GifLoop vs Gifsicle

GifLoop is an iOS app for creating and editing animated GIFs, with projects that can start from photos, camera captures, video frames, or a blank canvas. Its tools include filters, text, drawing, onion skinning, glitch and jitter effects, and background removal. Creators can choose among seven loop modes, including ping-pong, random, fade loop, and play-once; per-frame timing is available on Pro. Free exports GIF and MP4, while Pro adds MOV, Live Photo, and frame strip. The custom Swift encoder offers controls for palette, dithering, lossy compression, file-size targets, and resolution. Free is free and permits up to 15 frames per project; GifLoop Pro is $1.99, paid once as a one-time purchase. The app requires iOS 17 or later and runs on iPhone and iPad. The maker says processing stays on-device and creative content is not uploaded to its servers; the editor and all five export formats work offline.

Gifsicle is a free command-line tool for creating, editing, and inspecting GIF images and animations. It can combine GIF inputs into animations, set frame delays and looping, and extract, insert, replace, or delete frames. Image options include resizing, cropping, flipping, rotating, changing transparency, and reducing colors. Its animation optimizer offers three levels and stores changed portions of frames, though optimization can sometimes increase file size. Gifsicle can print detailed GIF information, including comments, and control interlacing, palettes, and transparency. Batch mode changes GIF files in place. The distribution also includes gifview, an animated-GIF viewer, and gifdiff, which compares GIFs for identical visual appearance. It is available for Linux, macOS, and Windows, with a source archive provided by the maker. Building it requires an ANSI C compiler. The manual notes that some Java and Internet Explorer versions may not display minimal optimized GIFs correctly; the careful option writes slightly larger files to avoid those compatibility problems.