Description: "11 rounds, 6 fighters: privacy, AI, colour science, price, formats and mobile. A brutally honest battle of free browser photo editors, by the guy who built one of them."
🥊 APIC vs Photopea vs Pixlr vs Canva: The Showdown
Ladies and gentlemen... in the blue corner, the PSD monster. In the orange corner, the AI credit machine. In the purple corner, the design giant. And in the green corner, a one-person indie editor that never uploads your photos... APIC.
Tech YouTubers have flagship-phone shootouts. Browser photo editors never get the same treatment, even though millions of us open one every week to crop a screenshot, cut out a background or squeeze a hero image under 100 KB.
So let's give them the treatment. 11 rounds. 4 main fighters. 2 special guests. One scoreboard.
⚠️ Fair-play disclosure (read this first)
I built APIC. That's a conflict of interest, so here are the ground rules:
- APIC's column comes from reading its actual source code (about 5,800 lines). I have not pixel-peeped output quality against the others.
- Competitor facts come from their public info and 2026 review/pricing roundups. Review sites disagree on prices, so check each vendor's pricing page before you buy anything.
- Scores are my opinion, on a 1 to 10 scale. APIC does not win overall. I'd rather lose honestly than win a rigged fight. 😄
🧬 Tale of the Tape
| 🟢 APIC Web | 🔵 Photopea | 🟠 Pixlr | 🟣 Canva | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nickname | The Private Darkroom | The PSD Monster | The AI Credit Machine | The Design Giant |
| Born for | Private edits, colour, cut-outs, compression | Photoshop-style layered editing | Fast edits plus AI generation | Social posts, decks, brand design |
| Runs where | Browser + Windows app | Browser | Browser + apps | Browser + apps |
| Your photo goes to... | Stays on your device | Reported on-device | Cloud (AI features) | Cloud |
| Account to edit? | No | No | Optional | Yes |
| Account to export? | Google sign-in (one tap) | No | Optional | Yes |
| Price | Free, no paid tier | Free with ads, Premium about $5/mo* | Free tier, paid from about $1.49/mo (annual)* | Free, Pro about $15/mo* |
*As reported by review sites in 2026. Verify before quoting.
🔔 ROUND 1: Price & Access
What matters: can you just open it and work?
- Photopea wins the access battle: no account, free, and you pay in ads instead of dollars.
- APIC has no ads, no paid tiers, no credits. Every tool is open to guests, and Google sign-in (one tap) is needed only at export.
- Pixlr gives a free tier but meters AI with credits (around 20 free ones) and pushes upgrades.
- Canva has a generous free plan, but its Background Remover and Magic Eraser sit behind Pro.
Photopea █████████░ 9
APIC ████████░░ 8
Pixlr ██████░░░░ 6
Canva █████░░░░░ 5
🏆 Round winner: Photopea (no sign-in beats one-tap sign-in)
🔔 ROUND 2: Privacy
This is the round APIC was built for.
- APIC: the code shows images processed entirely in the browser: the filters, the AI background removal and the object removal all run on-device. The AI models download once and are cached. The honest footnote: APIC does keep your Google profile and some visit analytics.
- Photopea: reported to process on-device too.
- Pixlr / Canva: cloud-based. Fine for memes, less fine for ID scans, client work or anything under NDA.
APIC █████████░ 9
Photopea ████████░░ 8
Pixlr █████░░░░░ 5
Canva ████░░░░░░ 4
🏆 Round winner: APIC
🔔 ROUND 3: Layers & Pro Editing Depth
Here the Photoshop-style tools come out.
- Photopea is the heavyweight: full layers, masks, selections, healing and clone tools, all with a Photoshop-like workflow.
- Pixlr (the Pixlr E editor) is a solid middle ground.
- APIC has a real layers panel: image and text layers with move/scale/rotate, blend modes, opacity, per-layer effects and 60 history steps. It does not have layer masks, lasso/magic-wand selection or clone/healing tools yet.
- Canva layers things like a design tool, not a pixel editor.
Photopea ██████████ 10
Pixlr ███████░░░ 7
APIC █████░░░░░ 5
Canva █████░░░░░ 5
🏆 Round winner: Photopea (it isn't close, and I'm not going to pretend)
🔔 ROUND 4: Colour Science
APIC's secret weapon is a photographer's toolkit that's free and on-device:
- Live histogram
- RGB curves
- White balance (temperature + tint)
- 8-band HSL mixer
- 3-way colour grading
- Clarity, vibrance, sharpen, vignette, grain, fade, gamma
-
Export your grade as a
.cubeLUT (33×33×33) to use in video editors
I couldn't find .cube export in the other three. Photopea answers with a deep, Photoshop-class adjustment menu, so this one is a draw at the top. Pixlr offers the basics, and Canva offers sliders and presets.
APIC █████████░ 9
Photopea █████████░ 9
Pixlr █████░░░░░ 5
Canva ███░░░░░░░ 3
🏆 Round winner: DRAW, APIC and Photopea
🔔 ROUND 5: Free AI Cut-outs & Eraser
This round is about free AI cut-outs with no limits, not generative magic.
