Introducing PXL-95: A Retro Pixel Art Editor for the Browser
I've added a new project to the site: PXL-95, a lightweight pixel art editor that runs entirely in the browser. You can launch it right now — no download, no account, no setup.
What is it?
PXL-95 is a pixel-grid drawing tool inspired by the Windows 95 era and ZSoft's PC Paintbrush. The goal was to build something that feels like the painting tools of the 1990s: simple, fast, and entirely focused on placing colored squares on a grid. It's built with vanilla JavaScript and the HTML5 Canvas API — no frameworks, no external dependencies.
The feature set covers the classics: a pen, eraser, flood fill, line tool, and rectangle tool. You can pick colors from the CGA or VGA palette, or mix any custom color with a built-in color wheel. Zoom runs from 1× to 32×, and there's a ten-step undo history. Your work is automatically saved to browser local storage, and you can export as PNG at any time.
A PWA first
PXL-95 is a proper Progressive Web App. After your first visit, it works completely offline — no internet connection needed. You can install it from any browser using the "Add to Home Screen" or "Install App" prompt, and it'll run in standalone mode like a native application. On iOS and iPadOS, it also supports 1-finger drawing and 2-finger panning, which feels surprisingly natural for tablet pixel art.
The three ways to use it: open it directly in the browser, install it as a PWA, or clone the source from GitHub and self-host it. All assets are bundled — there's nothing to configure.
Seven retro themes
The part I enjoyed most: the themes. PXL-95 ships with seven visual styles, each faithful to a different classic operating system — Windows 95 (the default), Windows 3.1, AmigaOS 3.1, macOS 8 Platinum, Motif/CDE, NCURSES/Turbo Pascal, and Haiku/BeOS. Switching between them changes the entire UI chrome, from the button shapes and color scheme down to the window border style.
Try it
The product page has the full feature list and a screenshot. Or skip straight to the app — bjblazko.github.io/pxl-95.