# Pinta

11 Hacker News commenters recommended Pinta and 5 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 6 of 13 months. It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule.

**Verdict:** Free, Linux-friendly image editor that feels familiar to Paint.NET users and handles simple edits well. Critics say it is buggy, less polished, and not quite as good as Paint.NET.

## Why people recommend it

- Familiar to Paint.NET users (2 comments): "If you like Paint.NET, you may like Pinta on Linux." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47518946)) "It's very intuitive for someone used to Paint.NET." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49541419))
- Usable general-purpose editor on Linux (2 comments): "It says something that an old paint.net derivative is still the best general purpose image editor out there." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49542733)) "it's by far the most usable general-purpose photo editor on Linux that I've found" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49541340))
- Good for simple edits (2 comments): "For minimal edits, Pinta does the job IMO" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48972250)) "I use Pinta for simple tasks." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45863327))

## What people warn about

- Buggy, crashed in past (2 comments): "I have tried to use Pinta at several independent points in time over the past 10+ years, and every time I have tried it, it has been so buggy as to be practically unusable." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49549131)) "pinta is a very shallow clone that only just stopped crashing a few months ago" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49518199))
- UI differs from Paint.NET (2 comments): "Pinta's UI is a from-scratch Gtk# clone. Given the compelling reason to use Paint.NET was arguably the UI, that's a pretty big drawback." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49540626)) "Pinta is an inferior Paint.NET" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49540572))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [GIMP](https://hackerapproved.com/p/gimp.md): 179 recommend
- [Adobe Photoshop](https://hackerapproved.com/p/adobe-photoshop.md): 152 recommend
- [Acorn by Flying Meat](https://hackerapproved.com/p/acorn.md): 12 recommend
- [ArcBrush](https://hackerapproved.com/p/arcbrush.md): 5 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Pinta", https://hackerapproved.com/p/pinta/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).