Krita vs Penpot Comparison 2026
Both cover design & graphics. Here is what separates them on price, billing, what you can take with you, and coverage.
Free painting software built for drawing tablets
Open source design you can host yourself
At a glance
- Both have a genuinely free tier.
Side by side
Krita | Penpot | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | Free | From $7 |
| Pricing model (they differ) | Free | Free plan, paid tiers |
| Free tier | Yes | Yes |
| Billing | Not stated | Not stated |
| Free trial | Not stated | 14 days |
| API | Not stated | Yes |
| Data export | Everything, in an open format | Not stated |
| Their cut | None | None |
Shaded rows are where the two answers disagree and both listings have answered. A row where one side has not stated a fact is left plain, because silence is not a difference.
Krita
Free painting software built for drawing tablets
Krita is a painting application aimed at illustrators, concept artists and comic work rather than at photo retouching, and its brush engine is the reason people choose it. Pressure and tilt from any tablet the operating system already recognises work without a driver of its own. The application is free under the GPL, and the paid copies on the console and desktop stores buy automatic updates and put money back into development. A 4 GB machine will run it and a 16 GB one is what the project asks for.
Our note
Buy the store version if you want it to update itself and you would like the money to reach the developers, because the direct download and the paid build are otherwise the same program. Choose GIMP instead if the job is photo correction, since these two get confused for each other and are built for opposite tasks.
Only on this side
- Covers photo editing
Penpot
Open source design you can host yourself
Penpot does the job Figma does and is open source, which matters if you would rather keep design files on a server you control than on somebody else's. The free plan is fully featured rather than crippled, and paying mostly buys storage, version history and a bill that stops rising past a point. Files are standards-based, so what comes out is SVG and CSS rather than a format only one company reads.
Ratings are the average of reviews readers left. The facts are stated by each tool’s own listing and are not verified by CloutStack. How we make money.