Aseprite
pixel art and sprite animation, with a timeline built for frames and tags
This version
The purchase is tied to the v1.x line, so a major version 2 is very likely a fresh payment. Aseprite is also no longer open source: it moved from GPLv2 to the Aseprite EULA in August 2016, and while the source is still public on GitHub, you may compile it for your own use but not redistribute binaries. Buying through Steam ties the convenient install to Steam. It is a pixel-art tool, not a general illustration or photo editor.
Cost over five years
$20 once is less than a single month of Adobe Photoshop. Over five years that is $1,320 rented against $19.99 owned — $1,300 kept, and you still have the app.
Adobe Photoshop priced at $264 a year — Adobe's single-app annual plan, prepaid. Checked 2026-09-22.
Aseprite is what most working pixel artists end up on, and the reason is the timeline. Frames, tags, onion skinning and per-frame layer editing are the centre of the app rather than something bolted onto a paint program, so building a four-frame walk cycle and exporting a sprite sheet your engine can slice takes minutes instead of an afternoon of manual canvas arithmetic.
The $19.99 buys the 1.x series. You get the macOS build, and a direct purchase also hands you a Steam key if you would rather let Steam handle updates. Igara Studio has shipped a long run of releases under that one payment, and the FAQ scopes it to updates through v1.9. The licence boundary is version 2.0: nothing promises it is included, and the honest assumption is that it will be a new purchase. At this price that is easy to live with.
One thing worth knowing: the source is on GitHub, but Aseprite stopped being open source in 2016. You may compile it for yourself; you may not hand the binary to anyone else.
Skip it if you draw at high resolution or want a general illustration tool, because it has no interest in being Photoshop. And if you only need to recolour a handful of sprites twice a year, Pixelorama is free and does enough.
What it looks like
What it does
- Animation timeline with frames, layers, tags and onion skinning
- Indexed colour and palette workflows built for real pixel art
- Tilemap and tileset editing
- Sprite-sheet and GIF export with per-frame control
- One purchase covers macOS, Windows and Linux builds plus a Steam key
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Also bought outright in design
The facts
- Price
- $19.99
- Licence
- Own this version forever
- What you get
- One payment buys this major version outright. The next major version is a separate purchase, if you want it.
- Details
- $19.99 one-time. The developer's FAQ states that "$19.99/USD is the minimum pledge amount to get the convenient .exe and .dmg files of the 1.x version series of Aseprite", with updates listed up to v1.9. Also sold on Steam, Paddle and itch.io at the same price; a direct purchase includes a Steam key.
- Free trial
- No
- On Setapp
- No
- Minimum macOS
- not stated
- Developer
- Igara Studio S.A.
- Price checked
- 2026-09-22
Check it yourself - Price band
- $15 to $30