Photopea

Long-term owners

my project www.photopea.com , which I have been working on for 8 hours a day for the past ... 14 years

Oct 2026 · comment

What hackers pick instead

• Adobe LightroomRecommended for its photo editing depth, AI masking, RAW support and library management. Common caveat: subscription-only pricing and a sluggish feel.68recommend
• Pixelmator ProFast, intuitive Mac photo editor that many find better than Photoshop for most tasks. Common caveat: fewer features, weaker vector editing.29recommend
• DaVinci Resolve Photo EditorPhoto editing inside DaVinci Resolve with color grading and library tools, a subscription-free alternative to Adobe. Caveat: critics say it feels built for video editors, not photographers.23recommend
• PhotoCraftFree, fast Photoshop alternative with native PSD support that handles simple edits well. Critics say it is buggy and not yet a full replacement.22recommend
• DxO PhotoLabRecommended for strong color, exposure and denoising, plus a pleasant editing experience. Main caveat: no Linux version, and some find its advanced editing tools limited.12recommend

Every quote

The 40 most detailed of 112 comments. Each links to the original.

1. Photopea somehow is an exception, but its business model is getting questionable which is not a surprise at all.

   Mixed · Oct 2026 · in “Tell HN: GitHub refuses to remove cracked copies of my software after a month”

2. I'm still amazed about the quality and responsiveness of this web tool compared to the real Photoshop.

   Recommends · Jul 2026 · in “An Infuriating Goodbye to Photoshop”

3. Photopea was a solo attempt to offer a free alternative to Photoshop, and it was highly successful.

   Recommends · May 2026 · in “Where Are the Vibecoded Photoshops?”

4. an actual open source alternative that functioned and didn't cost the heap of cash Adobe wanted

   Recommends · Oct 2026 · in “Photopea creator weighs in on Photosuite project”

5. good, free alternatives to Adobe tools have already existed for many years, such as PhotoPea

   Recommends · Oct 2026 · in “Will big software companies (like Adobe) come together to curb AI?”

6. built a free, open, web based Photoshop. It's called photopea.com. best alternative there is

   Recommends · May 2026 · in “Where Are the Vibecoded Photoshops?”

7. It's practically a clone of Photoshop, even has content-aware fill and magic erase.

   Recommends · Apr 2026 · in “After three months on Linux, I don't miss Windows at all”

8. Unless you're a power user, you should check out Photopea. It runs well as a PWA.

   Recommends · Jan 2026 · in “Linux is good now; to feel like you actually own your PC, put Linux on it”

9. It's very similar to PS in terms of UI, and even has the same keyboard shortcuts

   Recommends · Jul 2026 · in “An Infuriating Goodbye to Photoshop”

10. It has basically fully replaced Photoshop for me for at least a few years now.

    Recommends · Oct 2026 · in “Tell HN: GitHub refuses to remove cracked copies of my software after a month”

11. Photopea does a decent enough job for many amateurs and even some pros.

    Recommends · Apr 2026 · in “Why I'm Done Making Desktop Applications”

12. it actually has a good clean competitor to it in the "free" category

    Recommends · May 2026 · in “Where Are the Vibecoded Photoshops?”

13. It's not at 100% feature parity with PS but it's pretty darn close.

    Recommends · May 2026 · in “Shutterstock to pay $35M over hard-to-cancel subscriptions”

14. loads super fast and mimics the UI of leading image editing suites

    Recommends · Mar 2026 · in “Interview with Øyvind Kolås, GIMP developer”

15. exceeds CS6 but keeps the UI. All sorts of plugins, great project.

