head to head · open source
Audacity vs Krita
Audacity has 18,465 GitHub stars, 2,671 forks, 1,781 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Krita has 10,385 stars, 856 forks, 0 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Audacity leads on adoption by 78% (18,465 vs 10,385 stars). Audacity is written in C++ under a custom or non-standard licence; Krita is written in C++ under GPL-3.0. Audacity has attracted 14% as many forks as stars, Krita 8%. Krita was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
← all 8884 open source comparisons
Side by side
| Audacity | Krita | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 18K | ★ 10K |
| License | Custom / other | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | C++ | C++ |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.7K | ⑂ 856 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Audacity if
- You weight community size — 18K stars and counting
- You want the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches C++
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Krita if
- You want the Krita feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches C++
- You evaluated both and Krita fits your workflow better
About Audacity
Audacity is an open source audio editor and recorder written in C++ and distributed under free software terms. It lives in the open source desktop audio editing ecosystem, where it provides a multi track interface for recording and editing audio on Windows, macOS, GNU/Linux, and other operating systems. The README describes the project as an easy to use audio tool, and the repository contains both the Audacity 3.x line and the in progress Audacity 4 line.
read the full Audacity overview →
About Krita
Krita is a free and open source cross platform application for digital painting. It lives in the KDE ecosystem and is built on the KDE and Qt frameworks. The project is licensed under the GNU Public License, Version 3, and the GitHub repository is a mirror of the real code repository at https://invent.kde.org/graphics/krita.git.
read the full Krita overview →
More in Miscellaneous
Related comparisons
More Photo & Video Editors projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the Photo & Video Editors field.
Frequently asked questions
Is Audacity or Krita more popular?
Audacity has 18,465 GitHub stars and Krita has 10,385. Audacity has the larger community by that measure.
Are Audacity and Krita free?
Both are open source. Audacity has no licence declared in this registry, and Krita is licensed under GPL-3.0. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Audacity and Krita?
Audacity is written in C++ and Krita in C++. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Audacity or Krita?
Choose Audacity if you want the larger community (18,465 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose Krita if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.