What is Krita?
Krita is a free and open-source painting application built for artists rather than for photo manipulation. Its feature page describes an end-to-end tool for creating digital art from scratch: over 100 preloaded brushes across nine brush engines, three different brush stabilisers plus a Dynamic Brush tool, drawing assistants for perspective and ellipses, wrap-around mode for seamless textures, vector tools for comic panels and speech balloons, and a 2D animation workspace with onion skinning, tweening and video export. It supports full colour management through LCMS for ICC profiles and OpenColorIO for EXR, and the project describes it as the only painting application that can open, save, edit and author HDR and scene-referred images. Python scripting extends it. It is licensed under the GNU GPL v3, and the project states plainly that Krita is not intended as a replacement for Photoshop for image manipulation. It suits illustrators, concept artists, comic artists and animators who want professional tools without a subscription.
Verified product facts
- Type
- image editorEditorially reviewed
- Platform
- macOS
- Pricing
- Open sourceDeveloper-stated
- Open source
- Yes
- Developer
- Stichting Krita FoundationDeveloper-stated
- Relationship to Nuanyue
- Third-party product — not published by NuanyueEditorially reviewed
- Licence
- GPL-3.0
- Current version
- 5.3.4Developer-stated
- Official website
- krita.org/
Last updated . Facts marked developer-stated come from the developer and are not independently confirmed; editorially reviewed marks a Nuanyue judgement.
Key features
What Krita does at a glance.
Over 100 professionally made brushes preloaded
Nine brush engines
Including Colour Smudge, Shape, Particle and Filter engines
Three different brush stabilisers
Plus a dedicated Dynamic Brush tool with drag and mass
Wrap-around mode
For painting seamless textures and patterns
Resource Manager
For importing brush and texture packs and bundling your own
Built-in vector tools
For comic panels and speech balloons, with SVG as the vector format
2D animation workspace
With onion skinning, tweening, timeline scrubbing and video export
Drawing assistants
For vanishing points, straight lines, ellipses and fisheye perspective
Vector, filter, group and file layers
Alongside paint layers
Full colour management
Through LCMS for ICC profiles and OpenColorIO for EXR
HDR and scene-referred image editing
With OpenEXR support
Python scripting
Through PyQt and Krita's own API, with plugins pre-installed
GPU-accelerated canvas
Through OpenGL, or Direct3D 11 on Windows
Opens and saves Photoshop PSD files
More than 30 dockers, a customisable layout and saveable workspaces
Dark and light interface themes
What you can use Krita for
- Painting concept art, illustrations and matte paintings from a blank canvas
- Drawing and animating 2D animation frame by frame
- Laying out comics with vector panels and speech balloons
- Creating seamless textures and patterns for 3D work
- Authoring and inspecting HDR and scene-referred images in a colour-managed pipeline
Who is Krita for?
- Concept artists, illustrators and digital painters who want professional tools without a subscription
- Comic artists who need panel and balloon layout in the same application they paint in
- Animators who want frame-by-frame 2D animation alongside their painting tools
- Anyone who wants to read, modify and rebuild the software they rely on
Who is Krita not for?
- Photographers who need a Photoshop replacement for image manipulation, which the project itself says Krita is not
- Anyone who needs a vendor support contract or commercial backing behind the application
- macOS users who expect an Apple-idiomatic interface, since Krita is a cross-platform Qt application
Limitations
- The Mac App Store build was at 5.3.2 while the direct download was at 5.3.4 when Nuanyue checked, so the two channels are not always in step
- Nuanyue could not find a first-party statement on whether the macOS build runs natively on Apple silicon, so that is recorded as unknown here
- The project states that Krita is not intended as a replacement for Photoshop, and that other programs may have more features for image manipulation tasks such as stitching photos
- Version 6.0 is in development as nightly builds that the project labels for testing only
Strengths and trade-offs
What Krita does well, and what to weigh before choosing it. Points marked developer-stated come from the developer’s own material and have not been independently confirmed.
Strengths
- Free software under the GNU GPL v3, with the source available to study, modify and redistribute.
- Ships with over 100 professionally made brushes and nine separate brush engines to build custom ones from.Developer-stated
- Three different brush stabilisers plus a Dynamic Brush tool with drag and mass settings.Developer-stated
- Wrap-around mode makes it straightforward to paint seamless textures and patterns.Developer-stated
- A 2D animation workspace covers onion skinning, tweening, timeline scrubbing and export to video.Developer-stated
- Built-in vector tools create comic panels and speech balloons, using SVG as the vector format.Developer-stated
- Full colour management through LCMS for ICC profiles and OpenColorIO for EXR, so it can slot into an existing colour pipeline.Developer-stated
- The project describes Krita as the only painting application that can open, save, edit and author HDR and scene-referred images.Developer-stated
- A Python scripting API built on PyQt allows custom widgets and extensions, with plugins pre-installed as examples.Developer-stated
- Runs on Windows, macOS, Linux and Android tablets from one project.Developer-stated
Trade-offs
- The Mac App Store build lagged the direct download — 5.3.2 against 5.3.4 — when Nuanyue checked both.
- Nuanyue could not establish from Krita's own pages whether the macOS build runs natively on Apple silicon or through translation.Editorially reviewed
- The project states that Krita is not intended as a replacement for Photoshop, so image manipulation work may need a different tool.Developer-stated
- The free download is published outside the Mac App Store, so nothing updates it automatically unless the paid store build is used.Derived
First-use experience
What the app asks of you when you set it up. Only established facts appear here; anything we could not confirm is left out rather than guessed at.
