Krita

What is Krita?

Krita is a free, open source painting program built by artists for artists. It started life in 2005 as a sketch tool inside the KDE desktop project and became a standalone application in 2009, and it has since grown into one of the most loved tools for digital illustration and concept art.

Where general editors optimize for photo retouching, Krita optimizes for painting: dozens of brush engines, natural media simulation and a workspace designed around the canvas rather than the toolbox. Professional concept artists, comic creators and matte painters use it every day.

Krita is also a great home for AI-assisted art. The open source community built plugins like the Krita AI Diffusion plugin, which runs Stable Diffusion models inside Krita and lets you generate, inpaint and upscale without leaving the app.

Key Features

• Large library of brush engines with customizable settings
• Brush stabilizers and smoothing for steady strokes
• Animation workspace with onion skinning and frame-by-frame tools
• Wrap-around mode for seamless textures and tiles
• Powerful color management, including CMYK support
• Assistant tools like perspective and symmetry guides
• AI Diffusion plugin for in-app Stable Diffusion generation
• Python scripting for automation and custom tools

How to get started

Download the installer from krita.org for Windows, macOS or Linux, or grab the paid build on Steam or the Microsoft Store if you want to support development. Krita opens into a painting workspace with a welcome screen that links to tutorials and recent files.

Pick a brush preset, choose a color and start drawing; the interface rewards experimentation. The manual at docs.krita.org covers every tool, and the website's tutorial section has beginner-friendly videos for getting comfortable with layers, selections and brush dynamics.

• Download Krita from krita.org or the Steam and Microsoft Store builds
• Create a new document and choose a canvas size
• Experiment with the brush presets dock
• Follow the beginner tutorial on krita.org
• Install the AI Diffusion plugin if you want local AI generation

Use cases

• Digital painting and concept art for games and film
• Comics, manga and webcomic illustration
• Texture and tileable pattern creation with wrap-around mode
• Frame-by-frame 2D animation
• AI-assisted workflows with the Stable Diffusion plugin
• Learning digital art with zero software cost

Pricing and licensing

Krita is free software released under the GNU GPL, which means it costs nothing to download, use commercially and modify. There are no watermarks, no subscriptions and no feature paywalls.

Development is funded by donations, subscriptions to a supporters program and the paid builds on Steam and the Microsoft Store, which are the same software with the price acting as a contribution. Commercial studios frequently buy those builds to support the project.

Pros and cons

The price is unbeatable, the brush engines rival paid tools, and the painting-first design feels like home to illustrators coming from Photoshop. The open plugin ecosystem, including AI diffusion, keeps it future-proof.

The trade-offs: the interface can feel dense at first, performance on very large canvases trails the big commercial apps on some hardware, and the AI plugin setup requires a bit of technical comfort. For photo editing specifically, GIMP or Photoshop are better fits.

Alternatives

• Photoshop: the commercial standard with Firefly AI built in
• GIMP: free and open source, stronger for photo editing
• Procreate: iPad-only painting app with a one-time price
• Clip Studio Paint: popular for comics and manga
• Paint Tool SAI: lightweight Japanese painting app