The texture painter that opens in a browser tab.

Love the Substance workflow, not the install, the seat, or the workstation it's chained to? Mixos is the Substance Painter–style workflow online, in your browser — layer-and-mask PBR painting that is free to author, render-ready on export, and runs on whatever machine you're sitting at.

Start free Explore Mixos

mixos Paint open on an iPad showing a wooden table with worn, dirt-darkened edges, on a white-oak desk in a sunlit studio, an Apple Pencil and material samples beside it.

The workflow you already know

Stack blendable layers, isolate them with masks, drop in smart materials, and paint detail right on the mesh. The mental model carries straight over.

Nothing to install or license

No multi-gigabyte download, no launcher, no per-seat license. Open a URL on Mac, Windows, Linux, a Chromebook or an iPad — with an Apple Pencil if you have one — and you're painting.

Standard PBR maps out

Export base color, normal, roughness, metallic, height, AO and a .glb — the same map sets you'd hand off from a desktop suite, ready for any engine.

AI where it saves time

Generate tiling materials, masks, brushes, and decals from a prompt, or one-click Auto-Texture a whole mesh — then refine by hand.

Feature by feature

Mixos vs Substance 3D Painter at a glance

The same layer-and-mask workflow, compared honestly. A check marks the tool with the edge on each row — including the rows Substance wins.

Feature	Mixos	Substance 3D Painter
Runs on	Any WebGPU browser, nothing to install — Mac, Windows, Linux, Chromebook, iPad	Desktop install on Windows, macOS and Linux
Price	Free to author; a paid plan or perpetual license to export	Paid subscription or a perpetual Steam license
Layers and masks	Blendable layers, masks, height blend	Yes — the reference implementation
Smart materials and generators	Smart materials, edge wear, node material graph	Deeper generators, plus Substance Designer (.sbsar) integration
Mesh-map baking	AO, curvature, cavity, thickness, normals, high-to-low	Highly configurable baker, including ID maps
UV unwrapping	Automatic unwrap in the editor	Automatic unwrap on import
AI generation	Built in — materials, textures, masks, decals, Auto-Texture	Separate Adobe apps (Sampler, Firefly)
Material library	2,600+ CC0 PBR materials built in	Built-in presets plus Substance 3D Assets
Export presets	Unreal, Unity, Godot, Blender, Cinema 4D, Roblox and more	Configurable templates for engines and renderers
Map file formats	PNG (8- or 16-bit), EXR, TGA, TIFF, PSD	PNG, EXR, TGA, TIFF, PSD and more
Max export resolution	4K	8K
Works offline	In the desktop app; the browser needs a connection	Yes
Live Link	Streams maps into Blender, Cinema 4D and Unreal as you paint	Via plugins and bridges

Substance 3D Painter details reflect Adobe's public product information as of September 2026 and may change.

See the full Mixos vs Substance 3D Painter comparison

Why Mixos

A familiar texturing workflow, without the desktop app

Desktop texturing suites are powerful, but they ask a lot before you paint a single pixel: a large install, GPU drivers, a license seat, and a workstation you have to sit at. Mixos keeps the part that matters — non-destructive layers, masks, smart materials, and projection painting — and delivers it through a URL using WebGPU for desktop-class PBR rendering right in the tab.

Because everything runs in the browser, collaboration and hand-off get simpler. Share a link or a portable project file instead of shipping a scene plus every dependency, and know that everyone is on the latest version with nothing to update. Your textures export as standard map sets, so they drop straight into Cinema 4D, Blender, Unreal, Unity, Godot, Houdini, and Maya.

Mixos is free to author in — you only pay to export production-resolution maps, keep a full cloud project library, and generate with AI at volume. That makes it a low-risk way to try a layer-based PBR workflow, whether you're moving off a desktop tool or picking up texturing for the first time.

Or skip the painting entirely — auto-texture with AI

Auto is Mixos's standalone AI auto-texture tool: upload a model, describe the look in one prompt, and it projects a full editable PBR set onto the mesh — something Substance Painter doesn't do at all.

Frequently asked questions

Is Mixos really a free Substance Painter alternative?

The entire editor is free — paint, layer, mask, bake, and preview in real time, with trial credits for the AI generators. Paid plans add watermark-free high-resolution export, a cloud project library, and a larger monthly pool of AI credits.

Can I export the same PBR maps I get from Substance Painter?

Yes. Mixos exports standard PBR map sets — base color, normal, roughness, metallic, height, and opacity — plus baked maps like AO and curvature and a glTF (.glb), so they import into any renderer or game engine.

Do I need a powerful PC?

No. The editor renders with WebGPU in a modern browser (Chrome, Edge, Firefox, or Safari 26+) and runs on most machines from the last several years — including laptops, Chromebooks, and even an iPad, where Substance Painter can't run at all. There's nothing to install.

Can I import my existing meshes?

Yes — bring in GLB, glTF, FBX, or OBJ to paint and bake on, and import photos or scans as material sources.

Is there a version for students and schools?

Yes. The editor is free for any student with no time limit, and instructors can apply for a Mixos classroom grant, which gives a whole course roster 4K watermark-free export and a shared class library free for the term. Because it runs in a browser tab there is nothing to install on lab machines and nothing for IT to package — see the Education page to apply.

Is there a version of Substance Painter that runs in a browser?

Adobe does not ship one — Substance 3D Painter is a desktop install on Windows, macOS and Linux, tied to a Creative Cloud seat. Mixos is the closest thing to Substance Painter online: the same layer-and-mask workflow, smart materials, mesh-map baking and paint-on-mesh, running in a browser tab through WebGPU. It is not Adobe's app and does not open .spp files, but it takes the same meshes and exports the same PBR map sets, so it drops into the same pipeline.