As technology advances, digital art is becoming more popular, and there are numerous software options available for artists to create their masterpieces.

Premium Drawing Programs like Adobe Photoshop, Corel Paint, Clip Studio Paint, are powerful, but they cost money.

Thankfully, we all have access to free drawing software to start our art journey –with no pricey perpetual licenses or endless and expensive subscriptions.

With so many free drawing programs to choose from, it can be difficult to choose between them. In this article, I have put together a list of the 8 Best Free Digital drawing Software on the market in 2025.

These programs provide a variety of features and capabilities comparable to their paid counterparts. You can create stunning artwork with just a mouse or a drawing pen tablet.

I will go over each programs features and capabilities, to help you make an informed decision about which one is best for you.

Whether youre a beginner or an expert, youll be able to find free drawing software that meets your requirements.

8 Best Free Drawing Software of 2025 for Beginners

Here are 8 of the best free drawing software in 2025 you can use on Windows, Mac and even Linux computers. Including Krita, Medibang Paint Pro, Firealpaca, Artweaver, Mypaint, Sketchbook, Gimp, and Paint.Net. They are perfect for beginners with powerful drawing tools and brushes.

1. Krita

Krita is a completely free, open-source but powerful software that you can use for drawing, illustrating, concept art, and much more! It works on all systems, used by artists of all levels, especiall for Linux Users.

If you are a fan of Photoshop, you’ll like KRITA. It has a similar intuitive user interface with a lot of room to play with your drawing and painting.

Use the pop-up pallet to select your brushes, erasers, and colors intuitively. All other tools are stored in the panels to the left and right.

There are drawing tools that can help you draw straight lines, vanishing points, and smooth shapes. Layers, masks, various transform tools, HDR support, video recorder, comic creation, 2D raster animation, and advanced selection functions are also included.

You can find a variety of 100+ painting brushes, each with different textures and effects, such as watercolors and inking brushes. Also, special blending options help make your work more realistic.

A great thing in here, especially for beginners, is that it includes brush stabilizers that will help you improve your line quality!

Krita supports PSD files from photoshop, vector graphics and raster images, allowing you to easily switch between different types of artwork easily.

The beauty of Krita is the free price tag and the immensely supportive community around this software. However, Some features may seem unintuitive or hard to use, making it difficult for beginners to get comfortable with the program.

Supported Platforms: Windows, Mac, Linux, Android

2. Medibang Paint Pro

MediBang Paint Pro is a free, lightweight, cross-platform drawing program that are surprisingly resourceful.

It is supposed to be used for drawing manga (and their comics), but any other drawing and painting styles can fit into this app as well.

It has a decent amount of tools like brushes, pens, even sumi (not sure what that is). You can use the comic panel tool in making comic book pages! They even have the text tool.

It can speed up your workflow with a library with over 800 pre-installed backgrounds and anime-themed templates. Besides, there are about 50 brushes and a big choice of free fonts.

The key advantage of MediBang Paint Pro is its ubiquity – the program has a counterpart for almost every device you might have.

With cloud storage you can effortlessly transfer your art between different devices. For example, you might start drawing something on your samsung android tablet, and then later finish the drawing on your Windows.

While the UI design could be better, the medibang paint program is very well rounded manga drawing software with a very to-the-point feature kit and a hard to beat $0 pricetag!

Supported Platforms: Windows, Mac, Ipad OS, Android

3. Firealpaca

FireAlpaca is a wonderful free, simple, and lightweight drawing software that works on both Windows and Mac computers.

FireAlpaca is actually the sibling drawing program to MediBang Paint (They’re made by the same company) and sports a similar, lightweight illustration focus with an unique 2D animation support.

It is available in 10 languages, supports all the core features and essential tools digital artists need: pencils, brushes, layers, multiple image tabs, and editing tools.

Additionally, it offers a gradient tool, shape tool, and pen tools for working with symmetry and shapes. Its straightforward tools and controls make illustration creation easy.

FireAlpaca functions best with a drawing pen tablet as it supports multiple pressure levels and has an adjustable smoothing feature that aids the linework.

Impressively, FireAlpaca offers features tailored for comic book artists, such as an onion skin mode thats handy for crafting frame-by-frame animations and GIFs.

Unexpectedly elaborated are FireAlpaca’s perspective tools, which is especially useful for creating comics and storyboards with often uncommon perspective angles.

While not as feature-rich as professional tools, its fast, easy to use, and free. It can run smoothly on older, less powerful hardware.

Focused on basic drawing functions, FireAlpaca is perfect for sketching, comic creation, and practicing digital painting skills, making it a favorite among digital art beginners.

Supported Platforms: Windows, Mac

4. Mypaint

MyPaint is a bare-bones free digital painting software that is exceptionally accessible to digital painting beginners. It has a a focus on different brushes and a very simple interface.

It works a little differently than most Windows apps due to its Linux origins, and mastering its interface will take some time, but its well worth the effort.

MyPaint supports layers and basic color adjustments. It also has cool features, like symmetry mode, handy scratchpad, connected lines, and curves.

