Topaz Gigapixel AI: Pricing 2026 + 7 Free Alternatives Tested

Tested by Luca Sammarco, builder of SammaPix — 7 tools tested on the same 4 source images, May 2026.

Why people are leaving Topaz

Topaz Gigapixel AI was the gold standard for image upscaling. You paid once ($99), you owned it forever. Then Topaz Labs switched to a subscription model.

As of 2026, Topaz Photo AI — which bundles Gigapixel, DeNoise, and Sharpen — costs $199/year or roughly $17–25/month. Users who bought the perpetual license before the switch can still use their old version, but they no longer receive model updates.

The backlash was immediate. On Reddit alone, threads about Topaz alternatives have accumulated hundreds of upvotes and comments from frustrated users. The recurring complaint: “I paid $99 for a tool that worked. Now they want $199 every year for the same thing.”

If you’re one of those users — or if you simply don’t want to pay $199/year to upscale a few photos — here are seven alternatives that cost nothing.

The 7 alternatives

I tested each tool on the same set of photos: portraits, landscapes, product shots, and old family photos. Here’s what I found.

1. Upscayl — best overall free alternative

• Type — Desktop app (Windows, Mac, Linux)
• Technology — Real-ESRGAN models (multiple options)
• Scale factors — 2x, 3x, 4x
• Price — Free, open-source (MIT license)
• Privacy — 100% local processing, nothing uploaded

Upscayl is the closest thing to a free Topaz Gigapixel. It’s a desktop app with a clean GUI that uses Real-ESRGAN models under the hood. You drag in your image, pick a scale factor, and it processes everything on your GPU.

With over 30,000 stars on GitHub and active development, it’s the most popular open-source upscaler available. The results at 2x are genuinely comparable to Topaz. At 4x, Topaz still has a slight edge on fine details like hair strands and small text, but the gap has narrowed significantly.

Best for: anyone who wants Topaz-quality results without paying. You need to install a desktop app, but the results justify it.

2. Real-ESRGAN — the engine behind most free upscalers

• Type — Command-line tool / Python library
• Technology — Real-ESRGAN neural network (by Tencent ARC)
• Scale factors — 2x, 4x (custom models support more)
• Price — Free, open-source (BSD-3)
• Privacy — Runs locally, no network calls

Real-ESRGAN is the actual AI model that powers Upscayl and most other free upscalers. Developed by Tencent’s ARC Lab, it’s one of the most cited super-resolution papers in computer vision.

If you’re comfortable with the command line, using Real-ESRGAN directly gives you the most control. You can batch-process thousands of images, choose specific models for different content types (photos vs. anime vs. video frames), and fine-tune parameters.

Best for: developers, photographers with large batches, and anyone who wants maximum control over the upscaling process.

3. Waifu2x — best for illustrations and anime

• Type — Web app + desktop versions available
• Technology — Deep CNN trained on anime/illustration data
• Scale factors — 2x (some forks support 4x)
• Price — Free
• Privacy — Web version uploads images; desktop versions are local

Waifu2x was one of the first neural network upscalers to go mainstream. It’s been around since 2015 and is still excellent at what it was designed for: upscaling anime art, illustrations, and graphics with clean lines.

For photographs, Real-ESRGAN and Upscayl produce better results. But if you work with digital art, manga, or graphic design, Waifu2x handles flat colors and sharp edges better than general-purpose upscalers.

Best for: digital artists, manga readers, and anyone upscaling illustrations or graphics rather than photographs.

4. SammaPix — best for quick browser-based upscaling

• Type — Web app (runs in your browser)
• Technology — High-quality browser interpolation (Canvas API)
• Scale factors — 2x, 4x
• Price — Free (5 upscales/day, Pro for 100/day)
• Privacy — 100% client-side, nothing ever uploaded

Full disclosure: this is our tool. SammaPix’s upscaler uses high-quality browser-based interpolation, not AI super-resolution. It won’t hallucinate new detail like Real-ESRGAN does — it smoothly scales what’s already there using multi-pass algorithms.

