Editor › Compare › PhotoAIA vs Photopea: An Honest Comparison
Should I use PhotoAIA or Photopea?
Use Photopea for general editing — it is more mature and far broader. Use PhotoAIA when you need real ICC-driven CMYK separation, soft proofing or plate inspection in a browser, which is the one area where it does something Photopea does not.
Where PhotoAIA is genuinely different
PhotoAIA runs LittleCMS in WebAssembly and separates to CMYK through an actual ICC profile, with selectable rendering intents, black point compensation, soft proofing and per-plate inspection.
Photopea offers a CMYK mode that previews how an image will look printed, using a fixed CMYK SWOP space. Full ICC colour management is an open feature request on its tracker, and users have reported CMYK values shifting when files are opened elsewhere. For prepress work that difference is the whole job.
Where Photopea is clearly ahead
- 16-bit and 32-bit editing. PhotoAIA edits at 8-bit, with lossless 16-bit TIFF passthrough on import and export.
- Far more filters, plus vector and text features PhotoAIA does not have.
- Much broader format support, including RAW handling and formats PhotoAIA cannot open at all.
- Twelve years of maturity and a large user base, versus a public beta.
Side by side
| PhotoAIA | Photopea | |
|---|---|---|
| Runs in browser | Yes | Yes |
| Price | Free, no ads | Free with ads, paid tier available |
| Real ICC CMYK separation | Yes | Preview only |
| Soft proofing with intents | Yes | Limited |
| Bit depth | 8-bit editing (16-bit TIFF passthrough) | 8/16/32-bit |
| CMYK TIFF export | Yes, independently validated | Limited |
| PSD support | Import and export, with limitations | Strong |
| Filter count | About 18 | Far more |
| Maturity | Public beta | Mature |
Who should choose which
- Print or prepress checks in a browser — PhotoAIA.
- General retouching, wide format support, RAW — Photopea.
- Ad-free interface and files that never leave the device — PhotoAIA.