It comes with a set of brushes that have this almost organic feel to them. You can also download and instal additional brush packages created by other users, which is a benefit of the open source code.

MyPaint is extremely lightweight and won’t chew up resources like some of the more heavyweight programs out there, making it much more viable for those with a weaker PC or old laptop that struggles to run more advanced options like Krita or Photoshop.

However, some advanced features are not there, e.g it has no animation tools. If you’re just looking to sketch or learn the ropes of basic digital painting, MyPaint is an excellent starting point with its simple interface and adequate toolset.

Supported Platforms: Windows, Mac, Linux

5. Artweaver 7

Artweaver 7 is a great painting program for beginners with a full set of features. The vast array of filters, effects, and custom brushes helps create professional-looking designs conveniently.

The user interface, is similar to Photoshop, very intuitive and easy to use, and you can customize it to your liking. You can freely move, dock, and resize the canvases and palettes.

It offers a comprehensive set of tools, from the standard selection of brushes, pens, and pencils to more advanced layers and masks for achieving more complex effects.

You can import and export graphics in various formats. Artweaver also has all kinds of filters that can be applied to drawings (wind effect, blur, waves, granulation, oil effect, etc.).

It has a very large collection of brush presets, which you can further customize and save according to your needs. You can find several realistic brushes that mimic traditional media, just like corel painter.

Artweaver 7 has two options. The Artweaver Free suite is a free basic version of the program. The paid "plus" version which costs $41.16 comes with additional functionality and free technical support.

If you’re new to digital illustration, downloading the free version is a great place to start. And when you’re ready to take the next step, you only need to download Artweaver Plus.

Supported Platforms: Windows Only.

6. Gimp

If you are looking for a no-cost digital art program that focuses more on photo editing and web design, GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) is for you.

Like Krita, GIMP has a very similar interface to Photoshop withaccessible manual functions to help you create and manipulate your art.

The tools vary from basic to more advanced, among which are layers, customizable brushes of all sorts, filters, and automatic tools for image enhancement.

While perfectly viable for digital painters looking to create an illustration from scratch, GIMP is capable of accomplishing many of the signature “photoshopping” and photo retouching uses that programs like Krita lack.

You can edit its source code and distribute your changes, as well as enhance your own productivity with the customization options and third-party plugins that are easily installed.

Due to this fact, the interface can be a little cluttered, but if that doesn’t scare you, you should definitely try this app out.

Supported Platforms: Windows, Mac, Linux

7. Sketchbook

Autodesk Sketchbook is an amazing piece of free drawing software with hundreds of brushes and a great interface. It’s available for iOS, Android, and Desktop (Windows and Mac), so check it out!

With its roots in industrial design, architecture, and engineering, Sketchbook unsurprisingly comes with a massive array of perspective tools that massively outperform most other digital painting programs.

It has a clean and simple interface that lets users immerse themselves in the work without building a cluttered workspace. You can easily customize it to your liking by tucking tools and palettes away.

Sketchbook boasts a variety of different brushes and pens that are super realistic and mimic the behaviors of their real-world counterparts, making it feel just like working with a pen and paper.

You can customize brushes and use guides, rules, and stroke tools for support, helping to keep your drawings precise while maintaining creative freedom.

There are layers and blend modes that you can use to build up your designs with different colors. It also has a Copic color library, symmetry tools, curve tracing tools, 3D extrusion tools, and even a text tool.

Sketchbook offers a wide range of tools and options, so whether youre looking to add a touch of class to your images or create a full animation, this software can do it all.

The free desktop version (Windows & Mac) is still available from Internet, but no longer updated or supported. The new Store sketchbook pro version has new owners, which costs $24.99 for one-time purchase.

Supported Platforms: Windows, Mac, Android, IpadOS

8. Paint.Net

Paint.NET is a remarkable image and photo editing software, stands out for its exceptional features and user-friendly interface, all available at no cost.

Looking at the UI, it’s clear to see that while it shares its name with the likes of the original Paint and Paint 3D, it is certainly more robust offering a number of different brush types, image adjustment tools, layers, and a variety of pre-made graphics.

Because of its simplicity, Paint.net is perfect for artists. Also, it can be done quickly on low power devices.

Paint supports .NET layers and many effects. There are tools for blurring, shaping, sharpening and reducing noise. If desired, program features can be enhanced using the plugin.

Though primarily a photo editing app, It features a standard set of pens and brushes that can be used to create digital paintings and drawings. Moreover, the app lets you switch between colors effortlessly and it allows you to choose the size or hardness of the brushes and pens you’re using.

The new Paint.NET 5.0 now supports pressure sensitivity with compatible pens and drawing tablets from Wacom, Huion, XPPen, and more. This enables you to draw beautiful, natural-looking brush strokes.

Supported Platforms: Windows Only.

In Conclusion

As you can see, there are lots of options to choose from when starting your digital art journey.

Some of the drawing programs, such as Krita, is widely used and have a large user community, whereas others, such as MyPaint and Artweaver, are more niche but have a strong following.

You should find something from the list of 6 free drawing software above that works for you, whatever your needs.

The trick is to pick a tool, commit to learning it, and create, create, create. Until next time, happy drawing!

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