Ref TL 01 · Tools and formats The best software for digital cartoon animation

There is no single best program, and anyone who says otherwise is describing their own habit. There is a best fit between three things: whether you draw every frame or move a puppet, what the work has to be exported to, and whether you are alone or in a pipeline. Sort by those and the field narrows to two or three candidates.

Programs are grouped by approach rather than ranked. Platform and licensing notes describe how each product is normally sold, not a price.

Animation workspace on a wide monitor showing a character walk cycle: a timeline with keyframes at the bottom, onion skinned drawings of the previous and next frames in pale colours, and a layer stack on the right — Whatever the program, the same three panels: the drawing, the timeline and the layers.

Twelve programs compared

By approach

Twelve programs, by approach, platform and how they are sold
Program	Approach	Platforms	Sold as	Strong for
Toon Boom Harmony	Drawn and rigged	Windows, macOS	Subscription, three tiers	Broadcast series, deep rigging, node compositing
Adobe Animate	Vector, symbols, timeline	Windows, macOS	Subscription	Web and HTML5 output, familiar timeline
Moho	Vector bone rigging	Windows, macOS	Perpetual, two editions	Solo series work with recurring characters
TVPaint Animation	Raster frame by frame	Windows, macOS, Linux	Perpetual licence	Hand drawn film work, paper like feel
Clip Studio Paint EX	Raster frame by frame	Windows, macOS, tablets	Subscription or perpetual	Illustrators animating: Pro caps at 24 frames, EX does not
OpenToonz	Raster and vector, studio tools	Windows, macOS	Free and open source	Scanning, colour management, effects
Krita	Raster frame by frame	Windows, macOS, Linux	Free and open source	Painterly animation, learning without cost
Pencil2D	Raster and vector, minimal	Windows, macOS, Linux	Free and open source	Learning timing, quick tests
Synfig Studio	Vector tweening	Windows, macOS, Linux	Free and open source	Interpolated motion without drawing every frame
Blender, Grease Pencil	Drawing inside three dimensions	Windows, macOS, Linux	Free and open source	Two dimensional art in three dimensional scenes
Adobe After Effects	Compositing and motion graphics	Windows, macOS	Subscription	Finishing, motion design, Lottie export
Rive	Interactive vector	Browser and desktop	Subscription with a free tier	Animation that reacts to a user

Wide table: scroll it sideways.

By approach

Drawn frame by frame every frame is a drawing

TVPaint Animation raster, traditional Perpetual licence: A bitmap animation program built around the feel of drawing on paper, widely used on hand drawn feature and short film work. It runs on Windows, macOS and Linux, which is unusual in this field, and it is sold as a perpetual licence rather than a subscription.
Clip Studio Paint EX illustration first, animation included Subscription or perpetual: A drawing program with a timeline attached, which suits illustrators who animate rather than animators who draw. The distinction that matters when buying: the Pro edition limits an animation to 24 frames, and the EX edition removes that limit.
Krita free and open source Free: A painting program that gained frame by frame animation with version 3.0 in 2016. Onion skinning, a workable timeline and a serious brush engine, on Windows, macOS and Linux, at no cost. The obvious first stop for someone testing whether they enjoy animating at all.
Pencil2D minimal, raster and vector Free: Deliberately small and quick to learn, on all three desktop platforms. It will not carry a production, and it is an excellent way to learn timing without a menu system getting in the way.
OpenToonz free, studio lineage Free: Released in 2016 by Dwango as an open source version of Toonz, the software whose customised build has long been used at Studio Ghibli. Powerful scanning, colour and effects tools, and an interface that rewards patience rather than curiosity.

Rigged and cut out build a puppet, then move it

Toon Boom Harmony the television standard Subscription, three tiers: Sold in Essentials, Advanced and Premium tiers, on Windows and macOS. Harmony covers both drawn and rigged work, with node based compositing and deformers in the upper tier, and it is what a great deal of broadcast series animation is made in. The learning curve is real and so is the ceiling.
Moho formerly Anime Studio Perpetual, two editions: Built around bone rigging for vector characters, with smart bones that let a rig carry drawn corrections. Debut and Pro editions on Windows and macOS. A strong choice for one person making a series with recurring characters.
Adobe Animate the former Flash Professional Subscription: The same authoring tool that published SWF files for the web, renamed in 2016 and retargeted at HTML5 Canvas, WebGL, video and application export. Vector drawing, symbols and a timeline that generations of animators already know. the format it used to publish
Synfig Studio free, vector, tween based Free: Open source vector animation on all three desktop platforms, built around interpolating between keyframes rather than drawing them. Capable, idiosyncratic, and the cheapest way to learn how tweening actually behaves.

Motion, effects and interface work animation that is not a cartoon

Adobe After Effects compositing and motion graphics Subscription: Not a drawing program, but the standard for moving artwork around, compositing passes and finishing. With rigging plugins it is also used for character work, and with the Bodymovin plugin it exports to the Lottie JSON format used by applications and websites.
Blender, Grease Pencil two dimensional drawing inside a three dimensional scene Free: Grease Pencil lets you draw flat strokes in a three dimensional space, so a drawing can be lit, moved through and composited with three dimensional elements. It is free, runs everywhere, and it does far more than animation, which is both the attraction and the difficulty.
Rive interactive vector animation Subscription with a free tier: An editor and a set of runtimes for animation that reacts to input, aimed at application and web interfaces rather than film. If the work has to respond to a user rather than play back, this is the category to look in.

Choosing, in three questions

Before any trial download

Ask in this order

Do you want to draw every frame? If yes, go to the frame by frame group and ignore rigging entirely. If no, a rig will save weeks and cost you some spontaneity.
What has to come out of it? A video file, a sprite sheet for a game engine, a Lottie file for an app, HTML5 for a browser, or frames for a compositor. Export requirements eliminate more candidates than features do.
Who else touches the file? Alone, any of these work. In a team, the pipeline usually decides, and the answer is often Harmony or After Effects because that is what the studio already runs.