Is it only me?
While using Penpot on Chromium and adding image to layout (1000x1000px) the performance drops to the point where working further is impossible (unless I delete image). Is this a bug, or do I need to tweak something?
Hey, I also experience lagging and memory issues on my side using Firefox and chromium for some complex layouts.
I thought it was only due to my laptop limited 8GB RAM but maybe there’s more to explain it?
I now know when exactly it’s happening.
When image gets imported.
For ex. let’s say there is only one artboard (completly blank) and nothing else. Upon importing image, that got placed outside of artboard while trying to move it it starts to lag and chop BUT when you try to move it again autside of artboard area (when it was firstly placed) it no longer lags, and can be smoothly moved and scaled).
HOWEVER, upon moving image inside artboard it starts to chop again. That is until you let go of your mouse and then try to move it again now WITHIN artboard area. And it works smoothly again. Same process hapens whaen you will try to move it back autside of an artboard…
See the pattern?
Another note. Moving from one artboard to another also same pattern, but after trying to move it again it is significantly slower than normally it would be. Not choppy but still.
ONLY after moving image outside and again inside it fixes the problem.
I am also experiencing a lot of lag when adding a dealing with images, even after using an external tool to reduce the quality of the images. I am using Firefox on Ubuntu. If there is anything else I can provide to help, I would be glad to provide. Thank you!
I’m using Chromium instead of Firefox when using Penpot. I heard several times that it was recommended to use that browser (chrome, chromium, same thing) rather than Firefox for better performance.
Someone told me it had to do with the way Firefox was rendering svgs, or something like that, but I don’t remember all the details.
Anyway, you can give it a try and see if that fixes the issues you’re encountering. You can install Chromium from the Ubuntu app repository.
I can confirm this is not a chromium issue. It’s a penpot issue. Penpit is considerably laggy when adding and using images. The more images you use, the more it lags.
It happened up to the point it was an utter frustration trying to use the tool.
I use Brave btw which is chromium based. I even turned off all of Brave’s shenanigans, but still. I abandoned the project and moved back to figma to start it all over again.
It’s something that really needs to be addressed since after almost a year I am experiencing this.
Version 2.0 is a really nice change. Huge UI improvement, flexbox and gridand more, but performance is still a big issue. After I tried to make design system with it, it turns out even by adding drop shadow it slaughters performance. (Note: zooming out does boost performance, zooming in drops it). Adding few more objects with drop shadows and dragging them at once makes it almost unusable.
Penpot needs some serious algorythms to manage huge amount of stuff and optimize rendering of those items as much as possible to have a window for those who want to ditch figma for penpot.
I really want to try liking this project and use it as default app (now that figma can feed my work to AI). I even did as far as run penpot inside docker thinking it would give me more raw speed (which it does outside of canvas in dashboard) but it wasn’t enough.
All I can do is hope this project will be successful like a miracle that Blender is. We need that kind of alternative more than ever before!
Sadly I’ve just tried importing a pretty large icon library into Penpot (Phoshphor icons). I had to import it by exporting it from a Figma file first.
Key takeaway: Creating an auto-layout in Figma took less than a second with all 1513 icons, changing parameters like direction, gap, and padding, took even less while creating an flex layout in Penpot, well… let’s just say I had enough time to go grab something from the fridge and eat it while watching the screen.
Then if you want to change a parameter like gap or padding it’s the same minute(s?) loading time from before. Sadly, all of the features Penpot offers right now are nice to haves in comparison with performance. It is absolutely essential that whatever shape, layout, and text processing engine you are using behind the scenes is highly performant, since absolutely no professional is opening Figma right now to design 2 - 3 social media posts.
I’ve even had lagging issues when selecting stuff on a landing page not longer than 10 sections!!! Can you imagine? A single landing page. And most websites have entire pages, archives, post types. There is absolutely no way of staying sane while switching from Figma right now. We need better performance on larger documents before any shiny new features.