That means it won’t add fake sharpness or introduce artifacts. The trade-off is that it doesn’t “invent” detail that wasn’t in the original image. For social media posts, web thumbnails, and email images, the results are clean and fast. For print-quality enlargements from very low-res sources, you’ll want Upscayl or Real-ESRGAN instead.

The advantage: zero installation, zero signup, and your images never leave your device. Open the tool, drop your image, click upscale. Plus, if you need to compress, convert to WebP, or remove the background afterward, everything is in the same place. We also wrote a detailed comparison of the best free remove.bg alternatives if background removal is your main need.

Best for: quick upscaling for web, social media, or email without installing anything. Not a replacement for AI super-resolution on heavily degraded images.

5. Bigjpg — simple online AI upscaler

• Type — Web app (server-side processing)
• Technology — Deep CNN (Waifu2x-based)
• Scale factors — 2x, 4x (free), up to 16x (paid)
• Price — Free tier: 20 images/month, 5MB limit. Paid: from $6/month
• Privacy — Images uploaded to server for processing

Bigjpg is a straightforward online upscaler that uses a Waifu2x-based model. The free tier gives you 20 images per month at up to 4x. The interface is minimal — upload, choose scale, download.

Quality is decent for illustrations and clean photos. On noisy or heavily compressed JPEGs, it tends to produce smoother but slightly plastic-looking results. The main drawback: your images are uploaded to their servers.

Best for: occasional use when you need a quick AI upscale without installing anything and don’t mind server-side processing.

6. Pixelcut — best for e-commerce product photos

• Type — Web app + mobile app
• Technology — Proprietary AI models
• Scale factors — 2x, 4x
• Price — Free tier with watermark. Pro from $9.99/month
• Privacy — Images uploaded to server

Pixelcut positions itself as an all-in-one tool for e-commerce sellers. The upscaler is part of a suite that includes background removal, product mockups, and batch editing. The AI upscaling quality is good, particularly for product photos on white backgrounds.

Best for: e-commerce sellers who need upscaling as part of a product photo workflow. Less useful as a standalone upscaler.

7. chaiNNer — best for power users

• Type — Desktop app (Windows, Mac, Linux)
• Technology — Node-based editor supporting Real-ESRGAN, BSRGAN, SwinIR, and dozens more
• Scale factors — Any (model-dependent)
• Price — Free, open-source
• Privacy — 100% local processing

chaiNNer is a visual node-based editor for image processing. Think of it as a visual programming environment where you can chain together upscaling models, denoisers, sharpeners, and format converters into custom pipelines.

It supports more AI models than any other tool on this list: Real-ESRGAN, BSRGAN, SwinIR, HAT, and many community-trained models. The learning curve is steeper than Upscayl, but if you process large batches or need specific model combinations, it’s unmatched.

Best for: power users who want to build custom upscaling workflows, test different models, or batch-process with fine-grained control.

Comparison table

Which one should you use

• You want the closest to Topaz quality, free — Upscayl. Install it, use it, don’t look back.
• You need to upscale hundreds of images in a batch — Real-ESRGAN (CLI) or chaiNNer for visual pipelines.
• You work with anime, manga, or illustrations — Waifu2x. It was built for this.
• You want to upscale a few images right now, no install — SammaPix. Open the browser, drop your image, done.
• You sell products on Amazon, Etsy, or Shopify — Pixelcut if you need a full product photo suite.
• You’re restoring old family photos — Upscayl at 4x with the Real-ESRGAN x4plus model. Then use SammaPix to compress the result for sharing.

The bottom line: you no longer need to pay $199/year for good upscaling. For most use cases — web, social media, e-commerce, personal photos — the free alternatives on this list produce results that are indistinguishable from Topaz at 2x magnification. At 4x, Topaz still holds a marginal edge on extreme detail recovery, but the gap is closing with every new model release.