Is there an open source version of Canva?

Canva is not open source. A few open source projects cover part of what it does, and OpenTempl covers the part most people mean: designing posters, social posts, slides, menus and invitations from templates.

Updated November 2026

OpenTempl is MIT licensed, works offline, needs no account and has 337 templates in 34 styles. It is not affiliated with Canva.

What open source means here

MIT licensed. Source code on GitHub. The MIT licence lets you use OpenTempl for any purpose, read how it works, change it, share your changes and ship your own version.

Two kinds of files inside the app carry their own terms. The photos, voxel objects, characters and textures in the built in library were made for OpenTempl and are free to use for anything. Icons from Iconify and photos from Openverse keep the licences they came with.

Open source tools that replace parts of Canva

Tool	Licence	Best for	Templates	Offline
OpenTempl	MIT	Posters, social posts, slides, menus, invitations	337 in 34 styles	Yes
Penpot	MPL 2.0	Interface design and prototyping with developers	Libraries, not poster templates	Self hosted, or in the browser
Doory	Open source	A self hosted design editor with live editing	Basic	Self hosted
HyCanvas	AGPL 3.0	A self hostable editor with your own AI key	Basic	Self hosted
Inkscape	GPL	Vector illustration and logos	Few	Yes
GIMP	GPL	Photo editing	No	Yes
Graphite	Open source	Node based vector and raster art	No	Runs in the browser

Read from each project's own page and from directory listings in November 2026. Licences, features and activity change, so look at the repositories before you decide. Doory and HyCanvas are young projects.

Penpot is the one most lists name first. It is a good tool, built for teams who design apps and websites, closer to Figma than to Canva. If you want to lay out an event poster in ten minutes, OpenTempl is closer to what you wanted.

Run it yourself

git clone https://github.com/noah-thing/opentempl
cd opentempl
npm install
npm run dev

The editor opens on a local address. npm run build writes the static site, and the apps/desktop folder packages it as an Electron app.

There is no OpenTempl server to host. The web version is static files, and live sessions between people go directly from browser to browser.

Help build it

Open items today include PowerPoint import of charts, tables and SmartArt, kerning and ligature controls, CMYK aware print PDFs, a plugin API, code signed installers and an optional self hosted sync server. Open an issue or send a fix at the repository.

Limits

OpenTempl is at version 0.1 and has one maintainer. It has no team workspaces, no phone app, no cloud sync and a library of 337 templates. If you need those, use a hosted tool.

Open the editor

Questions

Is Canva open source?

No. Canva is proprietary software.

Is there an open source version of Canva?

There is no official one. OpenTempl is an independent open source design app for the same kind of work. Penpot is an open source design tool aimed at product teams.

What licence does OpenTempl use?

The MIT licence. Library photos, objects and textures made for OpenTempl are free for any use. Iconify icons and Openverse photos keep their own licences.

Can I self host OpenTempl?

The web app is static files, so you can serve it from any web server. There is no OpenTempl backend to run. A self hosted sync server for several devices is a future item, not a feature today.

Does OpenTempl collect my data?

There are no accounts and no OpenTempl server that stores your designs. Fonts load from Google Fonts, and live sessions use a signalling service so two computers can find each other. The facts page lists what needs a connection.

Is this the same as OpenTemplate.org or other projects with similar names?

No. OpenTempl is a design app. It is unrelated to template engines such as Total.js OpenTemplates or the OpenOffice template site OpenTemplate.org.