Adobe Lightroom vs Photopea
Adobe Lightroom
adobe.comPhotopea
photopea.comSide by side
| Figure | Adobe Lightroom | Photopea |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | — | $37.50/mo |
| Free plan | — | Yes |
| Free trial | Yes | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| Windows | Yes | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | — | Yes |
| iOS | Yes | Yes |
| Android | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | — | Yes |
| Plans published | 9 | 4 |
| Spec score · AI Photo Editors | 9.3 (#1) | 8.9 (#14) |
| Spec score · Photo editors | 9.3 (#2) | 9.3 (#4) |
| Spec score · Photo Editing Software | 9.3 (#4) | 9.4 (#1) |
| AI retouching | Yes | Yes |
| Batch editing | Yes | Yes |
| Cloud sync | Yes | Yes |
| Founded | 1982 | 2012 |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Headquarters | San Jose, California, USA | Prague, Czech Republic |
| Masking tools | Yes | Yes |
| Platform | multi-platform | web |
| RAW photo support | Yes | Yes |
Plans
Adobe Lightroom
- Creative Cloud Pro for students and teachersPrice not published
- Creative Cloud Pro for students and teachersPriced on request
- Lightroom for teamsPriced on request
- Lightroom for teamsPrice not published
- Creative Cloud Pro for teamsPrice not published
- Creative Cloud Pro for teamsPriced on request
- Lightroom$11.99 a month
- Photography$19.99 a month
- Creative Cloud ProPrice not published
Photopea
- Free accountFree
- School ad-free access$450 a year
- Premium accountPrice not published
- Self-Hosted VersionPrice not published
In their own words
Adobe Lightroom
Lightroom is Adobe’s cloud-based service for creating, editing, organizing, storing, and sharing photos across devices. Its photo libraries are searchable, and the editing toolkit includes RAW support, batch editing, masking, AI retouching, AI Lens Blur, Adaptive Presets, portrait Quick Actions, and sensor Dust Removal. Generative Remove uses Adobe Firefly to remove distractions, while Assisted Culling helps sort photos by image quality and group similar shots. Generative upscale with Topaz Gigapixel can enlarge images by up to 4x. Users can collaborate in shared albums, post to social network apps, or share with the Lightroom community. Lightroom is available on Android, iOS, macOS, web, and Windows, with a free mobile app and premium features available as an upgrade. Adobe offers a free plan and a 7-day trial; billing begins when the trial ends, with a further 14-day refund period described. Named plans include Lightroom, Photography, and Creative Cloud Pro, as well as student, teacher, and team options.
Photopea
Photopea is a browser-based editor for raster and vector graphics, with tools for image resizing, webpage design, illustration, and photo processing. Its editing toolkit includes layers, masks, blending, smart objects, adjustment layers, channels, paths, filters, and vector tools. It opens and saves PSD files and lists support for formats including PNG, JPG, SVG, PDF, AI, HEIC, TIFF, MP4, INDD, and Figma. Photopea also offers one-click background removal and image-part replacement from a text description. It says files are processed on the user's device and can still be opened, edited, and saved offline. Dropbox, Google Drive, and OneDrive can be connected optionally. Browser installation creates a homescreen icon but still runs the editor in a browser; a separate self-hosted package can run on a customer server or local network without internet access. The free editor has a free plan. School ad-free access costs $450 a year for the whole school. The self-hosted version is listed at $5,002,000 a month, paid a whole year in advance.