Krita vs Photopea
Both are free/open-source alternatives to Adobe Photoshop. Here's how they stack up — verified facts, no spin.
Krita
A professional open-source studio for digital painting that doubles as a capable image editor.
Krita is a KDE project stewarded by the Krita Foundation, built first for digital painting and illustration: its brush engines, pen-tablet support, and animation tools are best-in-class among free software. It is also a genuinely capable general raster editor with layers, masks, filters, and PSD import/export, which makes it the strongest pick for people who use Photoshop mainly to draw and paint rather than to retouch photos. The direct download is completely free; identical GPL-licensed builds are sold on Steam and the Microsoft, Epic, and Mac App Stores purely to fund development.
Photopea
A free Photoshop-style editor that runs instantly in your browser and opens PSD files.
Photopea is a free web-based editor whose interface and shortcuts closely mirror Photoshop's, with the best PSD compatibility of any free tool — it also opens Illustrator, XD, and Sketch files. Despite running in a browser, it processes everything on your device: by its own documentation it uploads none of your files, and a loaded tab keeps working offline. It is the fastest way for a Photoshop user to get real work done at zero cost, but it is not open-source and cannot be self-hosted — the free version is ad-supported, with an optional Premium subscription (about US$5/month) — which its Sovereignty Score honestly reflects.
Side by side
| Krita | Photopea | |
|---|---|---|
| Sovereignty Score | 96 | 45 |
| Open source | Yes | No |
| Self-hostable | Yes | No |
| Local-first | Yes | Yes |
| License | GPL-3.0-only | Proprietary (free) |
| Pricing | Free download; optional paid store builds fund development | Free in the browser (ad-supported); optional Premium about US$5/month |
Krita edges it on the Sovereignty Score, but the right pick depends on the trade-offs below.
Krita
Strengths
- +Free and open-source (GPL-3.0-only), developed by the Krita Foundation with a steady, funded release cadence
- +Best-in-class brush engines, tablet support, and painting workflow
- +Solid layer, mask, and filter tools for general raster work; opens and exports PSD
- +Cross-platform — Windows, macOS, Linux, and an Android/ChromeOS build
Trade-offs
- −Painting-first by design — photo retouching and selection tools are shallower than Photoshop's or GIMP's
- −PSD round-trips can lose advanced Photoshop-specific features
- −No built-in generative AI features
- −Large canvases with many layers want plenty of RAM
Photopea
Strengths
- +Closest free match to Photoshop's interface and shortcuts — minimal relearning
- +Best-in-class PSD compatibility among free tools; also opens AI, XD, and Sketch files
- +Nothing to install; files are processed on your device, not uploaded to a server
- +Works on any OS with a modern browser, including Chromebooks and tablets
Trade-offs
- −Not open-source and not self-hostable — you depend on Photopea.com remaining available
- −Free version is ad-supported
- −Very large or complex documents are constrained by browser memory
- −Offline use works in an already-loaded tab, but it is not an installable local app you control
More Adobe Photoshop head-to-heads
Facts verified 2026-07-06. Licenses and pricing change — spotted something out of date? That's a correction we want.