LibreSprite is a free and open source animated sprite editor and pixel art tool for artists, animators and game developers who want a GPL-licensed program for drawing and animating sprites.

What it is

LibreSprite is a C++ application distributed under the GNU General Public License version 2, developed by an independent community and published on GitHub, with official releases for Linux, macOS, Windows and Android. It descends directly from Aseprite, the sprite editor originally developed by David Capello: when Aseprite moved to a proprietary licence on 26 August 2016, LibreSprite was forked from the last commit still covered by GPL version 2 and has since been developed independently of its upstream.

The problem it solves is a licensing problem as much as a creative one. Within the pixel art and 2D game development ecosystem, artists who wanted a sprite and animation editor whose source they could read, modify, redistribute and build themselves had little choice once the upstream project went proprietary. LibreSprite is the continuation of that GPL-licensed codebase, carrying the drawing, layering and animation tooling of the original under terms that keep the source open.

Key capabilities

• Real-time animation previews, allowing frame timing to be judged while a sprite is still being drawn.
• Onion skinning, for viewing neighbouring frames while working on the current one.
• Sprites composed of both layers and frames, keeping compositing and animation inside a single document.
• Multiple sprites can be edited at once within one session.
• Tiled drawing mode, described in the README as useful for drawing patterns and textures.
• Pixel precise tools including filled contour, polygon and shading mode.
• Ready-to-use palettes or custom ones of your own, plus downloadable themes from the LibreSprite resources repository.

Who uses it and how

• Pixel artists producing character art and sprite sheets for 2D games, working across layers and frames in one document.
• Animators who rely on real-time previews and onion skinning to check motion frame by frame.
• Developers and studios that require a GPL-2.0 art toolchain and prefer not to depend on a proprietary editor in their pipeline.
• Contributors and supporters: the project describes a newly budding community and asks for help building its development, support and news infrastructure through Discord, Matrix and the contributing guide.
• Cross-platform users, including Android users, since official releases cover Linux, macOS, Windows and Android.

Getting started

Download the latest release for Linux, macOS, Windows or Android from the GitHub releases page, or build from source by following the instructions in INSTALL.md. The project homepage at libresprite.github.io links to releases, the resources repository and support channels.

How it compares

Among the tools named in the facts, the reference point is Aseprite. LibreSprite continues the codebase from Aseprite's last GPL version 2 commit and remains under the GPL-2.0, while Aseprite itself moved to a proprietary licence in August 2016 and is developed separately, so the two share an origin but not a licence or a development history. For anyone whose priority is a sprite editor they can freely build and modify, that licensing difference is the point of the fork.

When to use it — and when not to

LibreSprite is a desktop and mobile application rather than a service, so adoption means installing a release or compiling a C++ project with the toolchain described in INSTALL.md; there is no server, database or hosted account to operate. It is a poor fit for teams that need commercial support, vendor guarantees or the work Aseprite has added since the fork point, because LibreSprite develops independently of that line. The README also indicates a project still building its own community and support infrastructure, and the repository carries 104 open issues, so a volunteer-paced tool is what should be expected.