they need.

>being as-good-as or maybe a little better

Based on the linked article's description it's much worse.

The only real problem I saw there was that it used text instead of paths for text.

In browsers that’s not a big problem generally.

For other platforms, what would happen if OP printed to PDF from the browser instead of exporting the SVG to PDF with a separate program?

> I have an issue with X.

> No you don't.

> Cool, back to Figma.

Only people who don't use design software every day, and so don't have a stake in how good that software is, would recommend Penpot over Figma.

The same could be said about Blender a decade ago and look where it is now.

Adoption drives improvements.

If we want a good open source replacement for Figma, we need more people to use the software daily. That’s the point.

Well, I don't need an open source replacement for Figma, I just want Figma to continue being good so I can do my job over the course of the next ten years. If there's a viable alternative after that, I'll evaluate it, but there isn't one at this point.

If you're insistent on your tools being set in stone for ten years, you're probably in the wrong business.

I love that penpot has prioritised making the API happen. Figma made design -> dev easier. But to complete the loop, we're looking to link our integration tests back into the design program with screenshots of how the screen(s) actually turned out. Ie dev -> design. And if they're insufficient, design can go back to dev and say "more!", or else update their own prototypes of what's in place, ready for the next feature to be designed

I feel like Penpot could become the dev favourite over figma for the API alone

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