Alternatives to Piskel
A free, open-source editor for pixel art and animated sprites, online or offline. The listings below can replace it for an important use case. Each note says what changes if you switch.
The original
Piskel
A free, open-source editor for pixel art and animated sprites, online or offline.
Replacements
Listings that take over the same core job as Piskel.
Aseprite
An animated sprite editor and pixel art tool with layers, frames, onion skin and sprite sheet export.
Aseprite is a paid, closed-source sprite editor with pixel-perfect strokes, frame tags and sprite sheet export with JSON data, and runs on desktop only, not the browser.
LibreSprite
A pixel art and sprite animation editor, forked from the last version of Aseprite that was still GPL.
LibreSprite is a GPL-2.0 fork of Aseprite for Windows, macOS, Linux and Android, adding layers and tiled drawing, though development has been slow since 2023.
Pixelorama
A pixel art editor for sprites, tiles and animation, built in Godot and running on desktop, Android and the web.
Pixelorama is MIT licensed and runs on desktop, Android and the web, adding tilemap and tileset tools, though its documentation is still incomplete.
PixiEditor
Create pixel art, illustrations and animations in one editor.
PixiEditor is an LGPL-3.0 desktop editor for Windows, macOS and Linux that combines raster and vector tools for pixel art, illustration and animation.
Similar software
Related functionality, not a direct replacement.
JS Paint
Browser-based remake of classic MS Paint with extra features and an optional desktop app.
Pencil2D
A small, approachable program for traditional hand-drawn 2D animation, mixing bitmap and vector layers.
Krita
A free digital painting program built for illustrators, with over a hundred brushes ready to use.
Kleki
A free painting tool that runs in the web browser for quick sketches and drawings.