- Installation
- Downloaded as a signed disk image from download.kde.org, or bought from the Mac App Store. The store build is a paid version whose proceeds support development; the direct download is the same application at no cost.
- First launch Derived
- No account or licence key is involved. The first launch opens a workspace, and brush, tablet and colour settings are configured inside the application.
What it does
Krita is a painting application. Its manual is explicit that this is the point: although it shares features with other raster editors, it is designed for digital painting and for creating artwork from scratch, and the project says other programs may have more features for image manipulation work such as stitching photographs together. The fields it names as explicitly supported are illustration, concept art, matte painting, textures, comics and animation.
Brushes, tools and assistants
The brush system is the centre of the application. Krita ships with over 100 professionally made brushes and provides nine brush engines — including Colour Smudge, Shape, Particle and Filter engines — for building custom ones, which can be saved and organised with a tagging system. Three separate stabilisers smooth out a shaky hand, and a dedicated Dynamic Brush tool adds drag and mass. A Resource Manager imports brush and texture packs from other artists and lets you publish your own bundles.
Around the brushes sit the tools that make specific kinds of work possible. Drawing assistants handle vanishing points, straight lines, ellipses and fisheye perspective. Wrap-around mode repeats the canvas along both axes so seamless textures can be painted in place. Built-in vector tools create comic panels and speech balloons, using SVG as the vector format. Layer types cover paint, vector, filter, group and file layers.
Animation, colour and scripting
Switching to the animation workspace turns Krita into a frame-by-frame studio, with onion skinning for in-betweens, tweening for opacity and position, playback controls, timeline scrubbing, audio import and export to video or still images.
Colour is handled seriously. Krita supports full colour management through LCMS for ICC profiles and OpenColorIO for EXR, ships with a range of ICC working-space profiles, and the project describes it as the only painting application that can open, save, edit and author HDR and scene-referred images. The canvas is GPU-accelerated through OpenGL, or Direct3D 11 on Windows.
Krita is scriptable. A Python API built on PyQt allows custom widgets and extensions, and several plugins ship pre-installed as references.
Licence, downloads and what is not recorded
Krita is free software under the GNU GPL v3: you can study, modify and distribute it. The project also sells paid store builds on the Mac App Store, Microsoft Store, Steam and Epic Games Store, and says that after the store’s cut the money supports development. The Mac App Store build was listed at $12.99 when Nuanyue checked, against a direct download at 5.3.4 and a store listing still at 5.3.2.
Two things are not recorded here because Krita’s own pages did not establish them. The first is whether the macOS build runs natively on Apple silicon or through Rosetta 2 — the download page lists macOS 10.15 and offers a single signed disk image without saying. The second is the application’s behaviour on first launch, which is not described in first-party documentation. Version 6.0 exists only as nightly builds, which the project labels for testing and warns to use at your own risk.
Questions about Krita
Is Krita free?
Yes. Krita is free software under the GNU GPL v3, and the project states that it is free and open source and that you are free to study, modify and distribute it. There is no paid tier and no account for the download from the Krita site.
Why is Krita paid on the Mac App Store?
The store builds are a separate paid channel. The project describes them as paid versions of Krita on other platforms, notes that you get automatic updates with them, and says that after the store fee is deducted the money supports Krita's development. The free download from download.kde.org is the same application.Developer-stated
Does Krita run on Apple silicon Macs?
Nuanyue could not establish this from Krita's own pages. The download page lists macOS 10.15 as the requirement and offers a single signed disk image, without stating whether the build runs natively on Apple silicon or through Rosetta 2, so the answer is not recorded here.Editorially reviewed
Is Krita a replacement for Photoshop?
The project says it is not. Krita's manual states that although it has features overlapping with other raster editors, its intended purpose is digital painting and creating artwork from scratch, and that other programs may have more features for image manipulation tasks such as stitching photos together.Developer-stated
What file formats does Krita work with?
Krita opens and saves Photoshop PSD files, and its feature page notes that it can open PSD files that even Photoshop cannot. Vector layers are managed as SVG, and HDR work uses OpenEXR with OpenColorIO.Developer-stated
What is the minimum macOS version?
macOS 10.15, as listed in the system requirements on Krita's download page alongside 4 GB of RAM minimum and OpenGL 3.0 or higher.
Alternatives to Krita
Apps that could replace this one — the same job, a different trade-off.
Affinity Photo
Photo editing studio in Affinity, now free from Canva.
Both edit raster images on macOS, but Krita is free software aimed at painting and illustration while Affinity's Pixel Studio is a closed-source photo editor that requires a Canva account.
Pixelmator
Apple's AI-assisted image editor for Mac and iPad.
Both are raster image editors on macOS, but Krita is a free open-source painting application while Pixelmator Pro is a paid Apple-owned app aimed at photo editing and compositing.
Compared with
Head-to-head comparisons Nuanyue has published.
GIMP
Free and open-source image editor for retouching, compositing and artwork.
Both are free, open-source raster editors for macOS that are routinely weighed against each other, but Krita is built around digital painting and animation while GIMP is oriented towards photo retouching and compositing.
Links
Sources
Facts on this page are checked against the sources below. Last updated .
