Pixlr vs Polarr
March 15, 2025 | Author: Sandeep Sharma
6★
The most robust browser photo editor, for all your editing needs. Online or offline. Browser-based or native app. Now for Windows and Mac as well as iOS and Android. Pixlr is ready to make moments beautiful wherever you are and whenever inspiration strikes.
1★
Polarr makes advanced free online photo editor, also available for iOS, Android, Mac and Windows with professional photo editing tools. Offers AI-powered tools for automated edits and enhancements.
Pixlr and Polarr, despite sounding like a pair of intergalactic bounty hunters, are actually quite similar in their mission: to provide powerful photo editing tools without forcing you to sell a kidney for Photoshop. They both operate on a mix of free and premium features, wield AI like a slightly overenthusiastic wizard and offer mobile and desktop options for people who refuse to edit photos on anything but the smallest screen available. They understand layers and masks, which means you can stack and hide things until your image looks like something out of a conspiracy theorist’s dream board.
Pixlr, born in 2008 in Sweden (a country known for producing things that work flawlessly but leave you wondering why you ever used anything else), is particularly fond of casual users. It’s the kind of tool that assumes you don’t want to spend hours agonizing over contrast ratios when you could just click a button labeled "Make Pretty." It comes with a staggering number of stickers, filters and templates, most of which are designed to help you convince your relatives that you lead a much more exciting life than you actually do. Also, it lives entirely in your browser, so there’s nothing to install, which is fantastic until you realize you have 37 tabs open and one of them is making an ominous whirring noise.
Polarr, by contrast, came into existence in 2014 in the USA, which might explain why it takes itself a little more seriously. This is a tool for photographers, color-grading enthusiasts and anyone who uses words like “tonal balance” without immediately regretting it. It offers deeply customizable AI styles and face-editing tools, making it perfect for those who enjoy tweaking the minute details of an image until it no longer resembles anything found in nature. Unlike its Swedish counterpart, Polarr insists on a proper software installation for full features, perhaps to ensure that once you start editing, you can’t just absentmindedly switch to watching cat videos instead.
See also: Top 10 Online Design software
Pixlr, born in 2008 in Sweden (a country known for producing things that work flawlessly but leave you wondering why you ever used anything else), is particularly fond of casual users. It’s the kind of tool that assumes you don’t want to spend hours agonizing over contrast ratios when you could just click a button labeled "Make Pretty." It comes with a staggering number of stickers, filters and templates, most of which are designed to help you convince your relatives that you lead a much more exciting life than you actually do. Also, it lives entirely in your browser, so there’s nothing to install, which is fantastic until you realize you have 37 tabs open and one of them is making an ominous whirring noise.
Polarr, by contrast, came into existence in 2014 in the USA, which might explain why it takes itself a little more seriously. This is a tool for photographers, color-grading enthusiasts and anyone who uses words like “tonal balance” without immediately regretting it. It offers deeply customizable AI styles and face-editing tools, making it perfect for those who enjoy tweaking the minute details of an image until it no longer resembles anything found in nature. Unlike its Swedish counterpart, Polarr insists on a proper software installation for full features, perhaps to ensure that once you start editing, you can’t just absentmindedly switch to watching cat videos instead.
See also: Top 10 Online Design software