What is the best alternative to Krita?

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score 283 · Answer 1

GIMP

Top Con

Unintuitive interface

GIMP doesn't embrace OS X application design, thus Mac users might have a hard time wrapping their heads around GIMP's interface. See More

Top Pro

Free, open source and cross-platform

GIMP is completely free and open source, meaning you can use GIMP and all of its features without spending a penny. This makes it an excellent case for artists or designers who may not have the budget to spend over 700 USD on Photoshop. It is also available for free on Windows, Mac OS and Linux. It's licensed under GPL with source code available here. See More

Top Con

Less features than other programs

Being a free program, it shouldn't be surprising that it has limited features. For those needing more advanced features for something more professional, GIMP just isn't for you. See More

Top Pro

Powerful

GIMP is the most feature rich free image editing tool. It has most image manipulation and workflow tools that you would expect from an image editing software and what it lacks it makes up with plugins. See More

Top Con

Lacks adjustment layers

Adjustment layers offer a non-destructive way of combining different photo manipulations. Without adjustment layers the only way to see changes is by irreversibly editing the image. They are promised in future updates. See More

Top Pro

Content-aware tools with a plugin

There's a content-aware fill plugin available for GIMP. See More

Top Con

Poor performance

Top Pro

Modular & single-window interface options

By default GIMP splits out each window, but you can check to use the one screen mode in options if you prefer. See More

Top Pro

Lightweight

Compared to to other photo editing software, GIMP is very light weight. In addition it isn't very resource-intensive, meaning you can put it on a flash drive and have it with you to load up on just about any computer. See More

Top Pro

Beginner-friendly

Gimp has less features than programs like Photoshop, but for a beginner, or someone not needing complicated options, Gimp is the perfect choice. It allows you to quickly do basic photo manipulation so you can easily get the product you need without having to worry about complicated features getting in the way. See More

Top Pro

Full channel support

Specs

Platforms:Windows 10/8/7; Linux; MacOS

License:GPLv3+

Tethered capture:No

Non-Distructive Editing:No, Feature in development with GEGL

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283 60

score 249 · Answer 2

Inkscape

Top Pro

Free and open source

Inkscape is GPL-licensed and maintains public repositories. See More

Top Con

Very slow startup on some systems

Depending on factors like how many fonts you have installed, Inkscape can take upwards of 30 seconds to launch. See More

Top Pro

Opens lots of file types

Inkscape supports many common formats for import (including SVG, Photoshop and Illustrator) and its plugin architecture allows more to be added. See More

Top Con

Uses its own SVG-format by default

Inkscape might use SVG as its default format, however this SVG's contains some additional SodiPodi/Inkscape additions that can be troublesome if you want to import the SVG into some other application. See More

Top Pro

Export to different file types

Files can be exported and saved as a "normal" svg, png, jpg, bmp etc. file. See More

Top Con

1.0 is sluggish

Inkscape 1.0 uses GTK 3 which is sluggish and slow for low spec systems( eg. ARM, Celeron, Pentium, Core-i3, Ryzen 3 or Athlon ) compared to previous versions. See More

Top Pro

Cross-platform

Pre-built binaries are available for Windows, Mac and Linux. Inkscape can be built from source on additional platforms. See More

Top Con

Buggy

Application is often buggy so it happens from time to time that the popup / right-click menu won't close and stays open. It crashes also sometimes randomly. This makes it almost unusable for productive / business use. See More

Top Pro

Integrates well into a X11-System

Its uses the X11 icon theme and desktop theme(GTK). See More

Top Con

Crashes very often

Inkscape encountered an internal error and will close now - is one of its standard messages. See More

Top Pro

It can do anything

A very powerful software that can do pretty match anything! See More

Top Con

Since 0.91 the gradient editor is gone

It is now only possible to edit a gradient on screen. but you can't set a stop to a specific percentage anymore. See More

Top Pro

Measurement Tool

This tool is extremely handy and can not be found in any other vector graphics programs out there. See More

Top Con

Limited work with ICC CMYK color scheme

Support for ICC color profiles only in SVG files. See More

Top Pro

Live Path Effects

Extremely powerful menu that offers more than 30 powerful Live Path Effects to apply to paths vastly enhancing the application functionality. See More

Top Con

Uses GTK

It looks an feels like an alien. It also uses now touch-based widgets instead of professional widgets. See More

Top Pro

Guides, Grids, and Canvas Rotation

Extremely handy features when building complex graphics using Inkscape. See More

Top Con

Y-axis inverted

0,0 coordinates begin in lower left corner, not upper left corner as SVG standards define in Inkscape 0.92.x. It seems this is now fixed in the 1.0 beta 2 version of the program. See More

Top Pro

Dark Theme Support

The new 1.0 beta 2 version finally got support for dark theme which normally is only available for commercial software like Affinity Serif, Adobe Illustrator. See More

Top Con

A toy for facebook-ist enthusiasts, not for professionals

It's a Linux niche mumbo-jumbo, same as GIMP for raster edit . See More

Top Pro

The new version 1.1 is looks and feels fantastic

Inskape got UI update: new dockable dialogs. See More

Top Con

Based on the GTK widget toolkit

Software is based on GTK, so it might not integrate well in non-GTK environments. It also requires many dependencies on those non-GTK desktops. It also adds dependencies to GTK-environments since it is written in C++ which requires the gtkmm wrapper/interface. See More