- APIC: AI background removal (IS-Net) in three quality tiers (about 5 MB / 44 MB / 176 MB models) and an AI object remover (MI-GAN about 28 MB, or LaMa about 208 MB for harder jobs). No credits, no daily cap, no upload.
- Photopea: one-click AI tools exist.
- Pixlr: powerful, but AI runs on credits.
- Canva: the best-known tools, but Pro-only.
The tradeoff: APIC's first run downloads a model (5 to 208 MB). After that it's cached.
APIC █████████░ 9
Photopea ███████░░░ 7
Pixlr ██████░░░░ 6
Canva ████░░░░░░ 4
🏆 Round winner: APIC (on access and limits, not a quality benchmark)
🎤 Special guest: remove.bg
A one-trick specialist that is cloud-based by design (you upload your photo). One 2026 roundup lists a small free allowance, around 3 images a month. Great at its single job, but it's a tool, not an editor.
🔔 ROUND 6: Generative AI Power
Time for text-to-image, generative fill, AI everything.
- Pixlr reports 15+ AI models across image, video and audio.
- Canva leans hard into AI with Magic Studio and its newer Canva AI release.
- Photopea has AI tools including content replacement.
- APIC has no generative AI. It does cut-outs and erasing, not image creation.
Pixlr █████████░ 9
Canva █████████░ 9
Photopea ██████░░░░ 6
APIC ██░░░░░░░░ 2
🏆 Round winner: DRAW, Pixlr and Canva 🥶
🔔 ROUND 7: File Format Support
- Photopea opens PSD, AI, RAW and more, which makes it the "open anyone's file" champion.
- Pixlr / Canva: broad support for everyday formats and their own project files.
- APIC exports PNG, JPEG, WebP, BMP, ICO and PDF. No PSD, RAW or HEIC import that I could find.
Photopea ██████████ 10
Pixlr ███████░░░ 7
Canva ███████░░░ 7
APIC █████░░░░░ 5
🏆 Round winner: Photopea
🔔 ROUND 8: The Utility Belt (Resize • Convert • Compress)
Developers live in this round. It's the boring task you do 20 times a week:
- APIC: resize by px or %, convert between formats, and compress to a target file size in KB. Hit "under 100 KB" and it searches for the right quality for you.
- Photopea / Pixlr / Canva: possible, but not the point of those tools.
🎤 Special guest: Squoosh
Google's open-source Squoosh runs its codecs in your browser and is a compression specialist, with modern formats like WebP and AVIF and a side-by-side before/after slider. In its lane it's superb. It just doesn't edit: no layers, no colour tools, no cut-outs.
APIC █████████░ 9
Photopea ██████░░░░ 6
Pixlr █████░░░░░ 5
Canva █████░░░░░ 5
(Squoosh would score 10 in compression, and zero in everything else.)
🏆 Round winner: APIC (all-rounder) / Squoosh (pure compression)
🔔 ROUND 9: Speed to First Edit & Learning Curve
- Canva: drag, drop, template. The easiest on earth.
- APIC: drop an image and every tool is right there. No account wall.
- Pixlr: friendly and quick.
- Photopea: powerful, but it's a Photoshop clone, so expect a learning curve.
Canva ██████████ 10
APIC ████████░░ 8
Pixlr ███████░░░ 7
Photopea ██████░░░░ 6
🏆 Round winner: Canva
🔔 ROUND 10: Mobile & Platforms
- Canva: best-in-class mobile apps.
- Pixlr: good mobile support.
- APIC: works in a mobile browser, with a size cap on phones (about 12.6 MP) to keep things from crashing. Desktop has no cap, and there's a Windows app.
- Photopea: powerful, but cramped on a phone.
Canva ██████████ 10
Pixlr ████████░░ 8
APIC ███████░░░ 7
Photopea ████░░░░░░ 4
🏆 Round winner: Canva
🔔 ROUND 11: Templates & Design Ecosystem
Not a fair fight. Canva has millions of templates, stock assets, brand kits and real-time collaboration. Pixlr has a template library behind its paid plans. Photopea and APIC are editors, not design suites.
Canva ██████████ 10
Pixlr ██████░░░░ 6
Photopea ██░░░░░░░░ 2
APIC █░░░░░░░░░ 1
🏆 Round winner: Canva (flawless victory)
📊 FINAL SCOREBOARD
| Round | 🟢 APIC | 🔵 Photopea | 🟠 Pixlr | 🟣 Canva |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Price & access | 8 | 9 | 6 | 5 |
| 2. Privacy | 9 | 8 | 5 | 4 |
| 3. Layers & pro editing | 5 | 10 | 7 | 5 |
| 4. Colour science | 9 | 9 | 5 | 3 |
| 5. Free AI cut-outs | 9 | 7 | 6 | 4 |
| 6. Generative AI | 2 | 6 | 9 | 9 |
| 7. Formats | 5 | 10 | 7 | 7 |
| 8. Utility belt | 9 | 6 | 5 | 5 |
| 9. Ease & speed | 8 | 6 | 7 | 10 |
| 10. Mobile | 7 | 4 | 8 | 10 |
| 11. Templates | 1 | 2 | 6 | 10 |
| TOTAL (/110) | 72 | 77 | 71 | 72 |
🥇 Photopea ███████████████░░░░░ 77
🥈 APIC ██████████████░░░░░░ 72 (tied)
🥈 Canva ██████████████░░░░░░ 72 (tied)
4️⃣ Pixlr █████████████░░░░░░░ 71
Photopea takes the overall belt. It's the most capable free editor on the web, and that's no accident.