    Recommends · Mar 2026 · in “The Window Chrome of Our Discontent”

16. If you are used to Photoshop, then the UI will be quite familiar.

    Recommends · Aug 2026 · in “GIMP Development Update”

17. If you don't mind using a browser, Photopea is pretty awesome

    Recommends · Feb 2026 · in “Windows Notepad App Remote Code Execution Vulnerability”

18. Photopea always just works super fast and supports a lot more

    Recommends · Nov 2025 · in “Blender 5.0”

19. Photopea has been extremely obnoxious with giant colorful ads. They take a big portion of the right-side of the screen

    Criticizes · Oct 2026 · in “Tell HN: GitHub refuses to remove cracked copies of my software after a month”

20. the ads have made it unusable. It feels more like browsing ign.com with no adblock

    Criticizes · Oct 2026 · in “Vibecoding Photoshop: Time and pressure”

21. only good for smaller edits/files otherwise it starts lagging like crazy

    Criticizes · Jul 2026 · in “An Infuriating Goodbye to Photoshop”

22. at 8 Euro a month I can't quite justify the Photopea premium plan

    Criticizes · Oct 2026 · in “Vibecoding Photoshop: Time and pressure”

23. crashing the browser tab so hard that its address bar went blank

    Criticizes · Mar 2026 · in “The Window Chrome of Our Discontent”

24. Photopea has ad's though- Photocraft doesn't

    Criticizes · Oct 2026 · in “What Adobe v ArtCraft teaches us”

25. And Photopea does indeed have ads

    Criticizes · May 2026 · in “Photo GIMP – A Patch for GIMP 3 for Photoshop Users”

26. Saying Photopea is good enough is really underselling it. It's so far ahead of anything offered by the open-source community.

    Recommends · Mar 2026 · in “Anthropic takes legal action against OpenCode”

27. Photopea has the best .PSD support of the three, which is pretty crucial for people wanting to switch from Photoshop.

    Recommends · Apr 2026 · in “Why I'm Done Making Desktop Applications”

28. my project www.photopea.com , which I have been working on for 8 hours a day for the past ... 14 years

    Recommends · Oct 2026 · in “Vibecoding Photoshop: Time and pressure”

29. It's a full photoshop-like image (svg, gif, and video too) editor that runs completely on the browser

    Recommends · Jun 2026 · in “window.showDirectoryPicker opens up a whole new world”

30. amazing broad support of document image formats, full-featured edits and all running in the browser

    Recommends · Sep 2026 · in “Paint.net 5.2 alpha now runs on Linux”

31. There have been some good alternatives mentioned in the comments here, like Affinity or Photopea.

    Recommends · Jul 2026 · in “An Infuriating Goodbye to Photoshop”

32. Photopea is very good. It is what I recommend to friends who just want an immediate solution.

    Recommends · Apr 2026 · in “The creative software industry has declared war on Adobe”

33. Imo photopea is a Photoshop replacement, it's just not a professional Photoshop replacement.

    Recommends · Mar 2026 · in “Professional video editing, right in the browser with WebGPU and WASM”

34. Photopea is unique because no one with LLMs can easily produce something similar.

    Recommends · Jul 2026 · in “Ask HN: Why aren't companies hoarding AI talent?”

35. There's absolutely no reason to use Gimp when https://www.photopea.com/ exists.

    Recommends · May 2026 · in “Photo GIMP – A Patch for GIMP 3 for Photoshop Users”

36. I haven't used photoshop a single time ever since I found out about photopea.

    Recommends · Aug 2026 · in “AI is removing the middle class of software engineering”

37. Even before vibe coding I was already using this Photoshop copycat as webapp

    Recommends · May 2026 · in “Where Are the Vibecoded Photoshops?”

38. 100 times more user friendly and not designed by absolute retarded morons

    Recommends · Aug 2026 · in “GIMP Development Update”

39. Photopea is profitable and sustainable project made by just one person

    Recommends · Jan 2026 · in “Claude Code is the ChatGPT moment repeated and awful news for software stocks”

40. I find Photopea to be completely legitimate, and ripoff is too strong

    Mixed · Oct 2026 · in “Photopea creator weighs in on Photosuite project”