Top Pro

Interface is available in 29 languages

Basque, British English, Brazilian, Portuguese, Catalan, Croatian, Czech, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hindi, Hungarian, Icelandic, Indonesian, Italian, Korean, Latvian, Norwegian (Bokmål), Polish, Romanian, Russian, Slovak, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish, Ukrainian, Urdu, Swedish. See More

Top Con

Mac version does not look as polished as its versions for Windows/Linux version for the 0.92.x version

It seems that Inkscape 1.0 beta 2 for Mac got some needed attention and it looks a lot better with dark theme support. native DMG installer and they got rid of X11 which is great. See More

Top Pro

It's really easy and fun

Vector graphics can be created and edited with Inkscape. See More

Top Con

Incompatible with previous versions

Sometimes backward compatibility breaks. For example, pre 0.92 SVGs are incompatible with later releases (due different default resolutions). See More

Top Con

No support for large printing machine system

No support for large printing machine environment, except exporting the resulting artwork to PDF. See More

Top Con

Under GNU GPL

It is released under GNU GPL which one of the restricted open source license. See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows, macOS, Linux, Unix

License:GPL-2.0-or-later

Technology:C++

Initial Release:2003

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249 52

score 114 · Answer 3

Photoshop

Top Pro

Industry standard

Photoshop is used by professionals everywhere in a wide variety of fields including photography, graphic design and digital art. It is the de facto standard for image manipulation. If you've seen a magazine ad featuring a model, you've probably seen the effects of Photoshop. You won't be alone when using Photoshop. See More

Top Con

Expensive

The standalone version of Photoshop costs $19.99/month, though it can be leased as part of the Creative Cloud Photography bundle that includes Lightroom for $9.99/month. See More

Top Pro

Trove of plugins that extend functionality are available

A wide variety of plugins that add new effects, improve existing functionality and simplify workflow are available. See More

Top Con

Latest versions of Photoshop are subscription-only

While you can still buy CS6 from 2012 without needing a subscription by contacting Adobe support or the cut-down Photoshop Elements, any full-version version of Photoshop past CS6 requires a subscription. See More

Top Pro

Lots of tutorials

There's a huge number of both free and paid tutorials available online. Websites like Lynda.com offer premium high-quality, in-depth tutorials, but there are plenty of free alternatives to be found on YouTube, blogs and specialized sites on the Internet. See More

Top Con

Learning it can take some time

While you can relatively quickly learn how to perform a few basic image editing tasks, understanding Photoshop's ins and outs can be difficult. It's partially due to the sheer amount of functionality that Photoshop packs (and understanding that some of the advanced functionality can take a while to understand on its own), and partially due to it being aimed at professionals with little hand-holding for novice users. See More

Top Pro

A cheaper, standalone version called Photoshop Elements is available

A stripped down version of Photoshop, called Photoshop Elements can be bought as a standalone application for $100. See More

Top Con

Very slow

It needs a very power CPU and GPU and many GBs of RAM and still it is so slow. See More

Top Pro

Includes powerful content-aware tools

Photoshop includes content-aware tools such as content-aware fill that can fill in a select area based on what surrounds it. See More

Top Con

Stop paying, it vaporises

With Adobes adaptation of the "subscription world" PhotoShop too is available as subscription software only. This means it will never become yours. And if you stop paying, you won't have any PhotoShop any more. Whether you are OK with that or not, it also means that PhotoShop for a large part becomes software for those "who can afford it". Or "push cost to others". Like customers of professionals. Which is also a way to become an "industry standard". See More

Top Pro

Packs a staggering amount of functionality

Photoshop is the most fully featured image editing software available today allowing you to perform highly advanced image manipulation. It has tools for RAW image adjustments, lens correction, retouching, image stitching, HDR, fixing framing. It supports most professional color modes and file formats. It includes extensive lists of filters, styles, effects, fonts as well as tools for painting, sketching and typography work. It understands both raster and vector graphics. It even includes tools for video editing, working with 3D objects and support for 3D printing. See More

Top Con

Affinity Photo is just as good at a fraciton of the price

Switching from Photoshop to Affinity Photo and it's hard to notice the difference quality of a professional's work. They say that PS is the industry standard, but so very few pros that tried Affinity Photo ever look back. See More

Top Pro

Integrates with Creative Cloud

You can save all projects directly to the Creative Cloud allowing you to access them from any device and with any relevant Adobe software. See More

Top Con

Not good enough to be so expensive

Probably the only big advantage Photoshop has over the other free software is the adjustment layers. But still too expensive for just one feature. See More

Top Pro

Creative Cloud Photography subscription includes Lightroom

Lightroom is another image editing software from Adobe that's specifically designed for photo editing and managing of large quantities of digital images. See More

Top Con

Batch editing of images is not straightforward

Photoshop is designed to work extensively on one image at a time and while batch editing support exists, it's not that intuitive to use. See More

Top Pro

Mobile companion apps available

There's a free mobile app available for iOS, Android & Windows Phone. See More

Top Con

Asset management capabilities are lacking

In Photoshop asset management is done through a separate program called Bridge. As Bridge is supposed to be a file management tool for not just Photoshop's files, but for files generated by all of Adobe's applications it covers a breadth of capabilities, but not depth. See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows, macOS

