head to head · open source
photocraft vs Krita
photocraft has 46,731 GitHub stars, 7,428 forks, 1,208 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Krita has 10,528 stars, 876 forks, 0 open issues and last shipped yesterday. photocraft leads on adoption by 344% (46,731 vs 10,528 stars). photocraft is written in Rust under Apache-2.0; Krita is written in C++ under GPL-3.0. photocraft has attracted 16% as many forks as stars, Krita 8%. photocraft 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.
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Side by side
| photocraft | Krita | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 47K | ★ 11K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Rust | C++ |
| Last push | 2026-10-11 | 2026-10-11 |
| Forks | ⑂ 7.4K | ⑂ 876 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick photocraft if
- You weight community size — 47K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- 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 photocraft
PhotoCraft is an open source, clean room reimplementation of Adobe Photoshop, written in pure Rust, for image editors who want a native offline app they can own rather than a subscription.
read the full photocraft 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 →
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Frequently asked questions
Is photocraft or Krita more popular?
photocraft has 46,731 GitHub stars and Krita has 10,528. photocraft has the larger community by that measure.
Are photocraft and Krita free?
Both are open source. photocraft is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Krita under GPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between photocraft and Krita?
photocraft is written in Rust 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, photocraft or Krita?
Choose photocraft if you want the larger community (46,731 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose Krita if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.