When comparing Krita vs Aseprite, the Slant community recommends Aseprite for most people. In the question“What are the best pixel art / sprite editors?” Aseprite is ranked 1st while Krita is ranked 3rd. The most important reason people chose Aseprite is:
You can change the playback speed of the loop and the speed of each individual frame. There are three playback modes: forward, reverse, and ping-pong. Onion Skin mode is included to speed up the animation process and to allow for tagging the timeline to help keep animations organized. There is also a live preview so you can always see the end result. Onion Skin mode will overlay previous and next frames over the canvas so you can use them as references when drawing. For Onion Skin mode, you can adjust items like range, opacity, and tint, whether the onion frames are in front of or behind the canvas, etc. You can tag different parts of the timeline when, for example, you need different animations for the same character. You can then loop those tagged sections individually.
Specs
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Pros
Pro Easy to use layout
All the most used and useful tools are easy to find in Krita's UI and are often just one click away. They are not hidden behind menus or dropdowns.
Pro Constantly updated
Krita is getting constant releases with updates and bug fixes. New features are added at a pace that far surpasses the other alternatives.
Pro Free and open source
Krita is completely free and open source. They have raised a couple of successful Kickstarters in the past to get the initial financing and now they are accepting donations.
Pro Developed in part by KDE, which has a great community and therefore great support.
KDE has a long history of making solid applications.
Pro Amazing support for displaying brushes
Krita's preset brushes are one of the default dockers. Each brush has a preview on mouseover that shows a detailed view of the type of brush involved. All the brushes also have useful and descriptive names such as "HP Pencil" or "Textured Fuzzy".
Pro Very customizable
Although the UI is rather busy, Krita is very customizable. The editing window can be themed and the sidebar can be customized extensively throw many dockers or panes.
Pro Easy editing in a tiled view
Tiled view that shows your image tiled in the editor, and permits you to edit it as you are seeing it tiled. If the brush passes out of your texture, it will just automatically wrap back the painting to the other side of the original texture, while permitting you to paint and see the results on any of the tiled "clones" (the shortcut key to activate this is w by default).
Pro Good selection of tools for animation
You can change the playback speed of the loop and the speed of each individual frame. There are three playback modes: forward, reverse, and ping-pong. Onion Skin mode is included to speed up the animation process and to allow for tagging the timeline to help keep animations organized. There is also a live preview so you can always see the end result.
Onion Skin mode will overlay previous and next frames over the canvas so you can use them as references when drawing. For Onion Skin mode, you can adjust items like range, opacity, and tint, whether the onion frames are in front of or behind the canvas, etc.
You can tag different parts of the timeline when, for example, you need different animations for the same character. You can then loop those tagged sections individually.
Pro Easy to use
Getting started with the program is straightforward. It's laid out intuitively: the main workspace in the middle, color selection on the left, tool section on the right, and animation timeline at the bottom.
All tools and the vast majority of functions have keyboard shortcuts, allowing for results to be obtained quickly.
Aseprite is a very focused program: it's not filled with icons, there's no excess functionality, and dialog boxes generally only have a couple of options so you're never overwhelmed and it's easier to learn.
Pro Responsive developer
Always in touch with the community and approachable via Twitter.
Pro Awesome tools
Tools are good, easy to use.
Pro Pixel perfect mode
It makes drawing lines and shapes less jaggy by default.
Pro Free and paid versions available
Aseprite is free if you compile it yourself. Its maintainers also offer a security-signed package with a technical support license for a one time fee of $14.99. It's also easy to use and presents really awesome tools.
Pro Cross-platform
Aseprite is available on macOS, Windows and Linux. The unfree source code is published on GitHub.
Pro Made for pixel art
It was designed with pixel art in mind, unlike other general-purpose image editors. This means you get lots of useful features and very little clutter from tools and features that you won't need.
Pro Very intuitive thus easy for complete beginners
The interface invites you to be creative, and since it's pixel art you are creating, this adds to the feeling of being in the right environment. Everything seems to have its natural place and thereby could make beginners feel right at home.
Pro Beautiful interface
Aseprite has a beautiful pixel-art interface that makes it a pleasure to use.
Pro Scriptable using Lua
Aseprite is scriptable using the Lua language, which can be used to automate tasks and add new functionality. Some consider the API more user-friendly than GrafX2's.
Cons
Con New features are not tested thoroughly
Since releases are so often and with little time between them, usually new features are not tested a lot and this can bring a lot of bugs with them. Which fortunately are quickly patched in the next release.
Con Documentation is lacking
Krita's official documentation is incomplete in some areas, especially for new features that are constantly added. But this is compensated with it's great design and usability which makes it easier to understand how things work.
Con Poor touch controls
They are still pretty much a WIP. But they are getting there.
Con Working with text is not that pleasant
Con Not FLOSS anymore
The license was changed to a shared license, that does not allow redistribution of the source code. While older versions should still be FLOSS, the newest versions are not.
Con Text tool could be better
You can't change text and its font or size after you've inserted it. You have to re-insert text every time you wish to make an edit.
Con No tilemap support yet
A tilemap editor is on the roadmap for version 1.6.
Con Pixel-styled interface can be jarring
Aseprite uses low-resolution window frames and fonts. Opinions vary on whether this sets the mood or gets in the way.