krita

From public sources

Krita is a free, open-source desktop app for digital painting and illustration, built on KDE and Qt for artists creating professional artwork from start to finish.

ApplicationCategory: Desktop Apps · 3D & CAD · Graphics & designOpen sourcedata checked Oct 15, 2026

Overview

Digital artists need a single application that can take a piece from first sketch to finished artwork without switching tools. Krita addresses this as a free and open-source digital painting application, offering an end-to-end workflow for creating digital art files from scratch. Built on the KDE and Qt frameworks, Krita runs as a cross-platform desktop app on Linux and Windows. It is aimed at comic book artists, illustrators, concept artists, matte and texture painters, and professionals in the digital VFX industry who need a dependable painting environment for production work. Krita is licensed under the GNU General Public License version 3, and the project provides a user manual, a community forum, and nightly builds for those who want to test new features. The source is maintained on KDE's own repository, with GitHub hosting a mirror.
  • linux
  • windows

Installation

Commands are shown, never run by the marketplace. Check them against the official documentation.

Compatibility

Unknown means no evidence was found — not that the product is incompatible.
PlatformStatusArchitectureEvidenceConfidence
WindowsCompatible—Declared on the card—
macOSUnknown———
LinuxCompatible—Declared on the card—

Releases

checked Oct 29, 2026
No releases found on the source.

Quality profile

algorithm quality-v1.0 · assessed Oct 15, 2026
Quality Score72
Risk Score0
Confidence 1.00
Quality Score and Risk Score are different measures. A high score does not guarantee safety.

Score components

Maintenance · 2020
last activity 2 days ago
Documentation · 1515
README 5070 chars, description present
Ready to use · 150
install instructions: no; releases: no
Metadata · 108
3/4 of description, homepage, license, topics
Releases · 102
0 release(s)
Category confidence · 1010
classifier confidence 1
Adoption · 1010
10551 stars (log-dampened, 10k = max)
License clarity · 55
SPDX GPL-3.0
Community · 53
issues disabled/unknown, 884 forks

License

GPL-3.0
Known licensefrom the repository host

This is the catalog policy status, not legal advice.

Sources

github.com/KDE/kritaPrimary★ 10,551 starslast activity Oct 14, 2026Primary repository · Confidence 1.00

Reviews

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Alternatives

README

From KDE/krita · license GPL-3.0 · fetched Oct 29, 2026

[Picture]

CI NameMasterStableRelease
Pipeline[pipeline status][pipeline status][Latest Release]

Note: Nightly builds are not covered by this table atm

Krita is a free and open source digital painting application. It is for artists who want to create professional work from start to end. Krita is used by comic book artists, illustrators, concept artists, matte and texture painters and in the digital VFX industry.

If you are reading this on GitHub, be aware that this is just a mirror. Our real code repository is provided by KDE: https://invent.kde.org/graphics/krita.git

[Picture]

Repository Status

For branch: master

Freeze typeStatus
Feature Freezefeatures are allowed
String Freezestrings are allowed

User Manual

https://docs.krita.org/en/user_manual.html

Development Notes and Build Instructions

Please follow the online documentation.

Other developer guides, notes and wiki:

https://docs.krita.org/en/untranslatable_pages.html

Apidox:

https://api.kde.org/legacy/krita/html/index.html

Bugs and Wishes

https://bugs.kde.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=UNCONFIRMED&bug_status=CONFIRMED&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_status=REOPENED&list_id=1315444&product=krita&query_format=advanced

Discussion Forum

IRC channel

Most of the developers hang out here. If you are interested in helping with the project this is a great place to start.

libera.chat, #krita

Project Website

https://www.krita.org

Nightly builds

Unstable
Stable
Developers builds
Linux build with debug symbols in Qt and Krita
  1. Go to Jobs section of Krita's CI: https://invent.kde.org/graphics/krita/-/jobs
  2. Search for the latest linux-debug-weekly job
  3. Enter the job and click on Artifacts->Browse
  4. Download the AppImage
Linux build with ASAN in Qt and Krita
  1. Go to Jobs section of Krita's CI: https://invent.kde.org/graphics/krita/-/jobs
  2. Search for the latest linux-asan-weekly job
  3. Enter the job and click on Artifacts->Browse
  4. Download the AppImage
  5. Set up environment variable for ASAN:
        export ASAN_OPTIONS=new_delete_type_mismatch=0:detect_leaks=0
    
  6. Run the AppImage in the modified environment
Windows build with ASAN in Qt and Krita
  1. Go to Jobs section of Krita's CI: https://invent.kde.org/graphics/krita/-/jobs
  2. Search for the latest windows-asan-weekly job
  3. Enter the job and click on Artifacts->Browse
  4. Download the .zip file
  5. Open terminal
  6. Set up environment variable for ASAN:
        set ASAN_OPTIONS=new_delete_type_mismatch=0:detect_leaks=0
    
  7. Change working directory to c:\path\where\you\downloaded\krita-5.3.0-prealpha-git12345\bin. That is important, otherwise ASAN will not be able to locate llvm-symbolizer.exe and the backtraces generated by ASAN will not contain proper symbols.
        cd c:\path\where\you\downloaded\krita-5.3.0-prealpha-git12345\bin
    
  8. Run krita
        krita.com
    

License

Krita as a whole is licensed under the GNU Public License, Version 3. Individual files may have a different, but compatible license.

AI Moratorium

Since the Krita developer community cannot currently find consensus on whether the use of AI tools to assist development is acceptable or not, we have decided to put a moratorium on the use of these tools until October 2026.

The reason for pushing this off to October are:

  1. if we'd allow the use of AI in development right now, the backlash from our users and supporters will be furious.
  2. KDE as a whole does not have a policy in place, and if our policy would conflict with KDE's we'd potentially have to revert contributions made with AI
  3. The development of AI itself might change for the better or the worse in the next period. Microsoft is already backtracking from their CoPilot brand. Acceptance of AI can change for better or worse. The environmental impact of AI could lessen.

Until we make a decision, the use of AI when working on Krita is not allowed.

Open the repository ↗