Head to head
Both of these run on your own hardware and upload nothing. That makes this the closest comparison on the site, and the fork is about how you like to work rather than about privacy.
The short answer
Photopea and Photomop both process files on your own device, so neither uploads your image. Photopea is a Photoshop-shaped general editor with layers, masks and scripts, funded by ads that cover roughly 5% to 15% of the screen. Photomop is single-purpose tools with presets, no ads and no export cap.
Updated
Not every tool in the catalogue has a working page yet: upscale image, remove object and passport photo are still being built. Everything else runs today, on your own device. We put that first rather than at the bottom, because it is the thing most likely to send you to Photopea instead, and you should find it out here rather than after you have opened a tab.
Side by side
Every cell below is a fact one of the two of us publishes. Where we could not read a number on Photopea’s own pages, the row says so rather than repeating what other sites claim.
| Photomop | Photopea | |
|---|---|---|
| Where processing happens | On your own device, in the tab | On your own device |
| Free export resolution | No cap we impose. Your device sets the ceiling | Not published |
| Watermark on a free export | No watermark on any export | Not published |
| Free allowance | No per-image credits and no export counter | Ads cover roughly 5% to 15% of the screen depending on the device, and no export counter is documented |
| Account to use the free tool | Editing starts the moment the page loads | No, an account is only needed for PeaDrive cloud storage or to buy Premium |
| Paid plan starts at | $8.00 a month, or $5.00 a month billed yearly | $5.00 a month |
| Where it runs | Web on desktop, Web on mobile, Works offline once loaded | Web, API |
| Works with no connection | Yes, once the page and any model are cached | Yes |
Slide the table sideways to see every column.
This is the one comparison on the site where the answer is the same on both sides. Photopea's privacy page states that files opened in Photopea are never sent anywhere, that they never leave your device, and that they are processed completely inside it by your own hardware. Photomop works the same way: the model loads once, caches, and then runs in the tab on your own machine.
So privacy is not the deciding factor here, and any page telling you otherwise has an agenda. Neither tool uploads your image, neither has a retention window for you to read, and you can confirm both in your own network tab in about a minute. Choose on what the two products actually do instead, because that is where they genuinely diverge.
Photopea's editor needs no account as things stand today. An account is only required for PeaDrive cloud storage or to buy Premium. The cost of that is advertising: Photopea's own explainer says ads cover roughly 5% to 15% of the screen depending on the device you are on. No export cap or watermark policy is documented, so this page states neither.
Photomop shows no ads and starts editing the moment the page loads, and exports come back at the resolution you brought with no watermark. That is not generosity, it is arithmetic: your hardware does the work, so there is nothing for us to meter. The honest caveat is that upscaling, object removal and the passport photo tool do not have a working page yet.
Almost everything a general editor does. Layers, masks, layer styles, selection tools, a text tool, vector shapes, actions and scripts. It opens PSD, XCF, Sketch, XD and CDR, which means a layered file from Photoshop, GIMP, Sketch, Adobe XD or CorelDRAW arrives with its structure intact. Photomop has no layer stack and no canvas of that kind at all.
It also has years of maturity behind it and a free API for embedding the editor inside another product. If your work involves opening somebody else's layered document, retouching by hand, or building a composition from parts, Photopea is the tool and this page is not going to argue you out of it. Nothing here does that job better.
Photomop is not a canvas, it is single-purpose tools with presets. Each one opens on the job rather than on an empty document. If you need an image at a marketplace's exact pixel spec, you pick the preset rather than reading the spec, opening a document and setting up a transform.
There are also no ads, which on a small laptop screen is worth more than it sounds when a rival is using up to about 15% of it. Some of the toolbox is still in build, so judge the comparison on what opens today rather than on what is listed.
Photopea Premium is published at $5.00 a month. The annual price is not stated in plain text on photopea.com, and neither is the current list of what Premium includes, so this page will not guess at either. Photopea for Schools starts at $450 a year for a whole institution, ad free and with no per-seat accounts, which is unusually sane pricing for education.
Photomop is free to use today and Pro is published at $8 a month, or $5 a month billed yearly, though it is not open for purchase yet. Both products are cheap enough that price is unlikely to decide this. Pick on whether you want a canvas with manual tools or a set of jobs with presets, because that is the real fork.
What each one costs
Both ladders in full, monthly and yearly, because the large number on a pricing page is almost always the yearly rate and almost nobody pays it in month one.
| Plan | Price | What it includes |
|---|---|---|
| Photomop Free | $0 a month | Every tool at full resolution, with no watermark on the way out |
| Photomop Pro | $8.00 a month, or $5.00 a month billed yearly | Unattended batch over a folder, HD background packs, an API with 1,000 images a month, early access to new tools. Not open for purchase yet |
| Photopea Premium | $5.00 a month | A paid tier at five dollars a month. The annual price and the current list of what Premium includes are not published in plain text on photopea.com, and the original 2021 launch added no extra features and only supported the project |
| Photopea Photopea for Schools | From $450 a year a month | Institution wide and ad free for a whole school, with no per-seat accounts to create or manage |
| Photopea Photopea API | Free a month | The API for embedding the editor inside another product is free to use |
Slide the table sideways to see every column.
Both columns are the same length on purpose. If ours were twice as long you would be reading an advert.
Pick this if you want single jobs with presets, no ads, and five finished tools rather than a canvas to set up yourself.
Pick this if you want a real layer-based editor on your own hardware that opens PSD, XCF, Sketch, XD and CDR.
The honest version
The case against us is short and worth saying out loud: upscale image, remove object and passport photo do not have a working page yet, so those jobs need another tool today, and there is no hosted API today, so a workflow that needs one has to look elsewhere. If either of those is the thing you need this week, Photopea is the better answer today and this page is not going to argue otherwise.
Questions people ask
The things people search for once they have narrowed it down to these two.
No. Photopea's privacy page states that files you open in Photopea are never sent anywhere, that they never leave your device, and that they are processed completely inside your device by your own hardware. Photomop makes the same claim about its own tools, so on this specific point the two products are equals.
The editor is usable without an account as things stand today, and an account is only needed for PeaDrive cloud storage or to buy Premium. It is funded by advertising instead: Photopea's own explainer says ads take up roughly 5% to 15% of the screen depending on the device you are on.
Photopea publishes Premium at $5.00 a month, but the current list of what it includes is not documented in plain text on photopea.com, so this page does not state one. The original 2021 launch note said the tier added no extra features and simply supported the project. Check before you buy.
Yes. Photopea opens PSD as well as XCF, Sketch, XD and CDR, and keeps layers, masks and layer styles intact. That is one of the strongest reasons to use it. Photomop has no layer stack and does not open layered documents, so a PSD is a job for Photopea rather than for us.
No. Photomop is single-purpose tools with presets rather than a canvas with a layer stack, and it has no layer stack of any kind. For layer work, Photopea is the right choice.
Photomop, in most cases, because the tool opens on the job with presets rather than on an empty document you have to set up. Photopea can do the same work and more, but it asks you to place the transform yourself each time. For a one-off with unusual requirements, Photopea wins.
Same cluster
Each one is built the same way: the vendor's own published facts, checked at source, next to ours.
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AI photo and video editor whose free web background removal exports at HD with no watermark
Resize, crop, compress, convert and batch edit all work right now, on your own device, at full resolution and with no watermark. No account, nothing uploaded. Read how the on-device pipeline works if you want to check that claim before you trust it with a client’s photo, or the pricing page for where the paid line falls.