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Pixilart
Free pixel art editor in the browser with layers, animation frames and sprite sheet export, wrapped in a big community of pixel artists.
FreemiumBeginnerWebiOSAndroid
Overview
Pixilart is a browser-based editor for pixel art, the pixel-by-pixel style of old game sprites and icons. Its tools are built for precision: a pixel-perfect mode that stops lines leaving messy doubled corners, plus a grid for tracing. Frames turn a drawing into an animation, with per-frame speed and onion skin. It exports PNG, GIF, WebP and a sprite sheet for game engines.
Canvases are capped at 700 pixels a side. The editor is free and ad-supported, and a PRO subscription removes the ads, adds cloud storage and unlimited stamps for a monthly fee. There are iPhone and Android apps, and an account saves your work to the cloud.
Key features
✓Pixel-precise drawing with pixel perfect mode
✓Layers you can move, hide & fade
✓Animation frames with per-frame speed
✓Onion skin shows the previous frame
✓Canvases up to 700 pixels a side
✓Exports PNG, GIF, transparent GIF & WebP
✓Sprite sheet export for game engines
✓Download one layer or all of them, at a size you set
✓Grid & checker background for tracing
✓Gallery, contests & a community of artists
When to use
Use Pixilart if:
- You want to make game sprites, icons or pixel illustrations, and you want tools that place single pixels precisely.
- You want to animate. Frames, per-frame speed and onion skin are all built in, and it exports an animated GIF.
- You are making sprites for a game. The sprite sheet export is the format a game engine reads.
- You want to start now, free, with nothing installed and no account until you want to save to the cloud.
- You want other people to see it. The gallery, contests and following are part of the site rather than an afterthought.
- You draw on a phone or tablet as well as a computer. There are iPhone and Android apps, and an account syncs your work.
When NOT to use
Skip Pixilart if any of these describe you:
- You are not making pixel art. These tools are built around placing pixels. For normal drawing and painting, look at other drawing and painting apps.
- You need a big canvas. It caps at 700 pixels a side, so larger illustrations are out.
- You want an ad-free editor without paying. Ads run in the free web editor, and removing them means subscribing to Pixilart PRO.
- You edit photos. This is a drawing tool, not a photo editor. Photopea covers that free in a browser.
- You want to draw with other people live. Magma is built around a shared canvas.
Frequently asked questions
The editor is free and paid for by advertising. Pixilart also sells a PRO subscription that removes ads in the browser and the phone apps, adds cloud drawing storage, unlimited stamps, priority support and a badge in the community. Stamps are reusable snippets of pixel art you drop into a drawing, and free accounts get fifteen of them. PRO is billed monthly, starts with a short free trial, and can be cancelled any time.
Not to draw. The editor keeps an autosave of your drawing on the device you are using. An account is what saves work to the cloud, lets you pick it up on another device, and lets you post to the gallery. Export the file if you want a copy you control.
Up to 700 pixels on a side. That covers sprites, icons and tiles, but it rules out large illustrations. If your idea needs more room than that, this is the wrong editor rather than a settings problem.
Yes. You add as many frames as you want and set the speed of each one individually. Onion skin shows the previous frame faintly while you draw the next, which is how you keep movement lined up. Finished animations export as a GIF, including a transparent one.
That is one of its main uses. Alongside PNG it exports a sprite sheet, a single image containing every frame laid out in a grid, which is the format game engines read animations from. You can also export layers separately if you want to assemble things yourself.
The official Pixilart apps for iPhone and Android cover drawing, layers, frames and GIF creation. They tie into the same account, so your cloud drawings and the community follow you between them. Pixilart's PRO page says the subscription gives an ad-free experience in both the mobile app and the browser.
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