I’m using your app to design a personal project, but I’ve run into a few issues. I’ve described the problems directly inside a Penpot project.
Unfortunately, I can’t share the project using a public link — the “Share by link” feature doesn’t seem to be working, or I can’t figure out how to use it properly. Because of that, I’m unable to share the project here the way I intended.
I can just agree with some of your points, in particular the Alt + Arrow, the pasted image outside from a background, the bounding box of the text that does not appear while editing another one. As I have used Figma for plenty of years, I have some habits I cannot retrieve on Penpot and I agree this can be frustrating.
I put some more credits on the improvement you proposed, about the aliasing of design tokens. It could be easier to bind a token with an existing value. Because you have to close the pop-up, find your token you’d like to report, reopen the token and bind it with the token you found.
Also on the sharable link
About the Flexbox issue, this is not very clear for me. Could you share a screencast or something?
For get more auditory its must be fixed. Its critical issue. Its not a joke. All who worked with Figma can’t migrate to penpot because penpot make simple thinks long and complex in this moment
Thanks for reporting this! I’ve created a bug on Taiga so that we can look further into the Flexbox issue: Taiga
Regarding the other issues you reported:
Pipette / Eye dropper, I haven’t been able to reproduce this issue. Could you confirm which browser you are working with?
Token linking, this behavior is intended to prevent referencing the incorrect token and prevent ambiguity;
Problem solving, I’ve created enhancements on Taiga so that we can consider these in the future;
Alt + Arrow Issues, in Penpot you can move elements using the arrow only or Shift + Arrow to move the element fast;
Work with Images, this has already been planned into our backlog thought it hasn’t been prioritized yet;
Eye dropper bug, I’ve opened a bug on Taiga so that we can look into this;
Text Editing Issue, if you have 2 text fields, after editing the first field you can immediately double-click another text field to edit it without needing to select it first;
Path arrows bug, I haven’t been able to reproduce this issue, could you let me know if you see it again and the steps to reproduce it as well as the browser you were using when you saw it?
Share project by link, you can share a public url to the prototype following the steps described here: 13· View mode, though sharing the design file itself this way is not supported yet. We do have this improvement planned into our backlog though it requires proper consideration and prioritization still.
Eyedropper / Pipette in color tokens still doesn’t work in Vivaldi and Firefox.
Token linking is way too slow and overcomplicated — it’s not usable in real workflows, now. Alt + Arrow (for spacing info) is missing entirely. In Figma, it shows live spacing info while moving elements — critical for precise layout. In Penpot, it just moves objects with no visual context at all. That’s a major UX gap.
Text editing is painful. It’s not a real double-click — you have to click twice just to enter the field, then click again to place the cursor. That’s three clicks for a basic action.
In Figma, a single click lets you immediately edit exactly where you need — no full-text selection, no extra steps. Penpot makes something simple unnecessarily slow.
Sharing only prototypes is a huge problem. People I collaborate with often can’t find the actual file. It creates unnecessary friction and slows down teamwork.
Sharing only prototypes is a huge problem. People I collaborate with often can’t find the actual design file, which creates unnecessary friction and wastes time.
I’m not asking to copy Figma’s approach, where anyone with a link can duplicate the file — that has its own issues.
But having a shareable link within the workspace (so team members can quickly access the source file) is absolutely critical for collaboration.
I want to use Penpot as an alternative — I really try. But right now, it’s not an alternative, it’s a time sink.
I’m testing it on one of my projects and trying to work seriously with it.
But even in this context, delays stack up. Losing 20–40% of my time on slow or awkward interactions just isn’t something I can accept.
I can’t spend that much time fighting the tool instead of designing.
Thanks for clarifying the eyedropper issue. At the moment, the eyedropper is not supported for tokens but it is already in our backlog to be considered as a future improvement!
We’re already reviewing token workflows in general, including the performance and usability concerns you mentioned.
As for the Alt + Arrow behavior, this is also something we’re aware of and have noted as a potential improvement though it hasn’t been prioritized yet.
On the other points you mentioned:
I will pass your feedback on to the team about text editing interactions so that we can explore potential refinements;
Regarding file sharing, sharing prototypes is currently the intended approach, but we understand the need for easier access to the design files themselves. We’ve already flagged this as an area to explore further.
We’re aware that some workflows can feel rough around the edges, and we’re continuing to evaluate and prioritize improvements based on feedback like this.
for this issue!
