your ad here · $149/weekyour ad here · $149/weekyour ad here · $149/weekyour ad here · $149/weekyour ad here · $149/weekyour ad here · $149/weekyour ad here · $149/weekyour ad here · $149/weekyour ad here · $149/weekyour ad here · $149/weekyour ad here · $149/weekyour ad here · $149/week

Design

Free and open-source Adobe Photoshop alternatives

Adobe Photoshop (Industry-standard image editing and compositing) is a commercial product. These 3 tools do the same job and are free to use or to self-host.
Short answer: the best free alternatives to Adobe Photoshop are GIMP, Krita and Photopea. Self-hosting is free; you pay only for the server (a small VPS is about $4–6/mo). Licenses and prices checked 2026-10-01.
  1. 1
    GIMP

    Free cross-platform image editor

    Full-featured raster editor; no PSD-native workflow, steeper UI.

    Open source (GPL-3.0) ·★ 6.5k GitHub stars · last commit 2026-10-07 · details

  2. 2
    Krita

    Free digital painting and illustration app

    Painting and illustration focused; great brushes, lighter on photo retouching.

    Open source (GPL-3.0) ·★ 10k GitHub stars · last commit 2026-10-07 · details

  3. 3
    Photopea

    Free Photoshop-like image editor in the browser

    Browser editor that opens PSD files; ads, ad-free is paid.

    Source-available (Proprietary (free with ads)) ·details

Want paid options too? See all Adobe Photoshop alternatives or the full free alternatives list. Beyond developer tools, OSS Software lists more open-source Adobe Photoshop alternatives.

FAQ

Is there a free alternative to Adobe Photoshop?+

Yes. GIMP, Krita and Photopea do the same job for free; GIMP and Krita are open source.

What is the best open-source alternative to Adobe Photoshop?+

Krita is the most starred on GitHub (10k stars). Painting and illustration focused; great brushes, lighter on photo retouching.

Open source: OSI-approved license. Free to self-host: the code is public and free to run yourself, with limits in the license.