License:Hagu

Tethered capture:via Bridge

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114 47

score 6 · Answer 4

OpenToonz

Top Pro

Used in many movies/TV shows

It was used by Futurama and Studio Ghibli. See More

Top Con

Crashes a ton

If you are going to use this for a project, make sure you save frequently. See More

Top Pro

Easy to learn

With a quick 20 minute tutorial, you can get off and running easily. See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows, Linux, Mac

Technology:C++

6 0

score 112 · Answer 5

Darktable

Top Pro

Feature rich

There are a lot of different modules. See More

Top Con

Can be overwhelming

There are a lot of different modules. You're going to need some time watching tutorials to understand how to get the best out of it. See More

Top Pro

Fast and Flexible

A very well considered UI makes edits fast and fluid. You can redo or undo any step without disturbing any other part of your edit. The UI doesn't get in the way. See More

Top Con

For tethered capture on Linux you may need additional software installed that is not a dependency for Darktable

First make sure you have gphoto2 and libgphoto2. See More

Top Pro

Good batch editing capabilities

Darktable allows applying the same set of operations to multiple images and saving your history stack as a style (you can pick exactly which modules). See More

Top Con

No official Windows version

Whilst official builds exist for Linux and OSX, this isn't the case for Windows (though unofficial versions do exist). See More

Top Pro

Edits are saved to a separate file

Original files are untouched by any edits. No worries on what was done before or if an accidental save occurs. All work is separate from the originals. See More

Top Pro

Customizable

Darktable allows favoriting modules and remapping hotkeys. See More

Top Pro

Allows for local adjustments

Most modules, by default, affect the whole image, but have the option to only be applied to masked-off areas (be those drawn masks, parametric ones, or a combination of the two). See More

Top Pro

Supports tethered capture

On the camera set it to use USB Remote. Open Darktable, on the left side under Import, click scan for devices. The camera should appear. Click on tethered shoot. Next on the right side look for the gear icon above the battery n/a and click it. go to the session options tab, and change the base directory to the location you want to save photos. close that settings window and try taking a picture. It should come right up. See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows, Linux, Mac

Technology:C

Tethered capture:Yes

Non-Distructive Editing:Yes

See All Experiences

112 10

score 37 · Answer 6

Clip Studio Paint

Top Pro

Brushes

The brushes on Clip Studio feel natural and smooth. Especially love the Real Pencil and G-Pen. There are also an enormous selection of brushes: you can use those posted daily on the asset store, and you can also use ANY photoshop brush. You can also extensively customize any brush. Clip Studio has a very powerful brush engine. See More

Top Con

EX is more expensive than Pro

The EX version is more expensive, for those who want to do a few key features such as multiple page layouts for publishing manga, importing OBJ files, and animation. It's about a $150 difference. See More

Top Pro

Dark theme

A setting to turn down the bright exterior of the program, this is useful for preventing eye strain after long amounts of usage. See More

Top Con

Unintuitive keybinding

Though not a big deal, the default keybindings are strange at times. It is recommended to change these, especially if you have used apps like Photoshop. See More

Top Pro

Familiar and Modular UI

Clip Studio Paint is easy to work with because of its familiar feel and customizable interface. You can also download the most popular interface layouts designed by others in the community and use them yourself with just a few clicks, eliminating the need to customize it yourself from scratch. See More

Top Pro

Vector drawing

Clip Studio Paint lets you paint like you normally do, even using vectors. Rather than having vector brushes, Clip Studio lets you use ANY available brush on a vector layer. This allows for a normal workflow, while still providing scalable images and complex line-editing after drawing in a way that apps like Adobe Illustrator and the like are unable to match. See More

Top Pro

AI technology

Clip Studio Paint offers some very cool AI technology that does everything from coloring your paintings, to auto coloring animations, to intuitively closing gaps for you. You can also record your OWN sets of frequently-repeated actions into an auto-action so you can perform sets of actions you have to perform over and over again in seconds at the click of a button. See More

Top Pro

Tutorials and community support

Since Clip Studio has become very popular, there is a large amount of support available, from community forums to online courses, YouTube videos, and creator-based tutorial and how-to content. It's very easy to learn from the wide variety of content available. See More

Top Pro

Large selection of community assets

Clip Studio Paint comes with an asset store which contains an enormous collection of both free and paid materials of all kinds (brushes, 3D objects, backgrounds, effects, UI layouts, image material, etc.) that are updated every single day by a huge user base all over the world. It makes it easy to favorite and download material, which you can browse by popularity, newness, or search for and download straight into Clip Studio with very little effort. See More

Top Pro

Optimized for illustration

Since Clip Studio is optimized for illustration, it provides many tools to make this more efficient. For example, lineart layers (or entire folders) can be set as a reference layer for the bucket tool to reference, allowing you to fill in flat colors in literal seconds, without needing to manually color within the lines OR draw a selection with a selection tool. See More

Top Pro

Affordable

Clip Studio Paint is a one-time purchase, making it very affordable compared to subscription-based alternatives. The cheaper Pro version does almost everything an illustrator could want. The more expensive Ex version is generally only needed for those interested in page management for publishing books (e.g. comics, manga, artbooks) or animation. See More

