Is Krita worth it on Mac M1 or M2?

Support and Advice General Questions
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I have a 2017 MacBook Air. 8GB. Krita runs decently after turning off Canvas Graphics Accelerator. Big brushes lag A LOT though, but they also lag the same in Photoshop for me. I’ve been an Apple user for years now and I’m getting into Open Source Software as well. Looking into Blender, KdenLive, etc.

Anyway, I just wanted to ask if Krita was worth it on an M1 or M2 MacBook Pro with 16GB. I’m thinking of buying that because I love Krita, or if it’s not really worth it, just get an iPad Pro 12.9 inch.

For more context, I bought a Huion Kamvas Pro 16 (2021) and really want to use it, but Krita runs pretty slowly so I want to know if it’s the OS or just the old computer. Will it run smoothly on an M2 MacBook Pro with 16GB unified memory?

Thanks! :smiley:

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:slight_smile: Hello @Cesar_Art, and welcome to the forum!

I’m no Mac user, but in my eyes the new CPU’s for Mac’s together with at least 16 GB of RAM should run smooth with Krita. Maybe this article I found recently is useful for you and helps to answer this question for you?

Michelist

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When I paint in Krita (which isn’t that often, I’m more often coding…) I exclusively use my M1 macbook pro. For how I work, which is mainly sketching and painting on fairly large canvases, it works perfectly well. I don’t see any slowdowns. We already ship native arm builds.

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And if, after buying a new M1 or M2 Mac, you want to experience how fast Krita runs on an 8 GB MacBook Air, install Linux on it, and you’ll be amazed at what’s possible on your MacBook! I’ve heard it more than once that Linux on Mac’s pushes them hard forward, if you consider that macOS is based on Linux, then you wonder what the coders in Cupertino learned at university, or why they don’t use it!

Michelist

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I have tried Linux on a non-M and it’s faster than macOS itself. Krita seems to do much better on Linux. I didn’t stick to Linux because of the many issues of running Linux on a MacBook Pro, such as no sound support, fan etc… So I’m very curious to know whether Linux can actually run on M1/M2 MacBook without any driver issue?

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I didn’t say it is easy and to do it when the new hardware has arrived, but about your concerns, some things can be made working, sound for instance:

:wink:

Michelist

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Interesting, I have been debating installing linux on my 8gb macbook as well, being able to actually run krita 5 on it would be a benefit
Is it really so hard?

By the way, my desktop is also 8 gb, it’s fine, I even animate on it

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It already requires the will to work your way through the obstacles put up by Apple piece by piece. But you can get a very performant PC.

Michelist

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Krita is extremely fast on a Linux running on a MacBook Pro. The distro I tested on was Manjaro. I tried that out at a time when Krita was laggy on macOS and I couldn’t believe my eyes when the brushstroke went smoothly at a very high resolution Canvas. Now that we have a developer looking after Krita for macOS things are improving, but when comparing to Linux, Linux is still far better for Krita, even running on a MacBook. You don’t have to install Linux, you can just put a live disc into a USB drive and test it out without installing Linux. But you might run into problems, like not having internet access and have to use an external wifi usb to download Krita and so on. When I tested Manjaro, it was an installation and not a live usb.

Currently I’m not in the mood to explore any painting because of the spec I’m using at the moment. Drawing, sketching and small stuff are what I’m doing at the moment until I have better spec that can handle 8000x8000 @ 300dpi with no brushstroke lag. I like to work big.

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Thanks for your welcome :smiley: yeah I’ll take a look and check out how Krita is on the M2 MBPs. Btw, do you know if open source software is in general better in windows? I’m so into the community aspect and Krita impresses me more each day that I’m thinking of getting a good windows laptop for that. What do you think? Thanks!

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I won’t say it is better, but you’ll have a much, much bigger variety on Windows and Linux than on macOS. The reason are the freaks in Cupertino, thinking a software without a price-tag, or even free and open source, is a devil’s work and shouldn’t exist. This is the reason for them to put the hurdles very high for those who want to get an “entrance card” into the world of macOS, and because of that they built a massive paywall for those who want to get entrance.

Michelist

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Yeah that’s the thing. I’m more “principle driven” than profit driven. MacOS has been awesome, but what you mention about those in Cupertino and all kind of makes me want to ditch MacOS and adopt Windows or Linux. I’m in no way a programmer or into languages, but I love the communities behind these apps and OSs. Thanks for your reply! I guess windows and Linux are the way to go for me :smiley:

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