Krita
Free, open-source digital painting app for illustrators, concept artists and comic creators.
- Verified facts
- 4 of 4
- Alternatives ranked
- 7
- Approved reviews
- 0
- Visits sent from here
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About Krita
Krita is a free and open-source painting program made by artists and developed under the KDE community. It is built for drawing and painting rather than photo retouching: brush engines with hundreds of presets, stabilisers, pressure-sensitive pen support, wrap-around mode for textures, perspective and vanishing-point assistants, vector and text layers, comic panel templates and frame-by-frame animation. Artists use it for illustration, concept art, comics, matte painting and texture work, and it is a popular free alternative to Photoshop's painting tools, Clip Studio Paint and Procreate on desktop. It runs on Windows, macOS and Linux, with Android and ChromeOS builds for tablets. Being volunteer-driven, it can have rough edges with performance on very large canvases, and it is not a good choice for photo editing or print layout. Krita is free with no account, funded by donations and store sales, and licensed under the GNU GPL.
Best for: Illustrators and concept artists who want a free, full-featured painting app.
Pros and cons
What works
- Free and GPL-licensed
- Excellent brush engines and drawing assistants
- Runs on Windows, macOS, Linux and Android
Why people leave
- Not built for photo editing
- Can slow down on very large canvases
- No iPad version
Top Krita alternatives
See all 7- 1
Procreate66.5Polished painting app for iPad with a one-time price.
- 2
Clip Studio Paint62.6Commercial favourite for comics and manga with strong line tools.
- 3
Photopea55.9Free browser editor for photo edits Krita is not built for.
- 4
Inkscape55.3Free vector editor for illustration that needs clean scalable shapes.
- 5
Adobe Illustrator53.6Professional vector illustration in the Adobe ecosystem.
Why people left Krita
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Reviews
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Krita: common questions
Is Krita free?
Yes. Krita is free, open-source software.
Is Krita open source?
Yes. The source code is on GitHub at KDE/krita.
What platforms does Krita run on?
Krita is available for Windows, macOS, Linux and Android.
What are the best alternatives to Krita?
The highest-ranked Krita alternatives right now are Procreate, Clip Studio Paint and Photopea. See the full ranked list for pricing, platforms and verified facts.