Top Pro

Brush-based erasing

Unlike many other programs, which offer only dedicated eraser tools, Clip Stuio ALSO offers the ability to paint using a transparent color, essentially transforming ANY brush tool into an eraser tool which maintains the texture, edge, weight and pressure sensitivity, and other useful and customized features of your brush when erasing. This is useful both for not needing to switch tools as well as not needing to re-paint erased areas. See More

Top Pro

Mobile companion apps available

There are mobile companion apps available for iPhone, iPad, and Android. Unlimited use of the apps requires a subscription. See More

Specs

Supported platforms:Windows, Mac, iPadOS, iOS

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37 0

score 120 · Answer 7

Affinity Designer

Top Pro

One-time purchase

Rather than a monthly subscription based model, Affinity Designer instead has a one-time fee ($49.99). See More

Top Con

No plug-in architecture, so can't be tailored to specific purposes

Some applications (e.g. Sketch) have an open plug-in framework, by which the software can be extended by independent/third-party developers according to popular trends. See More

Top Pro

Intuitive user interface

The user interface of many graphic editing software programs can often be discouraging for beginners. Affinity Designer, however, has a very well laid out and intuitive user interface with a small learning curve. See More

Top Con

Treats all objects as filled

You can't select objects on the canvas by clicking on them, if they're surrounded by another object (like a rectangle or a frame). Designer treats all objects as filled, so if you've drawn a frame or outline or an object with a hole in it, you can't select objects within that hole directly. You have to laboriously iterate through all objects in a list until you get to the one you want. This is an extremely common situation, which cripples the entire product. Very surprising and unfortunate defect. See More

Top Pro

Powerful artistic tools

Extensively tweakable brush types, color options... See More

Top Pro

Extended slicing and export possibilities

An object can easily be transformed into a slice that can then be exported in various sizes end formats in 1 go. E.g. Export slice A as PNG 1x, 2x and 3x AND GIF 1x AND SVG. See More

Top Pro

Powerful symbol managemment

Symbols can get individual property changes (color, shape, layer effects, fonts text...) while the other properties stay linked with the base symbol. See More

Top Pro

Sketch Alternative (Great for Mixed OS Teams)

For those working in mixed environments that aren't 100% MacOS, you'll find devoting yourself to Sketch.app brings with it...pain. If this fits the bill for what you need feature-wise and you're in a mixed OS environment, it's a very capable replacement for Sketch.app. Note that it doesn't have all the same features, but then again it doesn't need all the same features. Short of organization differences inside the document you're working on, there shouldn't be anything you can't do with Affinity Designer that you could have with Sketch. See More

Top Pro

Cross platform

Available on both Windows and MacOS See More

Top Pro

SVG Support

In the era of "retina" displays, 4k UHD, 5k, and even 8k, Scalar Vector Graphics - independent vector images that can scale to any resolution without any display quality loss - are more important now than ever. And this tool is quite capable of rendering true SVG output suitable for consumption at any display resolution (not a big bunch of rasterized bits in the document, actual paths, points, etc.). See More

Top Pro

Focused vector graphics tool

Unlike some design tools, Affinity Designer isn't trying to be all things to all people. It's focused on its main area of expertise: vector graphics. That's not to say you can't use a raster image (think a photo in *.jpeg format for example), but it's not built to do much with that other than using it somewhere amidst the layers and that's about it. See More

Top Pro

Integrates well with Affinity Photo

These are companion apps & switching between them is built in - Photo is a very powerful raster tool with a feature set close/better to Photoshop, it will also use some Photoshop plugins. This allows you to add-on powerful raster capabilities if you want them - put doesn't force you to. See More

Top Pro

Excellent Photoshop/Illustrator import & export

Best I have seen in a non Adobe app, you can use most of the Photoshop mock-ups and templates easily. Opens most Adobe files to a level to be able to effectively use the content. Allows cross team collaboration across tool-chains. See More

Top Pro

Powerful

The new version 1.5 has a very powerful feature set such as support for symbols and asset windows, as well as constraints controls and improved export options. This all adds up to an interesting alternative to Adobe Illustrator. See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows, MacOS, IOS

Export image formats:PNG, JPEG, GIF, TIFF, PSD, PDF, SVG, EPS, EPS, EXR, HDR

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120 15

score 24 · Answer 8

MyPaint

Top Pro

Interface gets out of the way

MyPaint mostly consists of the canvas. The interface to select different brushes can be brought up if needed, but it generally stays out of the way of getting things done. See More

Top Con

Is not stable at all

I could not even open a png file to start without the software to freeze. See More

Top Pro

Good support for pressure sensitive graphics tablets

MyPaint was designed specifically with pressure sensitive graphics tablets in mind. See More

Top Con

Not a lot in terms of image manipulation

MyPaint focuses only on drawing. It has very little in terms of post processing or image manipulation features. See More

Top Pro

Good media emulation

Top Pro

Forgo the need to resize the canvas

If a user needs a bigger canvas all they need to do is zoom out instead of re-sizing. See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows, Linux, Mac

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24 5

score 77 · Answer 9

Paint.NET

Top Pro

Easy to learn and use

Unlike most photo editing software, Paint.NET is simple to learn and easy to use. This means less time is spent learning the in's and out's of Paint.NET and more time on photo editing. For those who only edit photos sporadically and don't have time to invest in learning complicated tools for editing, Paint.Net will suit your needs. See More

