A free Photopea alternative that runs in your browser
Single-purpose image tools for jobs that do not need a layered editor — crop to a size, strip a background, convert a format, get out.
Both tools process locally — see the honest comparison below
Try it now: Image Editor
Adjust brightness, saturation, inversion, grayscale, rotation, and flip on your images.
This is the real tool, not a demo. Open Image Editor on its own page.
AltFTool vs Photopea
Photopea is a Photoshop-class editor that runs locally in your browser and opens PSD, AI, XD, Sketch and XCF files. It is free, unwatermarked, needs no account, and it makes exactly the same privacy claim we do — files never leave your device. There is no privacy argument to make here, and no feature argument either: if you need layers, masks or blend modes, Photopea wins outright. The case for AltFTool is narrower. A lot of image work is one operation, and opening a full editor to crop a screenshot is more machinery than the task needs.
| Comparison point | AltFTool | Photopea |
|---|---|---|
| Where the work happens | File tools (PDF, image, converters) run in your browser and the file is not uploaded. Tools that need live data or a model — AI tools, language checkers, lookups — send your input to an API, and say so on their own page. | In your browser — files never leave your device (same as AltFTool). |
| Account required | No — every tool opens and runs without signing in. | Not required. |
| Free tier ceiling | — | Full feature set free: no export cap, no watermark; AI features are the metered part. |
| Paid plans | None. There is no paid tier and no per-file metering. | Ad-free Premium sold as prepaid time; school licences from $450/year. |
| Ads | Yes — ads are what keep the tools free. | Yes — the free editor is ad-supported. |
| Desktop / mobile apps | Android only. AltFTool publishes a few free Android apps as APK downloads on its Apps page; there is no desktop app. | Web-based; also embeddable in other sites. |
| API & automation | No public API. Tools are interactive pages, not endpoints. | Yes — a documented embedding and scripting API. |
Photopea's free tier, in their own words
- The editor is free with no account required, no export cap and no watermark — Photopea's own site says users "enjoy all the premium features without spending a dime"
- The free version is ad-supported; a Premium account's stated benefit is removing ads ("lets you use Photopea without advertisement and may have other benefits")
- Premium is sold as prepaid time (e.g. buying 90 days of Premium reverts to a free account after 90 days)
- AI features are the one server-side, metered part: Photopea states Premium accounts can use them "hundreds of times per month", and heavier use requires connecting your own paid Dezgo API key
- Schools that want the editor embedded ad-free must buy a domain-whitelist licence rather than use it free
Paid pricing: School/organisation ad-free licence: "prices start at $450 per year for the whole school" (photopea.com/schools). The individual Premium price could not be confirmed on Photopea's own site today — it is only shown inside the in-app Account window — so no per-user figure should be published.
Checked on 2026-07-25 against the following sources, each opening in a new tab: www.photopea.com/, www.photopea.com/privacy.html, www.photopea.com/schools/, www.photopea.com/api/accounts, www.photopea.com/tuts/get-unlimited-ai-inside-photopea/, www.photopea.com/tuts/premium-account-does-not-work/. Vendors change their plans — if something here is out of date, trust Photopea's own page over ours.
What Photopea does better
Plenty of people should keep paying for Photopea, and these are the reasons why.
- It is a real Photoshop-class editor — layers, masks, smart objects, adjustment layers, blend modes — and it opens PSD, AI, XD, Sketch, XCF and 40+ other formats with high fidelity. Single-purpose browser tools do not attempt this depth.
- Like AltFTool, it is fully local: "Files, which you open in Photopea, are never sent anywhere, they never leave your device." We should say so plainly instead of claiming a privacy edge we do not have here.
- Its free tier is unusually honest — full feature set, no watermark, no save cap, no signup — funded by ads, with a paid option for schools that want it ad-free.
- It offers a documented embedding/scripting API, so other sites and school platforms can run the whole editor inside their own product.
And what AltFTool does not do
- No layers, masks, smart objects, adjustment layers or blend modes. Nothing here is an image editor in Photopea's sense.
- No PSD, AI, XD, Sketch or XCF support. If you need to open a designer's working file, Photopea is the only free option that does it well.
- No scripting or embedding API — Photopea can be dropped inside another product; our tools cannot.
Where each Photopea job goes here
Left: what you clicked on Photopea. Right: the tool that does the same job here.
- Quick crop or straightenImage Cropper
- Rotate or flip a photoImage Flip & Rotate Tool
- Erase a backgroundBackground Remover
- Export smaller for the webImage Compressor
- Pick a colour off an imageColor Picker
- Resize to exact pixelsImage Resizer
The tools that cover Photopea work
- Image EditorAdjust brightness, saturation, inversion, grayscale, rotation, and flip on your images.Open
- Image CropperCrop your image according to your needsOpen
- Image Flip & Rotate ToolFlip, mirror, rotate, straighten, preview, and export images in browser with batch ZIP downloads.Open
- Background RemoverRemove your Image background in just a one clickOpen
- Image CompressorCompress images instantly and reduce file size efficiently.Open
- Text Behind ImageCreate poster-style image compositions with large editable text layers.Open
- Color PickerProfessional real-time color picker with format conversions and palette generation.Open
- Image ResizerResize images with custom dimensions, social media presets, fit/crop modes, batch processing, and format export.Open
Questions people actually ask
- Is AltFTool more private than Photopea?
- No. Photopea states that files opened in it never leave your device, and that is accurate. Both tools process locally, so privacy is not the deciding factor between them.
- Can AltFTool open a PSD file?
- No. Photopea reads PSD, AI, XD, Sketch, XCF and dozens of other formats with good fidelity. That is genuinely its own category.
- Then why use AltFTool for images at all?
- Speed of intent. If the job is 'make this 800 px wide' or 'get this under 200 KB', a single-purpose page is fewer decisions than a full editor. For anything with layers, use Photopea.
Cite this page
APA, MLA, BibTeX
Quote anything on this page with a credit. The date below is the date this page's data was read, not the date you are reading it — cite it alongside any figure you take from here, because these numbers move.
- Canonical URL
- https://www.altftool.com/alternatives/photopea
- Author and publisher
- AltFTool — no individual author is credited on this page.
- Vendor pages checked
- Read from
- Photopeawww.photopea.com/ (+5 more pages from the same source, listed in full above)
APA
AltFTool. (2026, July 25). A free Photopea alternative that runs in your browser. https://www.altftool.com/alternatives/photopeaMLA
"A free Photopea alternative that runs in your browser." AltFTool, 25 July 2026, www.altftool.com/alternatives/photopea.BibTeX
@misc{altftool-alternatives-photopea,
author = {{AltFTool}},
title = {{A free Photopea alternative that runs in your browser}},
year = {2026},
month = {jul},
howpublished = {\url{https://www.altftool.com/alternatives/photopea}},
note = {Vendor pages checked 2026-07-25. Source: Photopea: \url{https://www.photopea.com/}.}
}Free-tier limits and prices are transcribed from the vendor's own pages on the date shown and are never converted between currencies, so quote that date alongside any figure you take from here. Vendors change their plans: if something here is out of date, trust Photopea's own page over ours. The vendor links are plain links - no affiliate tracking, no referral IDs, no paid placement.