But look at where APIC wins: privacy, free AI cut-outs, colour science (tie) and the utility belt. Those are the exact things a lot of developers and creators do every single day.
🎯 Choose Your Fighter
| If you... | Pick |
|---|---|
| Edit PSD files or need layers, masks and heavy compositing | 🔵 Photopea |
| Need generative AI and fast creative edits | 🟠 Pixlr |
| Make posts, decks, thumbnails and want templates | 🟣 Canva |
| Care that your photos never leave your device, want free unlimited AI cut-outs, a pro colour toolkit or compress to an exact KB | 🟢 APIC |
| Only need to shrink images for the web | 🎤 Squoosh |
| Only need one background removed and don't mind uploading | 🎤 remove.bg |
🧠 What I learned building APIC against these giants
- You can't out-feature Photopea. APIC competes by being the private, no-credits, no-ads option, not by cloning Photoshop.
- "Free" means very different things. Ads, credits, paywalled AI and mandatory accounts are all "free". APIC's price is one Google sign-in at export. That's a deliberate trade, and it keeps the tool free.
- On-device AI is real now. Background removal and object removal running in a browser tab, with no server, would have sounded impossible a few years ago.
- The roadmap is obvious: PSD and HEIC import, layer masks, selection tools and batch processing.
🔗 Try the underdog
- 🌐 APIC Web: https://akhouri-anmol-kumar.github.io/APIC-web/
- Free. No ads. Every tool works as a guest, and you sign in only when you export.
Your turn: which editor do you actually use, and which round did I get wrong? Tell me in the comments and I'll update the scoreboard. 🥊
Disclosure: I'm the creator of APIC. Scores are subjective, competitor details come from public information and may have changed, so verify pricing and limits before you decide.
APIC
---An Akhouri Systems product
Top comments (40)
Bro why this?
Isn't APIC a bit easier?
bro but when I pasted my code in all AIs(literally All then they all said canva is more easier I don't know) I also thought that APIC is more easy but still I felt like AIs have data which My mind don't have in billions 😂
Yeah I also think APIC is easier...
hmm so APIC won against photopea overall?
In certain cases only 😅 But in certain cases it does (because Photopea freeze my PC at times APIC doesn't do that now though it used to do previously but you fixed it!)
yeah.
So shall we discuss the rest of your workflow here? 😅
hmm okay but I don't want to leak my tactics publicly
Ok no... 🤣
So, you said that ATLOCK is a single 10k LOC python file, right?
yepp
But why a single file? Why don't you split it into multiple files? I can't even handle this 2.5k LOC file.
bro, It is intentionaly deseigned as a single file architecture to simplify compiling into a standalone .exe and minimize the attack surface for local file-tampering....and there are some more minor reasons....
last time when I tried modulation for APIC desktop ones I got cooked but I think in v6 I will keep it module bise because I feel like I'm not that old AAK who built APIC v1 that time.
Bro you know how to make dynamic island using Qt yourself but don't know how to do imports? I don't believe that... 10k LOC is more than what can be accepted for a single file.
lol I didn't said I can't, I can bro but I just preffered it also
It's not justt about knowing imports broo,it's a importantt security choice: a single file means one attack surface, no import-chain hijacking, and trivial self-integrity verification...,
Splitting it into modules would eventually lead to an attacker swap individual files withoutt breaking the App's overall hash, which completely defeats the point of a tamper..evident security suite.
that's the point behind it if knowledge was the point then Akhouri Systems never was being founded. 🤣🤣
Yeah ok whatever... Still not convinced. 🤔 I'll be back soon (coffee break)...
come fast broooo
👍
bro you became 2nd reader of that 31august post, 1 was me myself lol.
in that time no one read it.
Unfortunately we didn't meet at that time otherwise I'd have read it :(
yeah, but we are now BROSS
yeah 😅
bro you are online then why are not discussing anything...
I was waiting for you to say something 😢
bruhh, and I was waiting for you and always refreshing dev.to waiting for notification
Great! 🤣
@effessdev again waiting for me to say something?
I had dev.to/notifications tab open. But unfortunately I have to refresh it every time.
hmm ;
"exams are many, my marks are none 😂"
What? Didn't you get 3rd rank in your class?
yeah got 3rd rank but still a meme lol.
and the 3rd rank I got is purely wasted I can clearly see in my home 😂
literally they just said that's not big thing maintaining it is big thing also they said more stuffs(stupidity on peak 🖐️🤚🔥)
Bro this is public they can read all of this 🤐
lol I don't think IT head and ex IT head both have account in dev.to 😂
What if they do? 👁️🗨️
they at max to max they can delete me from house 🫡
at least then I'll have peace
BROOO you really don't have boundaries 🤯 in everything
which boundary?