Top Con

Only available on Windows

Paint.NET is only available on Windows. See More

Top Pro

Free software

There is no charge for this software; but donations are welcomed. See More

Top Con

No project-based interface

You can only edit a single image at a time in Paint.NET. For example, in other tools you can open 5 or a 100 images at the same time, and stack those windows in all directions. Furthermore, when you are editing in Paint.NET you can only "view" a single image at a time, even though you can have multiple images open. This limits your zooming ability, as the image will go fullscreen quite quickly, and hide parts of it behind the floating toolbars which can not be embedded anywhere on the screen. See More

Top Pro

Lightweight

Paint.net provides a streamlined but effective core tool set. Support for advanced and niche features is provided through modular plugins, allowing the user to install only what's needed. See More

Top Pro

Actively developed

The project is active and being continually expanded and refined. See More

Top Pro

Active and friendly community

The forums are filled with tutorials, as well as people who are friendly and eager to help. See More

Top Pro

Plugins allow extra functionality

Plugins can be made by anyone in the community, and are offered for download on the forum. They extend the capabilities of Paint.NET to cover most tasks. See More

Top Pro

HiDPI support

Paint.NET supports fully HiDPI displays, with no scaling problems. See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows

Technology:.NET

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77 15

score 134 · Answer 10

Affinity Photo

Top Pro

Lifetime updates

Pay once, get updates forever. See More

Top Con

Limited selection of plugins

Plugin support was only recently added to AP and not many plugins have been created for the program so far. See More

Top Pro

Interface will be familiar to those coming from Photoshop

The interface, especially the Photo persona, is laid out in way that's very similar to Photoshop - a panel for icons for tools on the left, a panel for information and settings on the right. See More

Top Con

Can not import gimp or krita files

Free alternatives like GIMP (and Krita) are sort of "go to" apps you can always install and use for simple image editing or graphics on any computer. Affinity's support for Photoshop is great, but having support also for opening and editing GIMP and Krita files would make the versatility and use of this program absolutely superb. See More

Top Pro

Compatible with Photoshop PSD files

Affinity Photo can import and export .psd files. See More

Top Pro

Great performance

Uses the GPU extensively for fast speed on any platform. See More

Top Pro

Supports layer styles

Layer styles allow non-destructively applying effects to a layer. See More

Top Pro

Personas allow separation of concerns

At a high level the interface is organized into broad groups of tools called Personas. Personas like Photo for in-depth image manipulation, Liquify for warping the image, Develop for basic RAW photo development and Export for exporting. Each persona displays only those tools that are needed for that task. See More

Top Pro

Powerful effects

Dozens of visual effects available. All run extremely fast with live previews See More

Top Pro

Non-destructive adjustment layers

Extensive adjustment layers are non-destructive. See More

Top Pro

Everything is well organized

Easy to find and use tools. See More

Top Pro

Runs faster than Photoshop's old code

Top Pro

Lots and lots of undo

Top Pro

The easiest, even easier than photoshop

Top Pro

The perfect combination of Photoshop and Lightroom - all in one

Top Pro

Supports Photoshop brushes, shapes, etc.

Top Pro

Many tutorials

But still it does not actually matter which tutorial you're actually watching, Photoshop or Affinity's, they are pretty much the same. See More

Top Pro

Very, very cheap for such an app

Top Pro

Has an iPad app

Top Pro

Decent functionality, 100% comparable with Photoshop

Top Pro

Much more lightweight than photoshop

Top Pro

RAW file editing

Top Pro

HDR image editing

Top Pro

Powerful, cheap and lightweight

Top Pro

Very modern and intuitive interface

Top Pro

Color correction

Top Pro

Very fast to learn

Takes about 20 mins, it's that easy. See More

Top Pro

Growing decently fast

Top Pro

Panorama creation

Top Pro

Imports free images from Unsplash

Specs

Platforms:OSX, iPad, Windows

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134 28

score 49 · Answer 11

Photopea

Top Pro

Drag and drop support

Photopea allows dragging & dropping images in to the browser window to upload them and add to the scene. See More

Top Con

Hard to get used to it at first

However, you'll get used to it later! See More

Top Pro

Very reactive on feedbacks

Top Con

Has only basic filters and operations

Top Pro

Fast to load

Top Pro

Can save as PSD

This means you can open these files in Photoshop, so if you don't have Photoshop on one device, you can still export your Photopea project and continue editing on Photoshop on another device See More

Top Pro

Photoshop Like Interface

It has a Photoshop-like interface with most of its features for basic editing. See More

Top Pro

Has many features

Top Pro

Uses Photoshop standard shortcuts

Top Pro

Requires no browser plugin

As it is an HTML5 application, running it requires no additional plugins on modern browsers. See More

Specs

Platforms:Web (in a browser)

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49 1

score 56 · Answer 12

Gravit Designer

Top Pro

Simple to understand and use

Very friendly interface. See More

Top Con

Too simple

If you have used vector illustration software for 10 years or more, you may find Gravit Designer too simple and confusing. Trade in your oil paints and brushes for Legos simple. See More

