What is GIMP used for?

GIMP, the GNU Image Manipulation Program, is a free, open-source raster image editor; this repository is a read-only mirror of the official GNOME source. It is a good fit for retouching photographs, and creating and editing raster artwork.

Yes. GIMP is open source under a custom licence. Its source code is on GitHub at GNOME/gimp and is written mainly in C.

Yes. GIMP is open source, so the software itself is free to use under the terms of its own licence.

Can I self-host GIMP?

Yes. GIMP can be self-hosted on your own server or infrastructure.

What is GIMP an alternative to?

GIMP is an open-source alternative to Adobe Photoshop, Affinity, Corel PaintShop Pro and Photopea. Other open-source alternatives to Adobe Photoshop include Graphite, Krita and vue-fabric-editor.

Is GIMP actively maintained?

Yes. The most recent commit to GIMP was on 2 October 2026. The project has 6.5k stars on GitHub.

GIMP: open-source alternative to Adobe Photoshop, Affinity

About GIMP

GIMP is the GNU Image Manipulation Program, a free and open-source image editor developed within the GNOME project. This GitHub repository is a read-only mirror of the official source hosted on GNOME's GitLab, where development, releases and issue tracking take place.

GIMP is widely known as a general-purpose raster graphics editor used for photo retouching, image composition and image authoring, and it can be extended with plug-ins and scripts. The input available for this entry was limited to the project metadata, which shows the code is written in C and released under the GNU General Public License version 3 or later. For downloads and documentation, use the official project resources rather than this mirror.

Key features

Raster image editing
Photo retouching and image composition
Extensible with plug-ins and scripts
Open source under GPL v3 or later
Developed in C within the GNOME project

Good fit for

→Retouching photographs
→Creating and editing raster artwork

Built with: C
Tags: image-editor; photo-editing; raster-graphics; gnome; gnu; graphics; c-language; open-source

GIMP: questions and answers

What is GIMP used for?: GIMP, the GNU Image Manipulation Program, is a free, open-source raster image editor; this repository is a read-only mirror of the official GNOME source. It is a good fit for retouching photographs, and creating and editing raster artwork.
Is GIMP open source?: Yes. GIMP is open source under a custom licence. Its source code is on GitHub at GNOME/gimp and is written mainly in C.
Is GIMP free?: Yes. GIMP is open source, so the software itself is free to use under the terms of its own licence.
Can I self-host GIMP?: Yes. GIMP can be self-hosted on your own server or infrastructure.
What is GIMP an alternative to?: GIMP is an open-source alternative to Adobe Photoshop, Affinity, Corel PaintShop Pro and Photopea. Other open-source alternatives to Adobe Photoshop include Graphite, Krita and vue-fabric-editor.
Is GIMP actively maintained?: Yes. The most recent commit to GIMP was on 2 October 2026. The project has 6.5k stars on GitHub.