Top 10 open-source design tools for Eastern Europe

2026. Open-source design tool Inkscape added new features



The open-source design software Inkscape has released a new version 1.4.4, which adds several useful tools. A new button has appeared in the toolbar that allows you to rotate a star or polygon to a specified position, for example, so that it stands on two spines (star) or on one edge (polygon). When displaying text, it now takes into account language metadata (xml:lang) for each tspan element separately, instead of using the language settings of the last tspan element for the entire text. A color palette has been added for Elementary OS. You can now assign a keyboard shortcut for inserting an object onto a page. Also, the developers have optimized the engine, and the program began to work faster, particularly when zooming in on a document with a large number of paths. Editing gradients with the Gradient tool is now faster, since Inkscape no longer constantly updates the toolbar.


2023. GIMP - free, open-source image editor.



GIMP is one of the most popular image editing programs due to its extensive functionality, which is comparable to premium applications such as Photoshop and Lightroom. At the same time, it has a simple and highly customizable user interface. In addition to basic image editing functions, it includes professional tools such as color adjustment, noise reduction, automatic image enhancement, retouching, composition, and illustration creation. GIMP can convert between various image formats and supports the following formats: JPEG, .psd (Photoshop), and .psp (Paint Shop Pro). The program's native functionality can be contributed by third-party plugins created with the support of a large community.


2022. Krita now supports the WebP standard



A new version of Krita 5.1 - an open-source graphics editor for Windows, Linux, and MacOS has been released. This version implements full support for the WebP format, which has become the de facto standard for websites. Additionally, support for Photoshop, layered TIFF, and JPEG-XL formats has been improved. Even more operations in the program can now process multiple selected layers at once. Fill tools have been expanded with a continuous fill and a new "Enclose and Fill" tool. For the Windows version, the developers used a newer version of Angle to improve compatibility with video drivers and improve performance. Additionally, you can now customize touch controls in the canvas input settings, such as the "Tap to Undo" feature.

2007. GIMP improved color management



A new version of the open-source graphics editor GIMP 2.4 has been released. It features numerous changes and improvements: color management; improved display when scaling; improved selection and cropping tools; a new foreground selection tool; a redesigned preview in extensions; a new Tiny-Fu interpreter; additional file format support; a more logical menu structure with tooltips for each item; a refreshed design; new icons; and additional printing settings. As a reminder, GIMP is completely free and distributed under an open license. It runs on Windows and Linux.