I'm 13 and Built a Private, On-Device Photo Editor: APIC vs Canva, Adobe Express, Photopea & remove.bg

I'm 13, I built APIC, and I tried hard to keep this comparison honest, so you will see where APIC loses.

The 30-second version

APIC is a free online photo editor, background remover, image converter and compressor that runs entirely in your browser. Your photos are processed on your own device, and the AI runs there too. No upload queue, no server, no credits.

👉 Try it: APIC-WEB

Before the "giants" get nervous: I'm not trying to replace Canva, Adobe Express, Photopea or remove.bg. They are great, and they have teams. I built APIC for one very specific question:

"What if the editing tools I use every day didn't need to see my photos at all?"

This post covers:

1. What APIC does
2. How it works technically (ONNX Runtime Web, model tiers, one HTML file)
3. A fair "battle" against four well-known tools
4. What APIC is bad at (important!)
5. What I'd love feedback on

What APIC does

Editing works without an account. Exporting needs a Google sign-in (more on that in the honest section).

How it works (the technical part)

1. One file, no backend

APIC is a static page hosted on GitHub Pages. There is no server of mine that receives your images, because there is no server-side image pipeline at all. That is the whole privacy model: you cannot leak what you never receive.

2. AI in the browser with ONNX Runtime Web

The AI tools run models through ONNX Runtime Web, using WebAssembly (and WebGPU where the browser supports it). The models are downloaded to your browser on first use and cached, so the very first AI run is slower than the next ones.

Background removal has three tiers so a phone and a gaming PC both get something that works:

Object removal offers a lighter model (~28 MB) and a heavy "Ultra" model (~208 MB), and upscaling has a 5 MB and a 64 MB option.

A simplified version of the pattern (this is an illustration, not APIC's exact code):

import * as ort from "onnxruntime-web";

// Everything below runs on the user's device.
const session = await ort.InferenceSession.create(modelUrl, {
  executionProviders: ["webgpu", "wasm"], // fastest available wins
});

const input = new ort.Tensor("float32", pixels, [1, 3, 1024, 1024]);
const { output } = await session.run({ input });
// ...turn the mask into alpha, refine the edges, draw to a <canvas>

3. Better edges than "just apply the mask"

A raw segmentation mask gives you a cut-out with a visible halo. APIC runs an edge-refinement step based on Blur-Fusion foreground estimation (the same idea used by larger models) which aims to stop hair and soft edges from carrying the old background colour.

4. The "fit this file size" compressor

Instead of a quality slider that you guess at, Compress does a binary search over quality and encodes repeatedly until the output is as large as possible while still under your target size. Same idea for the Design Studio's "fit under limit" export.

5. What "private" means here (and what it does not)

• ✅ Your images are processed locally and are not uploaded.
• ⚠️ The AI model files are downloaded from public hosts (for example Hugging Face and jsDelivr). Downloading a model is not uploading your photo, but it is network traffic, and I want to be clear about it.
• ⚠️ If you sign in, Google Sign-In/Firebase receive your name, email and profile photo for the account. That is described in the Privacy page.
• ⚠️ The site shows one small banner ad to cover running costs.(Lol 😂 till now 0 $ revenue bruh)

I'd rather you hear the limits from me than discover them yourself.

The Battle: APIC vs 4 giants

Facts below come from each tool's own pages where I could read them (linked at the bottom) and were checked in November 2026. Pricing and limits change, so please verify before you decide.

Round 1: Where do my photos go?

Result: a tie between APIC and Photopea for local processing. The cloud tools trade privacy for convenience, collaboration and sync, which is a fair trade for a lot of people.

Round 2: Price of the thing I actually need

Result: APIC wins on price for this one job. That is not the same as "better quality than a funded cloud service", which I cannot claim.

Round 3: Design & templates (where APIC is the underdog)

Adobe's own pricing page lists 100,000+ to 268,000+ templates and 4,000+ fonts on the free plan. APIC's Design Studio has 35 original templates and 9 open-licence font families.

Result: Canva and Adobe Express win by a mile. If you need a huge template library, stock photos, brand kits or team collaboration, use them. APIC's Design Studio is for quick, private, offline-capable graphics with real typography controls and checks.

Round 4: Power editing (layers, PSD, plugins)

Photopea is a full Photoshop-style editor with a deep feature set. APIC is not. APIC's edge is a focused toolbox (cut-out, object removal, resize, convert, compress, batch) that opens fast and does one job per tab.

Result: Photopea wins on depth. APIC wins on "I need this one thing in 10 seconds".

Round 5: Bulk and utility work

Converting 40 images to WebP under 200 KB each, or exporting one design in 61 social sizes as a ZIP, is where APIC's Compress, Convert, Batch and Social tabs are made to shine. The giants focus on design (Canva, Adobe Express), full editing (Photopea) or one task (remove.bg).

Scoreboard

Honest conclusion: this isn't a fight with a single winner. It's different tools for different jobs. APIC fills a gap: free, private and fast for everyday image jobs.

📝 Side note: remove.bg's help page says its standalone website will no longer be available from 1 December 2026. If you were relying on it, that's another reason to have a private, on-device option bookmarked.

What APIC is bad at (read this before you try it)

• Export needs Google sign-in. Editing is open, downloads are not. I use it to keep the service running and to understand real usage, and the Privacy page explains what is stored.
• A banner ad appears on the page.
• First AI run is slow. Big models (up to ~176 MB) download once. Use the Light tier on phones.
• Smaller design library. 35 templates and 9 font families, no stock photos.
• No real-time collaboration and no cloud sync.
• Translations still need review. APIC can suggest Hindi, Tamil, Bengali, Odia or Telugu from your browser language, and my translations still need native-speaker review.
• Solo, young project. Expect rough edges. Please report them.

FAQ

Is APIC really free?
Yes. There are no credits or paid tiers. A banner ad and a Google sign-in for exporting keep the project running.

Does APIC upload my photos?
No. Editing, conversion, compression, resizing, background removal and object removal run on your device. Only AI model files are downloaded.

Can I remove a background without uploading the image?
Yes. APIC's AI runs in your browser using ONNX Runtime Web.

Does it work offline?
There is a Windows desktop app (APIC for PC) that works offline. The web version needs a connection the first time it downloads an AI model.

Why am I asked to sign in?
To download your result. Editing and previewing don't need it.

How old do I need to be to use it?
13 or older (see the Terms).(because I'm 13 🥲)

Help me make it better

If you try APIC, I'd love to hear:

1. What one tool would make you use it every week?
2. Which language should I translate properly next?
3. Where did it feel slow or confusing?

Drop a comment here, or open an issue on the GitHub repo.

And if you build things at 13 (or 30), the lesson I'd share is simple: ship the small, honest version, then improve it with real feedback.

👉 Try APIC free

Sources (checked November 2026)

• APIC
• Photopea privacy / terms
• remove.bg: is remove.bg free?
• Adobe Express pricing (UK)
• Canva free plan summary (third-party) and Canva pricing
• ONNX Runtime Web

SPECIAL THANKS 💖 TO @effessdev
Because he has helped a lot to find bugs in APIC WEB.