A free and open-source pixel-art editor and sprite animation tool for Windows, macOS and Linux.
Download ·
Website ·
Installation guide ·
Release notes ·
Contributing
Introduction
Besprited is a free and open source program for creating and animating 2D sprites. It features:
- Layers and frames, with real-time animation preview, onion skinning, frame tags and per-frame durations.
- Pixel-precise tools: a stabilized pencil for clean lines, shading ink, custom brushes, filled contour,
polygon and symmetry.
- RotSprite rotation, layer blend modes, and a tiling mode for drawing seamless patterns and textures.
- Ready-to-use palettes, or make your own.
- Multiple sprites can be edited at once.
- Opens and saves Aseprite
.ase/.aseprite files (some newer Aseprite features aren't supported yet),
plus GIF, PNG sequences, sprite sheets with JSON data, WebP, QOI, BMP, TGA, PCX, ICO and FLI/FLC.
- JavaScript scripting and themes with custom fonts.
- GPG-signed releases for Windows, macOS (Intel and Apple Silicon) and Linux (AppImage,
.deb, .rpm, .tar.gz).
Note: this project makes use of AI tooling to some degree. You can read more about it in
AI_USAGE.md
Before creating issues or commenting on already open issues/PRs read our
Code of Conduct first.
Download and install
Get the latest release for Linux, macOS, or Windows
(or use the download page).
Then follow the Installation guide.
How is it different from LibreSprite?
Besprited is a fork of LibreSprite with a faster, more experimental
development cycle and a quarterly release schedule. It regularly merges LibreSprite's changes, and fixes that fit
LibreSprite are offered back upstream. On top of that it adds its own features and fixes: for example
selection fill/stroke commands, zoom presets, a custom checkerboard size, timeline layer buttons, larger brushes,
extended symmetry options, custom theme fonts and a security review of the file-format code. See the
release notes for the full list, and the
roadmap for what's planned.
History
It all started with Aseprite, developed by David Capello.
Aseprite used to be distributed under the GNU General Public License version 2,
but was moved to a proprietary license on August 26th, 2016.
As a response to that, LibreSprite was created as a fork of the last
GPLv2-licensed version of Aseprite, to continue its development as a free and open source project.
The work has been branched-out from the last Aseprite commit covered by the GPL version 2 license,
and is now developed independently of Aseprite.
In 2026 Nidrax forked the project under the Veritaware
organization to create his own opinionated version of the editor independently of LibreSprite's team design decisions, allowing himself a faster, more experimental development cycle,
and thus Besprited was born.
And why Besprited?
Because this project is BS. What other reason did you expect?
Contributing
Feel free to contribute to the project! Check out the contributing guidelines to get started.
New here? Look for issues labelled
good first issue
or help wanted,
and say hi on Discord if you have questions.
Besprited takes part in Hacktoberfest; see the
Hacktoberfest section of the contributing guidelines.
Compiling and building
Follow the Building the source guide.
Theming
The app is compatible with LibreSprite themes you can find here.
Scripting
Scripting is powered by QuickJS-ng, a small, portable, dependency-free JS engine vendored as a submodule, so it always builds the same way on every platform.
For API guide check the Scripting guide.
License
This program is distributed under the GNU General Public License Version 2.
Credits
An enormous thank you to the original developers of Aseprite,
without them and their original licensing this project wouldn’t exist.
And also huge thanks to all the LibreSprite contributors who have worked hard to create a base for this project to build upon.
