Photopea Creator Accuses Rival Photo Editor PhotoSuite of Copying His Code

A public dispute has broken out on GitHub between the creator of Photopea, the long-running browser-based photo editor, and the developer behind a newer desktop project called PhotoSuite, after Photopea's creator accused the newcomer of copying his work rather than building an original product.

The argument began when the Photopea developer, who goes by the username kuckir, opened an issue on PhotoSuite's repository titled "Why did you steal my work?" In it, he wrote that he has worked on Photopea since 2012 and asked the PhotoSuite team to "implement your own photo editor instead of stealing mine." He added that he was "really surprised that GitHub tolerates piracy."

PhotoSuite's owner, who uses the handle eolix, pushed back and asked for specifics, later renaming the issue "Photopea developer concerns." Several commenters sided with eolix, arguing that Photopea itself mimics Photoshop's interface and that eolix had openly credited Photopea as an inspiration. One user, EuphoricPenguin, said a side-by-side code review suggested the project was a largely original, clean-room implementation, estimating more than 99 percent of the code as distinct, though some proprietary assets remained.

The dispute escalated when kuckir, posting from a second account after saying eolix had banned his main one from the repository, offered a detailed technical rebuttal. He pointed to a specific code block handling the "SoLd" object in PSD files, noting that a property named "__name" in PhotoSuite matched a naming choice he says he made in Photopea in 2014, after using a different name in 2013. He argued that such a specific, non-obvious naming decision would be difficult to arrive at independently and said he could trace "every line" of PhotoSuite back to code in Photopea that predates it. He estimated he has spent more than 30,000 hours on Photopea over 14 years and closed over 8,000 GitHub issues.

Eolix responded with a detailed technical defense, acknowledging that PhotoSuite's lineage traces back to a mirrored Photopea build and stating the README credits Photopea as prior art. He said the project has since been rewritten and restructured into roughly 330 source files over the past year, retargeted for desktop use, with additional features not found in Photopea. He also offered a technical justification for the disputed code, including the retained "__name" field and default properties such as "nonAffineTransform" and "Impr," arguing they serve specific functional purposes in PhotoSuite's architecture rather than being copied without reason. He invited kuckir to specify any code he wanted removed or attribution he wanted changed.

Other commenters weighed in on the broader implications of AI-assisted coding in the dispute. One user, devopsbrett, praised Photopea as an "engineering masterpiece" but argued that PhotoSuite still has a legitimate place, noting that eolix had credited Photopea, published the full codebase, and avoided immediately monetizing the work. Another user noted that a separate mirrored Photopea build linked in the discussion appeared to be an unauthorized copy in its own right.

As of the latest activity, the GitHub issue remains open, with eolix having asked kuckir directly what changes he would like made. The exchange, amplified after being posted to Hacker News, has drawn wider attention to PhotoSuite, with multiple commenters saying they only discovered the project because of the dispute.