Offline pixel editor · for Windows
A pixel art editor — paint your world, pixel by pixel.
A full pixel editor with layers, an animation timeline, palettes up to 256 colours, and export to PNG, GIF and sprite sheet. It runs offline — no subscription, no account, no cloud. Pay once, or build it yourself for nothing.
Everything a pixel editor needs
A quick look — and all built from scratch.
Guides & background
How pixel art, animation and sprite sheets actually work.
Get KistePix
Two ways — both lead to the full app.
Free — build it yourself
Build KistePix yourself in about three clicks.
- Download Kiste & IDE from kiste-lang.org
- Open the KistePix source
- Click „Build“ — done
- No installation
- No desktop icon
- No Start-menu entry
Ready-installed
The same app — without building it yourself. Pixel Gallery included.
- Installer with desktop icon & Start-menu entry
- Or the portable version — both included
- The Pixel Gallery free too — the library for your work
- All future KistePix updates included
- No self-building needed
- You support the developer
*with no guarantee that further versions will appear.
Free too: the Pixel Gallery
Buy KistePix and the Pixel Gallery comes with it — the library for your work.
The Pixel Gallery collects and sorts your pixel art into collections, searches it, shows works by date and exports ZIP, sprite sheets, animated GIFs and colour palettes. From KistePix, send a finished image straight over with File › Send to Gallery. It too is open source and built entirely in Kiste.
See the Pixel GallerySafe & verifiable
A plain Windows program — no account, no cloud.
KistePix is not (yet) signed with a paid certificate — so on first launch Windows may say „Unknown publisher". Just click „More info" › „Run anyway". To confirm the file is genuinely clean, you can check it independently:
See the VirusTotal reportThe SHA-256 checksum for comparison is on the What's new page.
Frequent questions
The essentials, in short.
Does KistePix run offline, without an account or a subscription?
Yes. KistePix is a plain Windows program running on your own machine. No account, no subscription, no cloud. You pay once, and every future KistePix update is included.
Can I export sprite sheets for Godot, Unity, Phaser or GameMaker?
Yes. A sprite-sheet export writes a PNG with every frame in one row, plus a .json file of the same name in the Aseprite schema — including each frame's duration in milliseconds. Anything that reads Aseprite JSON reads KistePix JSON. GameMaker does not read this format, and does not need to: it has its own export format that puts the frame count into the file name (ball_strip5.png) — that is how GameMaker recognises the sheet and slices it as you drag it in. Every field explained: the Aseprite JSON format.
Is KistePix really free?
There are two routes to exactly the same app. Either you download the Kiste programming language with its IDE and build KistePix yourself in a few clicks — that costs nothing — or you take the ready-installable version for 14.– and skip the building.
How is KistePix different from Aseprite?
Aseprite is the more powerful and more mature tool, and it is worth its price. KistePix is smaller, speaks German as well as English, exports Aseprite-compatible sprite-sheet JSON, and its source is a readable program you can build and change yourself. The long answer: KistePix as an Aseprite alternative.
How many colours can a palette hold?
Up to 256. You can pick colours straight from the canvas, build and save your own palettes, or start from the bundled templates.
Which file formats does KistePix support?
A project format of its own (.kpx) that keeps layers and frames. Import: PNG. Export: PNG, animated GIF and sprite sheet (PNG plus JSON) — each with a scale factor and an optional transparent background.