Animation Desk vs OpenToonz
Animation Desk
kdan.comOpenToonz
opentoonz.github.ioSide by side
| Figure | Animation Desk | OpenToonz |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | $2.49/mo | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | Yes | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Windows | Yes | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | — | Yes |
| iOS | Yes | — |
| Android | Yes | — |
| Plans published | 6 | 1 |
| Spec score · Cartoon Maker Software | 9.3 (#1) | 7.9 (#18) |
| Spec score · 2D Character Animation Software | 9.3 (#2) | 7.9 (#23) |
| Spec score · Animation Software | 9.1 (#10) | 8.3 (#29) |
| Export formats | Supported exports listed by the maker include video, images, GIF, Photoshop PSD, PDF and ad.package. | 3GP,AVI,BMP,GIF,JPG,MOV,MP4,PNG,RGB,SGI,Spritesheet,TGA,TIF,TIFF,WebM |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Integrations | GetApp records iMovie as a user-mentioned integration, rated 5.0 from one integration review. | GTS is compatible with TWAIN scanners and is available for Windows only. |
| Purpose | Animation Desk is software for creating animations, cartoons, and animatics. | OpenToonz is software for producing 2D animation. |
| Support | KDAN lists Animation Desk support for iPhone, iPad, Android, and Windows and gives [email protected] as a contact address. | The official site directs users to a Google Group for troubleshooting, improvement requests, and bug reports, and to a GitHub forum for development topics. |
Plans
Animation Desk
- Animation Desk Pro iOS$2.49 a month
- Creativity 365 for Individuals$4.99 a month
- Animation Desk iOS BasicFree
- Animation Desk iOS - Basic PlanFree
- Animation Desk Pro iOS$2.49 a month
- Creativity 365 for Individuals$4.99 a month
In their own words
Animation Desk
Animation Desk is software for creating animations, cartoons, and animatics on Android, iOS, and Windows. Its tools include paint brushes, layers, onion skinning, sound effects, and frame-rate settings. Work can begin with video clips, photos, or pre-built animation templates, with stock collections, batch frame pasting, and effects for video and images available for editing; some features depend on app version. The product is aimed at beginners, students, learners, and professional animators making rough animation, animatic sketches, or storyboards. Finished work can be exported as video, GIF, PDF, PSD, or image sequences, and editable projects can be exchanged among the Android, iOS, and Windows apps. The iOS listing also describes export to Photoshop for further editing. Animation Desk is free to download, and a free plan is listed. Animation Desk Pro for iOS is $2.49 a month, billed annually at $29.99. Creativity 365 for Individuals is $4.99 a month, billed annually at $59.99. KDAN says the product will remain available under existing paid plans but will not receive proactive new feature development or routine version maintenance updates.
OpenToonz
OpenToonz is 2D animation software for professional and amateur production, as well as school education. It runs on Linux, macOS, and Windows, and exports formats including AVI, GIF, MP4, PNG, Spritesheet, and WebM. Its tools cover scanning, digital painting, and compositing: the GTS scanner supports four scanning types and saves settings, while painting supports anti-aliased lines and keeps painting data separate from palette data. Compositing offers xsheet and timeline interfaces and combines effects through a node tree. The software supports raster and vector images, and can convert between colored binarized TGA sequence images and OpenToonz format. An effects SDK allows image-processing plug-ins. GTS is TWAIN-compatible but available only on Windows. OpenToonz is based on Toonz, which Studio Ghibli customized and used for many years. Its source code is available under the New BSD License. OpenToonz is free for commercial and non-commercial projects, with no free trial listed.