Krita Review and verdict 2026

Open-source application for digital painting, illustration and concept art.

Our take

Understanding Krita.

Free open source digital painting and professional art creation software. Designed by and for artists with thousands of brushes, advanced layer management, and 2D animation tools.

Practical uses

Create digital art and illustrations
Produce 2D animations and concept art
Do digital painting without license fees

Pros and cons

What Krita does especially well — and the limits to anticipate.

Pros

Completely free with no limitations
Very complete and professional painting tools
Native 2D animation with timeline
Large community and abundant resources

Cons

Less modern interface than Photoshop
Fewer plugins and third-party integrations
Less optimized for photo retouching than painting

Krita: when it makes sense.

Krita is the best free choice for digital artists; for pro photo retouching, Photoshop or Affinity Photo fit better.

Keep if

You do digital painting with no budget.. You seek an open source Photoshop alternative.

Challenge if

You need complete Adobe Suite integration.. You mainly do professional photo retouching.

Our verdict on Krita.

Why this verdict

Very good

Krita is fairly easy to replace with an alternative, a free tier to test before paying, clearly documented use cases.