Small, simple frame-by-frame animation program with raster and vector layers, for hand-drawn sprite animation and animatics. Runs on Windows, macOS, Linux and FreeBSD.
At a glance
Licence
GPL-2.0-only
Commercial use
commercial OK
Credit
Not required
Status
active: License spot-checked at the source; the entry carries dated evidence.
GPL version 2 only: the source headers grant "version 2 of the License" with no "or any later version" clause, so the licence is GPL-2.0-only
The GPL covers the program. Animations you draw are your own; the homepage says it is free to use "even commercially"
Filed in tools/ with the other general 2D art and animation editors
Evidence
Live homepage (2026-09-26): "Pencil2D is completely open source and free to use, even commercially!"
Live GitHub app/src/main.cpp and core_lib/src/structure/object.cpp headers (2026-09-26): "under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; version 2 of the License"
Live GitHub LICENSE.TXT (2026-09-26): "GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE Version 2, June 1991"