Pix2D vs Pixelc

Pix2D is a pixel art, sprite, and animation editor for game art. Its drawing tools include palette and brush controls, layers, blend modes, custom grids, pixel-perfect shapes, text, and onion skinning; it also offers an animation timeline and sprite-sheet export. Pix2D runs in a browser without installation, saving work locally in that browser, and has versions for Windows, macOS, Linux, and Android. Projects use the .pix2d format, with exports including PNG, JPG, SVG, GIF, sprite sheets in PNG and JSON, Aseprite JSON, Godot .tres, Unity .png.meta, and libGDX .atlas. Pix2D is free and released under the MIT License. Its public APIs and plugin system are under development. Desktop and Android versions send anonymous usage events that exclude project files, image content, and identifying information; they also offer opt-in anonymous fatal crash reporting through Sentry. The web build reports crashes locally. The macOS app is unsigned and unnotarized, so Gatekeeper may show a warning on first launch.

Pixelc is a free, open-source tile and sprite editor written in C using SDL2 and OpenGL. The project targets touch devices such as smartphones and tablets, while also running on desktops, and provides a mobile-friendly web app. It supports animation frames and GIF export, as well as layers and onion skinning for frames and layers. Drawing tools include multiple modes, shading, selections, and custom brushes, kernels, and stamps; a tile mode supports tile work. Pixelc includes popular Lospec palettes and accepts custom palettes. The project says artwork is saved locally and nothing is sent to a server, with offline saving available in the browser app. Undo and redo are stated to remain available after an app reload. The app and assets use the GPLv3 license, and the README points users to documentation, a tutorial, and tooltips. A separate Android Premium edition is offered, with grayscale tools and background. The README warns that Samsung Internet Browser can render tiling incorrectly, with potential for other app corruption.