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Best Productivity ResourcesBy Shushant LakhyaniVerified creator

Mac App

Compositor

A free, open source Photoshop alternative for Mac, built for compositing.

Visit Compositor4.6

  • Rating

    4.6 / 5

  • Pricing

    Free

  • Difficulty

    Intermediate

  • Works on

    macOS

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What is Compositor?

Compositor is a full-featured image editor for macOS built around the compositing and post-processing workflow: layers and folders, layer masks, clipping masks, blend modes, selection tools, adjustment layers, filters, background removal, Gaussian and motion blur, lens correction, grain and noise, liquify and smear, spot healing, clone stamp and brushes. It's completely free and open source — download the Xcode project and add, remove or modify any feature to fit your needs.

Pros: what Compositor does well

  • Completely free and open source, with the Xcode project available to modify
  • Full compositing toolset: layers, masks, blend modes, healing, liquify and more
  • Feels familiar to Photoshop users instead of relearning GIMP

Cons: where it falls short

  • Mac only — no Windows or Linux version
  • Focused on compositing, so some general Photoshop features are missing
  • Young project with a small community

Who Compositor is for

Mac users who want a free, native Photoshop-style editor for compositing and post-processing without a subscription.

Who can skip it

Windows or Linux users, or anyone who needs the full breadth of Photoshop's feature set.

Compositor alternatives

Not sold on Compositor? These do a similar job, and each card says what it has in common.

All Personal Productivity resources

Keyline Icons

Focus: icons, svg and react. Shares design and open source with Compositor. A website, not a Mac app. Adds Web. Same 4.6 rating.

WebsiteFreeWeb
4.6Visit

Photopea

Focus: psd, browser and canva alternative. Shares photo editing and image editor with Compositor. A web app, not a Mac app. Adds Web. Same 4.6 rating.

Web AppFreeWeb
4.6Visit

Transitions.dev

Focus: ui, transitions and animation. Shares design and open source with Compositor. A framework, not a Mac app. Adds Web. Rated 4.5 (Compositor: 4.6).

FrameworkFreeWeb
4.5Visit

iTerm2

Focus: terminal, mac and command line. Shares open source with Compositor. Rated 4.7 (Compositor: 4.6).

Mac AppFreemacOS
4.7Visit

Karabiner-Elements

Focus: keyboard remapping, shortcuts and hyper key. Shares open source with Compositor. Rated 4.7 (Compositor: 4.6).

Mac AppFreemacOS
4.7Visit

Rectangle

Focus: window manager, window snapping and raycast alternative. Shares open source with Compositor. Rated 4.7 (Compositor: 4.6).

Mac AppFreemacOS
4.7Visit

Free alternatives to Compositor

Want to spend nothing? These free picks cover similar ground.

Hammerspoon

Focus: mac automation, window management and lua scripting. Shares open source with Compositor. Adds Offline. Same 4.6 rating.

Mac AppFreemacOS, Offline
4.6Visit

Maccy

Focus: clipboard manager, clipboard history and raycast alternative. Shares open source with Compositor. Same 4.6 rating.

Mac AppFreemacOS
4.6Visit

simslim

Focus: ios, simulator and xcode. Shares open source with Compositor. Rated 4.5 (Compositor: 4.6).

Mac AppFreemacOS
4.5Visit

yabai

Focus: window manager, tiling and macos. Shares open source with Compositor. Rated 4.5 (Compositor: 4.6).

Mac AppFreemacOS
4.5Visit
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