Top Pro

Cross-platform

It offers total portability to almost any platform. See More

Top Con

No longer offically licenced with a GPLv3+ version

In 2014 Quasado released Gravit.io having dual licensing: GNU GPLv3+ or a commercial license. This effectively made Gravit.io opensource, when they transitioned to "Gravit designer" they essentially dropped GPLv3+ license. You can still get the GPLv3+ licensed version of Gravit.io here: https://github.com/OliBridgman/gravit You can read the GPLv3+ licensing here: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html See More

Top Pro

Modern UI

Top Con

Confusing bugs

Sometimes Gravit Designer can randomly duplicate your files, causing you to waste a large amount of time trying to find the right one. See More

Top Pro

Friendly keyboard shortcuts

The keyboard shortcuts are very easy to access and remember. See More

Top Con

Pro Subscription

Gravit's many basic features are now included in Pro Subscription. Font Import, Bezigon, Swatches and various Blending Modes fall in Pro Subscription now. See More

Top Pro

Essential Tools and Effects

Gravit has many tools like Pen tool, Bezigon tool, Lasso tools. We can add Multiple Fills to an element also. It has many effects such as Drop Shadows, Blur, Recolor, Glows, etc. and much more. See More

Top Con

Very little information

Official sources do not provide a lot information about the program. See More

Top Con

No integration into the system

It uses it own theme and icons. See More

Specs

Platforms:Linux, MacOS, Windows, ChromeOS, WebApp

License:Commercial

Company:Corel Corporation

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56 11

score 663 · Answer 13

Blender

Top Pro

Free and open source

Blender is licensed under the GPL. Some Blender modules such as the Cycles rendering engine are licensed under the Apache 2.0 license. See More

Top Con

Too many possibilities, no unified workflow

The operations are not optimized enough for specific tasks. See More

Top Pro

Wide import and export format support

Support lots of modern 3D formats including DAE and FBX - ideal for game developers. See More

Top Con

The physics engine is a bit lagging behind, especially the destruction physics

Top Pro

Has a powerful rendering engine

Blender runs the Cycles path tracing engine under the hood. Cycles is a very powerful rendering engine capable of full path tracing (light fall off, caustics, volumetrics). It is mostly compatible with OpenCL and CUDA rendering, and is implementing mycropolygon displacement features. The upcoming release has a viewport engine called EEVEE whereby you can see and interact with your work in render mode in real time! See More

Top Con

Difficult learning curve

Blender has a history of being unintuitive, but the 2.8 overhaul made the program far easier for beginners to pick up, and changes continue to be made to further improve the experience. However, there is still a learning curve. See More

Top Pro

Python extensibility

Blender embeds Python 3, which can be used to write add-ons, tools, extend the interface, rig characters and automate tasks. See More

Top Con

Not good for Industrial Design because it uses average vertex normals

You can not create a hard surface with a radius continuity degree along a surface using a specific radius value. See More

Top Pro

Powerful animation suite

Blender provides a full rigging system, and automates animation by interpolating between keyframe positions. See More

Top Con

Vertex normal issues on edges after boolean operations.

After creating a simple boolean operation the vertex normals are broken. A lot of work to fix the issue and you loos surface continuity. See More

Top Pro

Supports both low-poly and hi-poly modeling

Top Con

Bad vertex normal after boolean operations

Does not handle well polygon intersections. And need tweaking by hand points or adding average vertex normals via modifiers. See More

Top Pro

Regular release schedule

Releases are made every ~3 months. See More

Top Con

Does not handle NURBs

Is not capable of real hard surface for industrial design because is not able to reproduce surface continuity degree as a NURBs does and average vertex normal destroy surface radius. See More

Top Pro

Sculpting and 3D painting features

Although Blender's 3d painting and sculpting tools (mostly painting) are not at par with specialized software like Substance Painter, ZBrush, or Mari, it is more than capable of getting most jobs done if the user takes the time to learn and understand it. See More

Top Con

Poor particle system

The Blender particle system can at times be a little limiting and finicky (and buggy) to get working. Even if it can get most straight forward jobs done, it is far from the most advanced system, and could benefit largely from advancements. See More

Top Pro

Includes video editing & compositing tools

Blender's node-based compositor has comprehensive video sequencing and post-processing features. See More

Top Pro

Node based modeling support

Top Pro

Keyboard shortcuts

Good keyboard shortcuts for everything. Keep your left hand on the keyboard and your right hand on the mouse. See More

Top Pro

Very useful for a freelancer

It offers a round solution (it covers many areas and professional fields) for a freelancer, for free, constantly updated, very polished, and allowing high quality results that clients do require. After some learning, it becomes very useful for professional work. See More

Top Pro

Has a large community

There's a huge community to help you get started immediately. See More

Top Pro

Coherent and streamlined workflow / internal use logic

The trick with Blender is to get used to its usage philosophy, as it keeps consistent through all the application. Once you get it, every feature or addition is learnt naturally, almost effortlessly. See More

Top Pro

Very versatile

You don't have to switch between software when you want to do different things. Because modeling, sculpting, composting, video editing etc can all be done in blender. See More

Top Pro

Generative geometry using nodes

Specs

Platforms:Windows, Linux, Mac, FreeBSD

663 95

score 15 · Answer 14

PaintShop Pro

Top Con

Windows only

Top Pro

Has tutotirals

There are quite a few tutorial videos available on Paint Shop's website for users. See More

