Hexcalibur vs Tesserra

Hexcalibur is a browser-based pixel-art editor for textures used in voxel games. Its toolset combines a 3D preview, pack workflow, animation timeline, tilemap tools, and export presets for games and engines. The preview shows a texture on a rotating cube or an L-shaped stack to inspect how it wraps across faces. Packs group textures, a palette, and references, with the palette shared as users switch assets. Animation tools include onion-skinning and named tags; exports include GIF, APNG, and sprite sheets. Export presets cover Minecraft Java and Bedrock, Tiled, and a TexturePacker JSON-Hash atlas for Phaser, Babylon, Godot, Three.js, and Unity, alongside raw per-face ZIP and custom export. Free-plan art stays in the browser; Pro adds cloud sync that can be disabled per device. A free Axidus account is required, but no payment card is needed. It runs in modern desktop browsers on Windows, macOS, Linux, and Chromebook; phones are unsupported, and tablet and touch support are on the roadmap. Free allows one pack and up to eight assets. Monthly Pro costs $5 a month.

Tesserra is a pixel art editor for drawing and animation on Windows, macOS, Linux, and Android. It has custom brushes, layer groups, blend modes, an animation timeline, onion skinning, indexed color tools, and sprite-sheet export. Built-in palettes support up to 64 colors, and you can import GPL, PAL, HEX, and ASE palettes. The editor imports images and exports GIF, PNG, SVG, and ASE files. Retro-style themes and six shaders include Composite NTSC, three CRT types, and two handheld LCD looks. Files open across the supported platforms; tablets use the desktop layout, while phones use a simpler touch layout. Optional cloud sync works with Google Drive, OneDrive, Dropbox, or Nextcloud and requires an account with that provider. Tesserra Lite is free. Tesserra Full costs $7, paid once while in beta; the maker says the price will rise to $14 on full release. Full includes the feature set on all platform versions except iOS, which, along with iPadOS, is in development.