Douga, and the ones you'd weigh it against.
What Douga is good for, what it isn't, and which of seven other programs to use when it's the wrong shape for your work, and what comes across when you bring a film in from one of them.
This page is written by the person who makes Douga, so check it: every program below links to its own site, and that site is the authority on what it does.
What Douga is for, and what it isn't
Free, with everything in it
Every feature works without paying, and the download is a folder you unzip: no installer, no redistributables, no account, no activation server. The key takes the Douga mark off your exports and that is the only thing it does.
The sheet is the document
In the painting programs the timeline is a panel you open. Here the sheet is the file: cuts, exposure, holds and the camera keys are the document, so retiming is dragging a hold rather than moving keyframes that stand in for drawings. Scenes gather cuts, each keeping its own timing and length, and the whole film leaves as a PNG sequence, a GIF, an MP4 with its audio, or an X-sheet as PDF or XDTS.
The line is a painting program's line
Five brush modes (pen, marker, airbrush, smudge and eraser), and pressure, tilt and speed each shaped by a curve of its own, with a toe so a feather touch still lays ink and a ceiling so a hard press doesn't blow out. The stabilizer pulls the wobble out of a long slow one. Fifteen brushes ship, and the brush creator builds the rest: tip shape, your own paper grain, how the line answers the pen, packed into a .dbrush to hand on.
Change one swatch, recolor the film
Ink and paint remember which swatch made them, so editing that swatch recolors every linked mark across the whole film. Keep the colors in named groups, hand the model to the next film as a .dpal, and it starts on model.
One hand stays on the pen
Hold R and roll the stack like paper. Two fingers tap to undo and three to redo, a twist turns the paper and snaps it level, and the peg bar drags, so you can lay a neighboring drawing where the arc says it goes and tap it home.
Windows only
Linux and macOS sit under Later on the roadmap, and later means later. If you're not on Windows, one of the free programs below is your answer today rather than something to wait for.
Every other program here is older
Every program below has been in development longer than Douga has existed, several of them by decades. That buys them stability, a plugin ecosystem and somebody else to ask when it breaks, and none of those three are things a feature list shows you.
No vector layers yet
Everything you draw today is pixels, so line work doesn't survive being scaled up after the fact. Vector layers are under Next on the roadmap, which is a plan and not a date.
No rigging yet
The mechanics are in: every layer moves on keys of its own, eased, the way the camera does. What is missing is the tier above them, which is parenting one layer to another and deformers to bend what is drawn. Until those land, cut-out character work belongs in one of the programs below.
No masks or adjustment layers
Clipping, alpha lock and one keyed grade a layer are the whole list of what you can do to a pass once it is painted. In Krita or Clip Studio you mask part of it out and paint it back; here you undo, or you paint over. Everything is 8-bit sRGB end to end, so a background headed for a grade later is happier painted in one of those and brought in.
The left column is on the features page at more length. None of it is worth anything if the right column is describing your work, and if it is, one of these is.
Seven alternatives, and who each one is for
Windows drawing programs you'd actually shortlist, nearest to Douga first. The free ones lead because they're what you're most likely already running.
| Program | Cost | Runs on | Best when |
|---|---|---|---|
| Douga | free | Windows | Hand-drawn frames, timed on a sheet |
| Krita | free · open source | Windows, macOS, Linux | Painting, texture, painted backgrounds |
| Pencil2D | free · open source | Windows, macOS, Linux | The least program between you and the drawing |
| OpenToonz | free · open source | Windows, macOS, Linux | A studio pipeline: compositing, effects, scanned paper |
| Clip Studio Paint | paid | Windows, macOS, iPad, Android | Comics and illustration, with animation as part of it |
| Blender | free · open source | Windows, macOS, Linux | 2D that has to live inside a 3D shot |
| TVPaint Animation | paid | Windows, macOS, Linux | Professional hand-drawn 2D, as a business expense |
| Toon Boom Harmony | paid | Windows, macOS | Rigged characters and series work |
That table is the whole shortlist, and every name in it links out. If none of those rows is the film you are making, the download is free and the whole program is in it.
What arrives when you move a film over
Three ways in, and which one you get depends on what your program can write. All three are in the free download and none of them wants a plugin.
From Krita, the layers arrive as layers
A .kra opens as a new film at the painting's own size, or Import › Krita Image pours its layer stack into the film you already have, a cel per layer. Krita's own tiles are read directly, so nothing is flattened on the way in and nothing has to be exported first.
From Clip Studio Paint or OpenToonz, the timing arrives as timing
Both write XDTS, the timesheet the Japanese tools settled on, and Douga reads it. The sheet lands as a new cut with the exposure already on it: every hold and every re-expose where it was, blank drawings waiting under them. Bring the artwork over as a sequence and you are drawing against your own sheet rather than typing it back in.
From anywhere else, the drawings arrive as drawings
Pencil2D, Blender, TVPaint and Harmony all write an image sequence, and that comes in a cel per file, onto the active layer from the playhead, growing the cut if the sequence runs off the end of it. Each cel keeps its filename, so a folder of walk_01, walk_02 is still named that in the Files card. An animated GIF or a video comes in the same way, with its timing.
Audio, poses, a color model and another whole Douga project come in through the same menu. The manual lists what is under File › Import in full.