Photopea
Pulumi
| Feature | Photopea | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Free / from $5/mo | Free / from $50/mo |
| Free Plan | ✓ Yes | ✓ Yes |
| Rating | 4.5 / 5 | 4.4 / 5 |
| Best For | designers, students, photo-editors, budget-conscious-creatives | developers, platform-engineers, polyglot-teams, cloud-architects |
| Founded | 2013 | 2017 |
| Photo Editing | ✓ | ✗ |
| Psd Support | ✓ | ✗ |
| Layers | ✓ | ✗ |
| Filters | ✓ | ✗ |
| Batch Processing | ✓ | ✗ |
| Vector Tools | ✓ | ✗ |
| Programming Languages | ✗ | ✓ |
| Multi Cloud | ✗ | ✓ |
| State Management | ✗ | ✓ |
| Policy As Code | ✗ | ✓ |
| Secrets Management | ✗ | ✓ |
| Pulumi Ai | ✗ | ✓ |
| Drift Detection | ✗ | ✓ |
✓ Photopea Pros
- Free and browser-based
- Opens PSD files perfectly
- No installation needed
- Full editing capabilities
✗ Photopea Cons
- Ads on free version
- Can be slow with large files
- Limited batch processing
✓ Pulumi Pros
- Use real programming languages instead of DSLs
- Strong typing and IDE support for infrastructure code
- Multi-cloud support with consistent API
- Pulumi AI generates infrastructure code from prompts
✗ Pulumi Cons
- Smaller community than Terraform
- State management requires Pulumi Cloud or self-hosting
- Less third-party provider coverage than Terraform
The Verdict
Photopea is built for designers and students, with a focus on photo-editing and psd-support. Pulumi targets developers and platform engineers and leads with programming-languages and multi-cloud.
On pricing, Photopea is the clear winner for budget-conscious users — starting at $5/mo compared to $50/mo for Pulumi. That $45/mo difference adds up quickly for growing teams.
Both offer free plans, so you can test each with your real workflow before committing to a subscription.
Feature-wise, Pulumi offers broader built-in capabilities (7 features vs 6), while Photopea takes a more focused approach — which can mean a simpler, faster onboarding experience.
This is a genuinely close comparison. If you can, sign up for both free trials (where available) and run a one-week test with your actual team tasks before deciding.