Palette.fm alternatives: 6 ways to colorize old photos, and who each one suits

Short answer. There is no single best replacement, because people leave Palette.fm for different reasons. If you want no sign-up and no subscription, try ColorizeOldPhotos. If you want a monthly allowance of free credits, try ImageColorizer. If your photos are part of a family-history project, MyHeritage In Color is built for that. If you want manual control over every color, use Photoshop. If you are technical and want it free and offline, run DeOldify.

A reminder before you compare anything: every one of these tools adds colors that are estimates, not a record of the original colors. See how accurate AI colorization is.

Why people look for alternatives

Palette.fm is a colorization-only web tool with more than 21 color filters, free watermarked previews up to 500 × 500 px, and paid downloads up to 5000 × 5000 px. Its paid options are $72 a year for 480 credits or $49 once for 75 credits valid for two years (see our three-way comparison, checked 7 October 2026). The usual reasons to look elsewhere are that you need to sign up before trying it, that it does not advertise damage repair, that you prefer paying per photo or not at all, or that you want a tool you can use offline.

At a glance

ImageColorizer: a monthly free allowance

ImageColorizer offers colorizing, restoring, enhancing, retouching and scratch removal, with mobile and Mac apps. Its pricing page lists a free plan with 50 credits a month and ads, and paid plans at $6.9 (500 credits), $9.9 (1,000 credits) and $19.9 a month, the last with unlimited use of its V2 model. Paid users can upload photos up to 4000 px on one side, and unused credits roll over. The page says a repeat download of the same image costs another credit, so it matters how you work. Its pages did not state how many credits one photo costs or whether an account is needed.

Choose it when you will process photos regularly and a monthly credit allowance suits you. Look elsewhere when you only have a few photos and do not want a plan to cancel.

Hotpot AI: pay-as-you-go credits

Hotpot has separate colorizing and restoring tools. Its pricing page offers a pay-once option with credit packs starting at $12 for 1,000 credits, and says credit costs vary by tool and settings. A free tier has a daily limit and its free images are licensed for non-commercial use only. We could not confirm the credit cost of one colorized photo, and the pricing page we read looked old, so check the current terms before buying.

Choose it when you want pay-as-you-go credits and are fine with a general-purpose image tool site. Look elsewhere when you need clear per-photo pricing before you start.

MyHeritage In Color: for family-history work

MyHeritage colorizes inside its family-history service. Its help page says anyone can colorize several photos free, with a MyHeritage logo on the result, and that a Complete subscription gives unlimited colorizing without the logo. It also says In Color works on faded photos that still hold some color, though it does not use the color information already in a photo. The technology was licensed from DeOldify’s creators, who later helped build a newer default model with the company. The free limit is not stated as a number.

Choose it when you already use MyHeritage for your family tree, or want your colorized photos stored next to your records. Look elsewhere when you only want a one-off result and do not want to sign up for a genealogy service.

Photoshop Colorize: manual control

Photoshop’s Colorize neural filter picks colors automatically and then lets you adjust global color and saturation, change colors in specific areas and fine-tune the result. Photoshop itself needs a Creative Cloud plan, with a free trial. The Adobe page we read did not say which Photoshop versions include the filter.

Choose it when you already pay for Photoshop and want to correct individual colors by hand. Look elsewhere when you want a quick result without learning an editor.

DeOldify: free, offline, archived

DeOldify is MIT-licensed and runs on your own machine, which needs Linux, Python skills and a graphics card with about 4 GB of memory or more. Its repository has been archived and read-only since 19 October 2024, so no new fixes are coming. Nothing is uploaded anywhere, which makes it the most private option.

Choose it when you are technical, have many photos and cannot upload them. Look elsewhere when you want something that works in a browser in a minute.

ColorizeOldPhotos (our own tool): no sign-up, no subscription

We built this for family prints that are both black and white and damaged. Colorize only costs 1 credit; restore, or restore + colorize, costs 2. The watermarked preview is free and needs no sign-up, and credit packs ($9.99 for 10, $25.99 for 40, $59.99 for 120) are one-time purchases valid for two years. Exact sizes, daily limits and refund rules are on the limits page.

Our limits. Colors are AI estimates. Restored areas that were missing are reconstructed, so faces and lettering there can differ from the original. There are no filters and you cannot recolor a single object. Restore results are capped at 2048 px on the long side, well below Palette.fm’s paid maximum. See our results on public-domain photos in the examples gallery.

Choose it when you have a handful of photos, want to see a preview before creating an account, and do not want a subscription. Look elsewhere when you need very large output, filters or batch processing.

How to choose

• A few damaged prints, no account and no subscription: ColorizeOldPhotos.
• Regular use with a monthly free allowance: ImageColorizer.
• Part of a family-tree project: MyHeritage In Color.
• You want to control every color: Photoshop Colorize.
• Hundreds of photos and no uploads: DeOldify on your own graphics card.
• Not sure: try the free previews. Several of these show a watermarked result before you pay.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best free alternative to Palette.fm?

For a free, hosted option, ImageColorizer’s free plan gives 50 credits a month with ads, and MyHeritage and ColorizeOldPhotos give limited free use with a watermark or logo. DeOldify is free without limits if you can run it yourself.

Which alternative has no subscription?

ColorizeOldPhotos sells one-time credit packs, Hotpot’s pricing page lists a pay-once option, and DeOldify is free. ImageColorizer, MyHeritage’s unlimited use and Photoshop are all subscription-based.

Which one can also fix scratches?

ColorizeOldPhotos, ImageColorizer and Hotpot each have restoration tools, and DeOldify’s README says it handles restoration. In Photoshop you retouch by hand. See how we tested AI restoration for what to expect.

Which one is best for family photos?

It depends on what you value: MyHeritage keeps results beside your family tree, DeOldify keeps photos on your machine, and ColorizeOldPhotos needs no account to preview. Whichever you pick, read the privacy checklist first.