Pixel art is a digital art style that utilizes the blocky visuals of pixels. Pixel art is abstract and simple, using raster or vector styles in a manner that's a world away from typical uses of vector or raster imagery. Pixel art was made popular by the low-res gaming imagery of bygone eras, and it was easily created using Microsoft Paint back in the day. But there are plenty of software choices in the modern era for creating fun and interesting pixel art.

7 Pixilart

App and browser-based pixel fun

Pixilart is a free browser tool that lets you create pixel artwork. It’s also available as a mobile app on both the Play Store and App Store. It offers a clean and simple interface, plus first-time users receive a quick 10-step overview of the tools.

With Pixilart, you can create static pixel drawings and animations, and it offers the ability to download it in any size or save it to share directly online. It provides pixel-based templates that you can open and color in yourself using pixels. And, of course, you can always open up a blank document of your choice to begin from scratch.

6 Pixel Studio

Not to be confused with Google’s Pixel Studio

Pixel Studio is an app available from the Play Store, App Store, and on Steam. Although the name is the same as Google’s recently-announced (2024) Pixel Studio built into its Pixel phones, this pixel art app is very different.

Boasting positive reviews, Pixel Studio pixel art editor lets you create and edit pixel art and animations from hand-held devices. This is a bit different from other pixel art tools, which are generally desktop or browser-based only.

5 Piskel

Free pixel art editor

Piskel is a free online tool, available for use within your browser, which helps you create pixel art or animated sprite characters. It offers export to both GIF and PNG for various uses.

Piskel is open-source and can work offline from its app as well as through the browser. You can use it on Windows, Mac, or Linux systems. The offline version has some minor differences and less support than the live browser-based version of Piskel. Piskel has a simple interface and is easy to use.

4 Aseprite

Pixel art and animation

Aseprite is a pixel art tool that offers animation too. This is a source-available program (not quite open-source) and costs only $20, though you can pledge more if you’d wish.

It’s available for Windows, Mac, and Ubuntu with Steam key, offering flexibility for the variety of platforms you may use.

You can create sprites — two-dimensional elements that can be static or animated — and play with a ton of different tools within Aseprite, such as the layers, animation timeline, playback modes, onion skinning, color tools, rotation tools, and many more.

While pixel art programs look like they should be simple, Aseprite offers many complex tools to create the best pixel art you can. It offers many different export modes for a variety of uses, too.

3 Adobe Illustrator

Use vectors to create “pixel” art

Despite Adobe Illustrator being the home of vector creation, you can create raster-based imagery with it. If you aren’t already familiar, vectors are scalable and raster images are made using pixels.

However, I’m going to suggest using vectors in Illustrator to create pixel art — this does have some logic behind it, I promise.

To create complex pixel art pieces, you need a pre-set plan for where each pixel should go. Pixel art is usually simplistic, and due to needing to zoom in quite a bit to draw it, it can be difficult to see the bigger vision while creating it. Using vectors in Illustrator means that you can create it at any size, and then scale it back down to pixel-sized for the true pixel art result.

Vectors are infinitely scalable without any loss of quality or further pixelation (pardon the pun). You’ll get clean colors when creating with vectors, and it can be scaled up or down for the pixel art effect you want without needing to be pixel art sized the entire time.

2 Adobe Photoshop

Tried and tested pixel art favorite

Photoshop is the go-to pixel art choice for well-known pixel artist, Brandon James Greer. Photoshop offers all you need to create pixel art; however, it is one of the pricier options, since you need to subscribe to Adobe software. Many free Adobe Photoshop alternatives are also good options for pixel art though.

Photoshop’s powerful engine allows for near-infinite zoom, snap-to-pixel precision, as well as excellent colors, layers, and export options for the best pixel art you can muster.

Compared to Adobe Illustrator, creating pixel art in Photoshop is probably one of the best options. Zooming in far enough to Photoshop’s artboard reveals a pixel-by-pixel grid. You can set your brush size to 1px and paint by dotting each pixel within the grid for a perfectly curated result.

You also have the added benefit of utilizing animation in Photoshop if you create your pixel art using the layers panel, so you can add some fun movement to your pixel creation.

1 MS Paint

The original and the best

Even though MS Paint has evolved over the years, it’s one of the first tools from back when pixel art became popular to create. As a young computer art hobbyist myself, I recall creating pixel art in Paint as a pre-teen. The modern version of MS Paint still allows for pixel art creation.

While the tools are more complex now, the logic behind pixel art remains. MS Paint lets you add pixels one at a time to your size preference, creating clever and simple sprite art or other cute icons.

Create digital pixel art square by square

While this isn’t an exhaustive list of choices, with any of these 7 pixel art software options, you can draw from your imagination one pixel at a time. Creating pixel art is like making digital cross stitch — it may be a slow process, but it’s calming, and the bigger picture at the end brings a smile to your face. Many of the aforementioned tools allow you not only to create static pixel art, but also to include many animation options to level-up your pixel creations.