🌐 Open Source · Krita — Free Digital Painting and Illustration
Status: 🟩 COMPLETE 🟦 LIVING Section: 14 — Design and UX
| Vendor | KDE / Krita Foundation (open-source) |
| Country/origin | 🇳🇱 Netherlands / 🌐 Open-source; KDE is a German/international community; Krita Foundation Amsterdam |
| Recommended for AUS? | ✅ Absolutely — open-source; fully local; no data collection |
| Privacy summary | Desktop software; no data sent anywhere |
| Free tier | Free on Linux/Mac (donations encouraged); small fee on Windows Store |
| Paid tiers | None (though optional donation model; ~$10 USD on Microsoft Store is the “paid” version — identical to the free download, it’s just a way to donate) |
| First released | 1999 (as Krayon); Krita name 2004 |
| Last reviewed | June 2026 |
| Official site | https://krita.org |
What it is
Krita is a free, open-source digital painting and illustration application — specifically designed for artists who want to create illustrations, concept art, comics, and digital paintings. It’s not a general photo editor like GIMP; it’s optimised for the creative process of making art.
Think of it as: GIMP for editing existing photos; Krita for creating new artwork from scratch.
Krita’s strengths:
- Enormous brush engine — hundreds of customisable brushes mimicking real-world media (oil, watercolour, charcoal, ink)
- Full animation support: create animated illustrations and simple animated films
- Comic and manga tools: panel layout assistants, perspective tools, speech bubble tools
- Colour management: full professional colour profile support for print
- Symmetry and mirror tools: great for character design and mandala work
- Wrap-around mode: tile-able texture and pattern creation
Krita + AI (mid-2026):
- AI painting assist: Krita has smart brushes and reference-image assist tools (SeExpr scripting for procedural patterns)
- Stable Diffusion integration: Community plugin “Krita AI Diffusion” — one of the best free AI image generation integrations available. Generate images, inpaint, and outpaint without leaving Krita. Works with local Stable Diffusion models.
- AI background removal: Via external integration or the G’MIC filter plugin
- Style reference AI: Upcoming integration with AI reference image style tools
What you’d use it for
- Digital illustration and concept art
- Comics and manga creation
- Creating character designs for games, film, animation
- Storyboarding for films and animations
- Texture creation for 3D models (pairs beautifully with Blender)
- Painting-style AI image refinement (generate in AI, refine in Krita)
How to get started from Australia
- Go to https://krita.org/en/download → Download for Windows, Mac, or Linux (free download links; the Microsoft Store version is optional donation)
- Open Krita → the interface is designed around the drawing canvas with tools on the sides
- Choose a brush from the brush presets panel (top right)
- Create a new document: File → New → set canvas size (A4 at 300 DPI for print; 1920×1080 for screen)
- Draw on the canvas — use the brush engine; experiment with opacity and flow sliders
- For AI: download and install the “Krita AI Diffusion” plugin from GitHub (github.com/Acly/krita-ai-diffusion) — requires Stable Diffusion running locally or a cloud API
How it compares to alternatives
| Tool | Cost | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Krita | Free | Digital painting; open-source; all platforms |
| Procreate | ~$18 AUD one-time | iPad painting; most popular consumer option |
| Adobe Fresco | Free / subscription | iPad and desktop painting; Adobe ecosystem |
| Clip Studio Paint | ~$25 AUD/year or one-time | Manga and comics; anime art style |
| GIMP | Free | Photo editing (not painting-focused) |
| Affinity Designer | ~$100 AUD one-time | Vector + raster combined; professional |
Krita is the strongest fully-free option for digital painting on desktop. Procreate (iPad only) remains the most popular consumer digital painting app overall.
Gotchas
- Performance depends on hardware. Large canvas sizes with many layers can slow down older computers. A dedicated GPU helps with brush rendering.
- Not ideal for photo editing. Krita is optimised for creating, not editing existing photos. For photo work, use GIMP or Photoshop.
- AI plugin requires technical setup. The Krita AI Diffusion plugin requires installing ComfyUI or Automatic1111 (Stable Diffusion backends) locally, which is a significant technical undertaking. Alternatively, it can connect to a cloud-hosted Stable Diffusion API.
- UI is artist-focused, not general-user-friendly. Overwhelming for non-artists. If you just want to edit photos or make quick graphics, this isn’t the right tool.
See also
- blender — 3D tool that pairs with Krita for texture creation
- gimp — photo editing vs Krita’s painting focus
- stable-diffusion — the AI powering Krita’s AI plugin
- image-generation — AI image generation overview
Sources
- Krita official documentation: docs.krita.org
- Krita AI Diffusion plugin: github.com/Acly/krita-ai-diffusion
- KDE / Krita Foundation: krita.org/en/about/krita-foundation
- Krita release notes (2023–2024)