Alternatives to Gwenview
KDE's image viewer for browsing collections of images, with simple editing and annotation tools. The listings below can replace it for an important use case. Each note says what changes if you switch.
The original
Gwenview
KDE's image viewer for browsing collections of images, with simple editing and annotation tools.
Replacements
Listings that take over the same core job as Gwenview.
gThumb
An open-source image viewer and browser for the GNOME desktop on Linux.
gThumb is an open-source GNOME image viewer and browser for Linux that works on local folders, suited to users on the GNOME desktop rather than KDE Plasma.
nomacs
A fast image viewer that opens RAW and PSD files and can show the same picture in two synchronised windows.
nomacs runs on Windows, macOS and Linux, opens RAW and PSD files and offers batch processing, but its adjustments are minimal and the interface exposes many panels.
Loupe
GNOME's default image viewer, with metadata display and quick crop, rotate and flip edits.
Loupe is GNOME's default viewer with metadata display and crop, rotate and flip edits, fitting GNOME instead of KDE and lacking Gwenview's annotation tools.
Geeqie
Browse and organize images with a Unix desktop viewer.
Geeqie is an open-source Linux and Unix viewer that inspects image collections without a database import, and it is not tied to the KDE desktop.
ImageGlass
A fast image viewer that opens the formats Windows still argues about: WebP, JXL, HEIC, AVIF, SVG, HDR and raw.
ImageGlass supports over ninety formats with crop, resize and a colour picker across Windows, macOS and Linux, though some features need the paid Pro edition.
XnView MP
Views, converts and organises images in more than five hundred formats, free for personal use.
XnView MP adds support for over five hundred formats plus batch conversion and tagging, but it is closed source and heavier to start than a plain viewer.
LXImage-Qt
A lightweight image viewer and screenshot tool from the LXQt desktop project.
LXImage-Qt is a lightweight Linux viewer from LXQt with an Exif panel, annotations and screenshots, and basic editing like Gwenview.
qimgv
A fast, configurable image viewer with basic cropping and resizing and optional video playback.
qimgv runs on Windows and Linux with configurable shortcuts for sorting images, basic crop and resize, and experimental video playback via mpv.
Also worth comparing
These listings name Gwenview as their own alternative, so the relationship runs both ways.
Eye of GNOME
The classic GNOME image viewer, with a straightforward interface and support for plugins.
Gwenview is KDE's open-source viewer with quick folder browsing, basic crop, resize and red-eye edits and annotation tools, and it fits best with the Plasma desktop.
Koko
A KDE image gallery app for browsing photo albums on Linux desktops and mobile devices.
Gwenview is KDE's image viewer with quick folder browsing, basic crop, resize and red-eye edits and annotation tools, aimed at the desktop rather than Plasma Mobile.
nsxiv
A minimal keyboard-driven image viewer for X11 with a thumbnail mode, forked from sxiv.
Gwenview is KDE's image viewer with simple edits and annotation tools, offering a full graphical interface rather than a minimal keyboard-driven one.
Oculante
A fast, simple cross-platform image viewer with basic editing tools and wide format support.
Gwenview is KDE's open-source Linux viewer with crop, resize, red-eye and annotation tools and frequent releases, but it is limited to Linux.
Ristretto
A simple, fast image viewer developed as part of the Xfce desktop environment for Linux.
Gwenview is KDE's viewer with basic crop, resize and red-eye edits and annotation tools, integrating best with Plasma rather than Xfce.
vimiv
An image viewer controlled with vim-like keybindings, with a thumbnail mode and basic editing.
Gwenview is KDE's mouse-oriented viewer with crop, resize, red-eye reduction and annotation tools, and it works best inside the KDE Plasma desktop.
Xviewer
Linux Mint's simple image viewer, built on gdk-pixbuf and designed to work across desktops.
Gwenview is KDE's viewer, adding basic edits such as crop, resize and red-eye reduction plus annotation tools, and works best within KDE Plasma.
Similar software
Related functionality, not a direct replacement.
digiKam
A photo manager built for libraries of a hundred thousand images, with face recognition, batch processing and heavy metadata support.
KPhotoAlbum
A KDE desktop app for tagging, describing and quickly searching large personal photo collections.
