Rasterlessvector

Free alternative to Vector Magic, in a browser tab

This comparison starts with a purchase rather than a feature table, because that is the fork in the road. Vector Magic is paid software: before it traces anything you decide how to pay for it — a licence for the application you install on your own computer, or a subscription for the edition that runs in a browser. Figures and plan names move, so their pricing page is the only sensible place to read them. What does not move is that something is bought first.

Worth saying what that buys. Vector Magic has been doing one thing for a long time, and an installed application does what a web form cannot. It runs on your own machine, so artwork under an NDA never leaves the building. It is sized for someone who traces as a job rather than as an errand, and it puts a working step between trace and export: the result is something you sit with, not something you accept.

Rasterless is the other shape of the same errand — free, nothing to install, deliberately narrower. One image goes up; one conversion writes SVG, PDF, EPS, DXF and PNG, with a ZIP alongside when you tick more than one. The part worth pointing at is the DXF: R2010, genuine LWPOLYLINE and SPLINE entities, one layer per traced colour. And because the tracer is geometry, not a learned model, the same image at the same settings comes back as the same file.

Who this is for

Two kinds of visitor land here. One has a single job in front of them, and weighing up a licence is more process than that job is worth. The other has a machine at the end of the chain, and for them the question was never the trace but the handoff.

If that is you, the DXF is the reason to try this before you buy anything. It is DXF R2010 (AC1024): AutoCAD 2010 and later, Fusion 360, LightBurn, FreeCAD and Inkscape open it directly. Straight runs become LWPOLYLINE entities, curves become open degree-3 SPLINE entities, and every traced colour lands on its own layer, named FILL_ plus its hex value: cut on one layer, engrave on another. No HATCH is written, so the drawing is contour only — right for a toolpath, worth knowing if you expected fills. Coordinates sit at millimetre scale and the header states that unit outright, so the drawing opens at size rather than landing 25.4 times too large in a program that assumed inches. The limit to weigh against it: one image per conversion, so a folder of parts is a folder of visits, and nothing here can be driven from a script of yours.

And if the artwork cannot be uploaded at all, buy the desktop licence.

Drop an image here

or click to choose one

PNG · JPG · WEBP

How it works

  1. Drop in a PNG, JPEG or WEBP — one image per conversion.
  2. Set the colour count first: 2 for a single cutting contour, 8 to 16 for flat logo artwork, higher for badges with shading.
  3. Tick the formats you need — SVG, PDF, EPS, DXF, PNG — and enter a width and height in millimetres if the finished piece has a physical measurement.
  4. Read the preview at full size, then sign in with Google (free) to download the files.
A badge with flat tones before and after tracing with our own engine: the uploaded PNG on the left, the vector result on the right, where each tone becomes a region of its own — and, in a DXF export, a layer of its own. — source image A badge with flat tones before and after tracing with our own engine: the uploaded PNG on the left, the vector result on the right, where each tone becomes a region of its own — and, in a DXF export, a layer of its own. — vector result
A badge with flat tones before and after tracing with our own engine: the uploaded PNG on the left, the vector result on the right, where each tone becomes a region of its own — and, in a DXF export, a layer of its own.

Settings we suggest

Colours does most of the work here, so set it first. Two gives one closed contour per island, which is what a cut file wants. Eight to sixteen suits flat logo artwork; thirty and up is for badges and illustration with shading. The range is 2 to 64, default 26. Thin slivers hugging every edge mean the soft ramp along your image's boundaries has been given a colour of its own: convert again with fewer.

Shape stacking: Cut-outs, so the middle of a letter O stays a hole; Stacked piles whole shapes on one another and suits layered artwork. Draw style stays on Filled shapes for most work and moves to Stroke edges when you want outlines. Grouping by colour is worth a tick for SVG: one group per colour is the easiest thing to grab in a vector editor afterwards.

Width and height in millimetres are applied to all four vector outputs: the SVG and the DXF take them as geometry, and the PDF and EPS page boxes are sized to match, in points. Left empty, the SVG and DXF fall back to 96 px = 25.4 mm and the two page formats to the traced pixel dimensions.

Expect fewer places to intervene than a paid desktop tool gives you: what is on screen is the whole set, and there is no editing step between trace and download. When a result is wrong, you change the colour count and run it again.

Questions

Is there anything to buy or install?

No. It is free, nothing it writes carries a watermark, and it runs in this browser tab. Previewing is open to everyone; a free Google sign-in releases the downloads, and that part is not optional. Signed out you get 10 conversions per hour; signed in, 60 per hour and 300 per day.

Can I work offline, or on artwork I am not allowed to upload?

No — the clearest reason to buy an installed application instead. The trace runs on a server, so the image is uploaded. Files are used for your conversion and nothing else, download links expire after 1 hour, and uploaded images and generated files are removed by an automatic 1-day deletion rule.

What comes out, and is the DXF real geometry?

SVG, PDF, EPS, DXF and PNG from one run, with a ZIP when you pick several; one geometry is built and every writer serialises those same shapes, so the printer's file and the cutter's file are one set of outlines in two containers. There is no IMAGE entity in the DXF — polylines and splines only.

Is there a model behind it, and does the same image convert the same way twice?

It is a geometric tracer: colour segmentation, an explicit anti-aliasing model for where an edge really sits inside a two- or three-pixel ramp, then curve fitting. No learned model, no weights. So yes — the same image at the same settings returns the same geometry, which matters when a part has to be recut months later.

Can I convert a folder of images, or drive it from my own code?

Neither. One image per conversion, chosen in the page, and there is no API to call from a script of yours. If tracing is a daily task, that is a real argument for a paid desktop licence: this is built for a handful of files, not a pipeline.

What are the limits, and how long does a conversion take?

PNG, JPEG or WEBP, one per conversion, up to 25 MB and 40 megapixels; above 1.5 megapixels the image is downscaled before tracing, so the output's pixel dimensions follow the reduced copy. Logos and stickers typically convert in 3–12 seconds in our local measurements; fine-line or noisy images take longer, and a conversion that does not finish within 60 seconds stops and suggests fewer colours or a smaller image.

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