FastStone Image Viewer vs HawkView
FastStone Image Viewer
faststone.org
HawkView
hawkview.coSide by side
| Figure | FastStone Image Viewer | HawkView |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Windows | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 4 | 2 |
| Spec score · Photo Viewer Software | 8.3 (#5) | 7.6 (#15) |
| Editing | Its editing tools include resizing, rotation, cropping, color adjustments, sharpening, blur, Clone Stamp, and Healing Brush. | It offers cropping, straightening, flipping and lossless 90-degree JPEG rotation, with edits held in memory until saved or discarded. |
| Formats | It supports major graphic formats and popular camera RAW formats, including HEIC, WEBP, PDF, SVG, and JPEG XL. | It supports around 40 image formats, including HEIC, AVIF, JPEG XL, camera RAW, PSD, SVG and animated formats. |
| Product | FastStone Image Viewer is an image browser, converter, and editor. | HawkView is a Windows image viewer for viewing, editing, converting and presenting images. |
| Slideshows | Its slideshow supports more than 150 transition effects and music. | Slideshow features include 36 transitions, background music and MP4 export at 720p, 1080p or 4K. |
| Support | FastStone lists technical support by email at [email protected]. | Users can contact HawkView through its contact form or the listed support email. |
Plans
FastStone Image Viewer
- Personal and educationalPrice not published
- Commercial lifetime license$34.95, paid once
- FastStone Image Viewer (personal and educational use)Free
- FastStone Image Viewer (commercial license)$34.95, paid once
In their own words
FastStone Image Viewer
FastStone Image Viewer is a Windows image browser, converter, and editor for individual images and collections. Editing tools include resizing, rotation, cropping, color adjustment, sharpening, blur, Clone Stamp, and Healing Brush. It supports major graphic formats and popular camera RAW formats, including HEIC, WEBP, PDF, SVG, and JPEG XL. The Compare Images feature displays up to four pictures side by side, while batch tools convert and rename collections. Slideshows offer more than 150 transition effects and music. The program can acquire images from scanners and batch scan to PDF, TIFF, JPEG, or PNG. Users can launch external editors from within Image Viewer, and a portable version can run from removable storage. FastStone lists personal and educational use as free and a commercial lifetime license at $34.95 as a one-time purchase, with upgrades free. Another plan listing gives a price of $34.95 a month, so the commercial license terms should be confirmed before purchase. The product is listed for Windows, and FastStone provides technical support by email.
HawkView
HawkView is a Windows image viewer for viewing, editing, converting, and presenting images. It supports around 40 formats, including HEIC, AVIF, JPEG XL, camera RAW, PSD, SVG, and animated formats. Its GPU-accelerated viewer streams visible areas of images up to 64 megapixels using 512-pixel tiling. Editing includes cropping, straightening, flipping, and lossless 90-degree JPEG rotation, with changes held in memory until saved or discarded. Slideshows provide 36 transitions, background music, and MP4 export at 720p, 1080p, or 4K. The app reads and edits more than 40 EXIF, IPTC, and XMP fields and displays geotagged photos on OpenStreetMap; locations can open in Google Maps. Images, edits, and settings remain on the computer, with no accounts, sign-up, ads, or tracking. Update checks and anonymous crash reports are optional network uses. HawkView supports 64-bit x64 Windows 10 and 11 and is distributed through the Microsoft Store, direct installer, or portable ZIP. Personal use is free; professional or commercial use requires a paid license.