Toast UI Image Editor is a free, MIT-licensed photo editor for the browser, with crop, filters, drawing, and text in a ready-made UI. Its maintainers archived the GitHub repository on September 2, 2026, and the last release, v3.15.3, dates from April 2022. Polotno SDK is a commercial design editor you embed in your product, with templates, multi-page designs, and server rendering. The question that decides it: are you keeping an install that works, or choosing an editor to build on?
Pick the one that matches where you are
Pick Toast UI Image Editor if…
- You already run it and it does its job. An install that works can stay, as long as you accept that fixes now come from you.
- You need a throwaway or internal photo tool. A crop-and-annotate screen for your own staff can live with a frozen dependency.
- You want a free, ready-made photo UI. Crop, flip, rotate, draw, shape, icon, text, mask, and filter menus come in one MIT-licensed component, with React and Vue wrappers.
Pick Polotno SDK if…
- You are choosing an editor to build on. Polotno has a public changelog and a published support SLA.
- Your users design as well as retouch. Text, shapes, images, and video sit on the same canvas, across multiple pages and reusable templates.
- You need rendering outside the browser. Polotno renders through the Cloud Render API or on your own servers.
- You need more than images out. PDF, PPTX, SVG, HTML, GIF, and MP4 come from the same design.
An archived photo editor vs a maintained design editor
1. Maintenance
The repository is read-only, so it takes no new issues, pull requests, or fixes. The package still installs from npm. It depends on Fabric 4, while Fabric itself is on version 7, so fixes from later Fabric versions do not reach you either. If a bug or a browser change breaks your editor, you repair it in your own fork.
Polotno is a commercial product. A license comes with a support SLA, and each major version stays supported for at least 12 months after release.
2. What your users edit
Toast UI edits an image. You load one, crop, flip, rotate, filter, or mask it, draw shapes, icons, and text over it, and export the result. Its published API exports an image and offers no document format to save.
Polotno edits a design: pages of text, images, shapes, SVG, and video, saved as JSON that a user can reopen and change. If your users only touch up photos, that is more editor than you need, and a photo-focused product such as Pintura fits better.
3. Automation
Toast UI has a scripting API that can load an image, add text, apply a filter, and export. It has no template schema or batch layer, and it runs in a browser only.
Polotno designs are JSON your code can write. You set values in the JSON, with placeholders in text as a common convention, and render the result from a backend job. Templates use the same format.
4. Cost model
Toast UI is free under the MIT license, and any maintenance is yours.
Feature comparison
| Capability | Polotno SDK | Toast UI Image Editor |
|---|---|---|
| Project status | Active commercial product | Repository archived on September 2, 2026 |
| What it is | Embeddable design editor with a JSON format | Browser image editor |
| Editor UI | Included and customizable | Included, with white and black themes |
| Photo tools | Crop, flip, masks, filters, free drawing | Crop, flip, rotate, masks, filters, drawing |
| Templates and multiple pages | Included | Not included |
| Automation | JSON your code writes, rendered on a server | Browser scripting API, no schema or batch layer |
| Runs on | Cloud Render API, your servers, browser | Browser only |
| Output | PNG, JPEG, PDF, SVG, HTML, PPTX, GIF, MP4. Cloud Render: PNG, JPEG, PDF, PPTX, GIF, MP4 | Images |
| Vue support | Guide for Vue; customizing the editor needs React | Official Vue wrapper |
| License | Commercial, fixed license fee by custom quote, Cloud Render billed per use | MIT, free |
When Toast UI Image Editor is the right call
Two cases hold up. You already run it, it does what your users need, and replacing it would buy you nothing today. Or you need a throwaway or internal tool, where a free photo editor is enough. In both cases you accept that no upstream fixes will come, and you own any fork you make.
For a new product, weigh the archive first. If you want a free base to build on, Fabric.js is active and sits under Toast UI already. If you want a maintained photo editor, look at Pintura. If your users need to design, that is the job Polotno does. You can test it with the 30-day free trial, no credit card needed.
FAQ
Can Polotno replace it?
For most of the photo tools, yes. The two filter sets differ, so test the ones you rely on.
Can I move my Toast UI work to Polotno?
Toast UI exports finished images and has no document format, so you have nothing to convert. You load your source images into Polotno as image elements and replace the editor in your UI.