Top Pro

Several file formats supported

Can read and write images in several file formats: PCX, PNG, GIF, CDR, PSD, JPG, EPS, TIF, TGA, WMF... even RAW. See More

Top Pro

Custom palettes

Being able to work with a pre-defined number of color palettes, save and load custom palettes and several modes to reduce the number of colors on a picture. See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows

Tethered capture:No

15 5

score 13 · Answer 15

MediBang Paint Pro

Top Pro

Multi-platform support

Windows, macOS, iOS and Android. See More

Top Con

Displays a dialog with some ads at the start

When starting up the app, there is a dialog that pops up containing advertisements, this can simply be closed, but will happen every time when opening the app. Sadly there is no way to remove these ads currently. See More

Top Pro

Has a lot of options for editing photos

Top Pro

Free

It's a powerful, fully featured app and it's free. See More

13 6

score 60 · Answer 16

Adobe Illustrator CC

Top Con

Subscription model

Illustrator CC requires a $19.99/mo (minimum) subscription to use. Adobe no longer sells previous versions of Illustrator. See More

Top Pro

Amazing integration with all other Adobe Software (PS, Ae, Id...)

Top Con

Heavy use of CPU/RAM

Top Pro

It's the industry standard

Top Con

Steep learning curve

Top Pro

Advanced tools

Top Con

Very slow

Even in very good computers Illustrator is very slow. See More

Top Pro

Has all the vector tools you could dream of

Top Con

You never truly own this software

As soon as you stop paying you to lose access to the software. This should be illegal. See More

Top Pro

Flexible, non-intrusive interface

Small palette menus and the ability to save multiple menu layouts keep the UI out of the way. See More

Top Con

Install useless and intrusive software

When you install any Adobe product it also installs lots of useless and intrusive software and services. It adds two services and up to three auto-starting software that runs when you start your operating system and keep running constantly. One is for auto-updating, others for "checking" if you are not a pirate and some others that seems to be just to collect information. See More

Top Pro

There are many tutorials on the internet

Top Con

Imprecise coordinates

Oftentimes your 140 is 139.9997 and as a vector program it doesn't rely much on precision. See More

Top Pro

Frequent updates

The CC subscription model means that major releases are no longer necessary, so existing users gain immediate access to new features. See More

Top Con

No proper selection mode

In a vector-art program, the critical selection mode is the one in which objects must be fully enclosed by the selection marquee to be selected. In the simple example shown here, selecting all the circles should merely require you to draw a selection rectangle around them. But in Illustrator, there's no way to avoid selecting other objects as well, even though they're not totally enclosed by the selection box. Year after year, Adobe fails to fix this bizarre oversight, making Illustrator a tedious pain to use. See More

Top Pro

Easy to learn

It's easy to learn how to work with this software. See More

Top Con

Buggy

Software can be very buggy at times. See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows; Mac

License:Proprietary

Initial Release:1987

Exports:.ai; .eps; .ait; .pdf; .fxg; .svgz; .svg; .png; .bmp; .dwg; .dxf; .emf; .swf; .jpg; .pct; .psd; .tif; .tga; .txt; .wmf; .html; .gif

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60 37

score 25 · Answer 17

GRAVIT

Top Pro

Free

Gravit has a free version, but there is paid version with more features. See More

Top Con

Paid version

Expensive paid version that has many features you can find in free or cheaper applications. See More

Top Pro

Multi platform

Works on Windows, Mac and Linux. See More

Top Con

This does not appear to be a Web-design tool

Gravit appears to be a vector-art tool, and nothing more. Their homepage doesn't even mention Web design as far as I can see. See More

Top Pro

Actively developed

Top Con

Changing rapidly

The fast rate of growth/change for Gravit can be a pro in that in means plenty of new features. However, it also makes the product fairly unpredictable. For example: In the past year, Gravit was open sourced, then closed sourced again. See More

Top Pro

Easy to export all assets

Gravit has a built in exporter to PDF, JPG, PNG and SVG. See More

Top Pro

Clean and helpful UI

The panels in Gravit adjust to contain the information needed based on the type of element selected, preventing the clutter that Photoshop often experiences. See More

Top Pro

Easy to design multiple pages

The ability to assign layers to specific pages, and view single or multiple pages at once makes it easy to design an entire website without getting lost in thousands of layers. Easy to view multiple pages at one time. See More

Top Pro

Symbols and libraries

With Gravit you can re-use the same design for buttons, inputs, etc, in multiple places, with changes synced every where the element is used. It's also possible to set text to a shared style to sync text changes throughout the app. See More

Top Pro

Able to open Sketch files

The ability to open Sketch files makes it easier for Linux/Windows users to collaborate with people who use Sketch, which is macOS specific. See More

Specs

Platforms:Linux, Windows, macOS, Web

License:GPLv3+ or Commercial license

Unoffical download location:https://github.com/OliBridgman/gravit

Available as:Snap, AppImage, WebApp

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25 5

score 67 · Answer 18

Pixelmator

Top Pro

Beautiful, easy to use UI

Pixelmator's interface is pleasant to look at, easy to use and specifically optimized for OS X users, making it very intuitive for long-time Mac users. See More

Top Pro

Feature rich

Not only does Piexelmator provide easy to use tools that you should expect in any image editor, it also has rare tools such as layer styles, liquify tools and OS X optimized, fast image manipulation engine among others. See More

