Open Source Affinity Photo Alternatives
A curated collection of the 2 best open source alternatives to Affinity Photo.
The best open source alternative to Affinity Photo is Graphite. If that doesn't suit you, we've compiled a ranked list of other open source Affinity Photo alternatives to help you find a suitable replacement. Other interesting open source alternative to Affinity Photo is GIMP.
Affinity Photo alternatives are mainly Design & Prototyping but may also be Design & Visualization or Photo & Video Editors. Browse these if you want a narrower list of alternatives or looking for a specific functionality of Affinity Photo.
Browser based vector and raster editor that pairs layer compositing with a node graph for nondestructive 2D design work.
Most graphics editors bake a decision into pixels the moment you make it. Graphite, a vector and raster engine that opens in a browser, keeps the whole document live instead: familiar layer based compositing sits on top of a node graph, so a choice made early stays adjustable at any point later.
The architecture is closer to a game engine than to a conventional creative app. The tools wrap that node graph core, which is what lets one program serve vector work, raster work and generative design without turning into three separate programs. Photo editing, motion graphics, digital painting, desktop publishing and VFX compositing sit on the roadmap.
Several things separate it from the editors it invites comparison with.
- Procedural by default: the graph records how the artwork was made, so every parameter stays editable afterwards.
- Two paradigms in one document: layers give structure while nodes give generation, without switching tools between them.
- Runs in the browser: the alpha editor opens on the web with no signup and nothing to install.
- Rust codebase: the engine is written in Rust and the project deliberately courts graphics programmers who want to contribute.
- Community funded: development is built and funded entirely by the community through donations and volunteering.
Graphite is in alpha, which is the honest caveat: usable today, with much of the wider toolbox still ahead of it. The source is dual licensed under MIT or Apache 2.0 at your option. It suits designers curious about procedural workflows and Rust developers looking for a graphics project worth joining.
The GNU Image Manipulation Program, a free image editor whose source tree is published here as the unstable 3.3 development series.
GIMP is the GNU Image Manipulation Program, a free application for working on images. What sits in this repository is the 3.3 development branch, an unstable release series, so anyone who wants a dependable editor should take a stable build from the project downloads page instead.
Canonical development happens on the GNOME GitLab instance, which holds the source, the issue tracker and the contributor documentation. Building from source is covered by the INSTALL file, and the devel-docs directory carries the notes for hacking on the code.
Much of the interface is configured through plain files rather than a preferences dialog.
- GTK theming: the look follows standard GTK settings files, so desktop themes and CSS apply as they would to any GTK application.
- Application styling: a gimp.css file under the user config directory changes GIMP alone.
- Custom keybindings: shortcuts are rewritten by editing a shortcutsrc file.
- Contributor guides: developer resources cover environment setup, coding style and submitting a first patch.
- Discussion channels: forums and IRC channels are listed on the project discuss page, with archives of the older mailing lists.
Bug reports on this branch are welcome once you have checked that nobody filed the issue first, and tutorials, news and documentation live on the project website. If you are evaluating GIMP as a tool rather than as a codebase, start from a stable release; this tree exists for testing what comes next.