Top Pro

Supports layer styles

Layer styles allow non-destructively applying effects to a layer. See More

Top Pro

Multiple-display support

Pixelmator can be used across any number of monitors. See More

Top Pro

Powerful effects

Dozens of visual effects available, easily discovered from the visual Effects Browser, broken into categories. Effects have interactive dialogs and live preview. See More

Top Pro

Loads quickly

Gives you common image editing capabilities almost instantly. See More

Top Pro

Great performance

Pixelmator's image engine is specifically optimized for use with Macs, providing one the best performance results available on OS X. See More

Top Pro

Inexpensive

Pixelmator costs just $30 on the App Store. Additionally, it often comes bundled with other software that you might also find useful bringing the price down. See More

Specs

Platforms:OSX

Tethered capture:No

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67 16

score 14 · Answer 19

Vectr

Top Pro

Intuitive

Vectr is simpler than other web design or vector graphics design tools, and has all the features needed to make designs beautiful. See More

Top Con

Requires an Internet connection to work

Must be tethered to an Internet connection at all times, so forget working on planes or other places where you're not online. See More

Top Pro

WordPress plugin

Embedded editor in WordPress is perfect for editing / creating: annotated images, watermarks, banners, image-collages, infographics, logotypes. See More

Top Pro

Grid and snapping

The grid and snap lines in your workspace serve as a visual aid and guideline for the composition and alignment of your designs. See More

Top Pro

Supports importing various image formats

You may import your previous designs or downloaded graphics and edit them in Vectr as you like. See More

Top Pro

Supports collaboration

You can send the unique URL to your Vectr project to friends and colleagues for collaboration. See More

Top Pro

Low learning curve

Vectr has a very low learning curve and would be perfect for beginners. However, it’s absolutely easy to use no matter what your background is. Professional designers will also find a great number of useful tools which may change their designs completely. See More

Top Pro

Designing offline

Vectr's desktop app works offline for up to 100 edits, and then once you get online it automatically synchronizes all of the projects with your online account. So you can work whenever you want without fearing for your projects. See More

Top Pro

Free

The app is going to remain free forever. See More

Top Pro

Cross-platform

You may download Vectr for Mac, Windows, Linux, and Chromebook. See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows, Linux, Mac, Web

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14 5

score 124 · Answer 20

Sketch

Top Pro

Designed specifically for web and mobile UI design & workflows

Sketch is essentially a version of Photoshop built from the ground up to suit the workflow of web designers. See More

Top Con

No Windows support

Top Pro

Active community with a lot of resources

Sketch is hugely popular among designers so there are a lot of well maintained community resources for everything from iPhone frames to iOS/Android UI elements & icons. See More

Top Con

No Linux version

Sketch is currently only available on Mac, which can make it hard to collaborate if you have teammates using Linux. See More

Top Pro

Clean UI

Reactive panels keep the UI for Sketch clean from the sort of clutter the panel system in Photoshop suffers from. The panels in Sketch change based on the object in question, saving you from having to have a multiple separate panels. See More

Top Con

License based payment model

Sketch has recently decided to cease development of major version (2.0, 3.0, 4.0) with free updates in between, and has switched to a license based subscription model. A yearly license costs $99 and includes the latest version of the Sketch software, plus a year of free updates. After this license expires, you can renew for another year of updates - or continue to use the current software without updates. See More

Top Pro

Symbols and shared styles

Sketch lets you re-use the same design in multiple places, with changes synced throughout the various places it is used. You can also create text styles to sync typography changes. See More

Top Con

Buggy releases and lack of quality assurance

The fast rate of change means new releases often break files and cause havoc. Duplicate symbols are really bad in the latest releases so you have to keep updating. See More

Top Pro

"Artboards" are great for working on multiple views simultaneously

Artboards let you easily work on multiple views side by side. Great for having a separate artboard on each page for the various responsive sizes. See More

Top Con

Very feeble raster tools

You have to go elsewhere if you want something more complex than basic vector masking of raster images. See More

Top Pro

Vector based yet pixel aware

You can rescale assets without quality loss, easily export x2 assets for retina designs and design high quality icons & artwork. Being pixel aware lets you set a grid and snap objects to it as well as round to the nearest pixel edge to clean up your layers. See More

Top Con

Limited compatibility with Photoshop and Illustrator

Although it is possible to export certain Adobe file types in Sketch, compatibility is mostly hit and miss. For example, some elements seem a little offset in Adobe products. See More

Top Pro

Makes it easy to export assets

Sketch has a built in exporter that supports PDF, JPG and PNG. See More

Top Pro

Built-in grid system

You can set the square grid to whatever dimensions you like as well as set thicker lines every x blocks. You can also configure the color of the lines to make them as obvious or subtle as you wish and toggle the grid with a keyboard shortcut (crtl+g). See More

Top Pro

"Mirror" makes it really easy to test designs on multiple devices

Mirror lets you connect your iPhone to sketch and see how your current artboard looks on mobile. It's really useful as you can live check changes which lets you rapidly iterate mobile design. See More

Top Pro

Easily align layers with smart guides

Holding down alt will show the smart guides that show the distances between any layer you hover over to nearby layers or the edges of the artboard. Very useful for checking your spacing or aligning layers. See More

Specs

Platforms:Mac

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