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

Akhouri Anmol Kumar on November 08, 2026

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 i...
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Akhouri Anmol Kumar •

@technogamerz didi I've upgraded APIC WEB more so can you please try it?

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𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐋𝐚𝐳𝐲 𝐆𝐢𝐫𝐥 •

Are bhai aaj diwali hai thoda rukiye na.Happy Diwali ❤️

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Akhouri Anmol Kumar •

yeah, happy diwali.

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𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐋𝐚𝐳𝐲 𝐆𝐢𝐫𝐥 •

Happy Diwali me aapko ek funny baat batana chahati hu batao kya?

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Akhouri Anmol Kumar •

Yes why not ?

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𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐋𝐚𝐳𝐲 𝐆𝐢𝐫𝐥 • • Edited

Me jab bhi Bahar jati hu toh log dukandaar se kahte hai bhai scanner do kya voh log sahi hai🤔

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Akhouri Anmol Kumar •
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Harun - solo dev •

HAPPY DIWALI ❤‍🔥❤‍🔥❤‍🔥

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𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐋𝐚𝐳𝐲 𝐆𝐢𝐫𝐥 •

Happy Diwali ❤️

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xulingfeng •

Happy Diwali !
So...what is Diwali???😂

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Akhouri Anmol Kumar •

Go search on UC browser lol 😆 😂

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𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐋𝐚𝐳𝐲 𝐆𝐢𝐫𝐥 • • Edited

Bhai wow kitne patakhe jala rahe hai log 😮 me bhi jati hu bye 👋🏻👋🏻

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Alex Shev •

On-device editing is compelling not only for privacy, but for a simpler trust story: the user can understand where the pixels went. I’d make that visible in the product with an offline indicator, a clear export path, and a documented list of features that ever call a network service. Privacy claims are strongest when they are inspectable behaviors.

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Akhouri Anmol Kumar •

Point to be noted thanks bro for the comment

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Paul Lovelace •

The scoreboard is the part that makes this believable — you hand Canva the template round and Photopea the depth round instead of claiming APIC wins everything. The 'fit this file size' compressor is the bit I'd actually steal, binary-searching quality beats guessing a slider every time. One thing though: export needing a Google sign-in is the one line that undercuts the privacy story. Is that a forever thing or an anti-abuse stopgap?

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Akhouri Anmol Kumar •

like I've added export needed google sign in( firebase auth) just to count my users, and for sending them emails for welcome, updates that's it. also it never uploads your uploaded image to any server that's what I'm pointing or denoting as privacy first, otherwise there is just one cons that I've said publicly that you need to sign up for export... sorry bro for that cons 😔

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xulingfeng •

Haha, looks like my mouth is blessed! 🤣I remember saying your articles would keep hitting the hot list — and it actually came true! Congrats! It’s all because you keep putting out such high‑quality work.👍️

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Akhouri Anmol Kumar •

Thanks bro still I'm trying to match quality of your stratagem series

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Jessica Doering •

This is seriously impressive. I actually built a browser-based photo editor myself that uses AI models, so I know how much work can go into something like this. Mine has been sitting a little neglected lately, but it's a really fun kind of project to work on.

I especially love that you've put so much thought into privacy and keeping things on-device. I also appreciate that you're open about the limitations and what could be improved. That's such an important part of building software.

It's really cool to see someone so young already creating and sharing projects like this. Keep experimenting and building things. Awesome job on this.

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mp3sss •

The on-device-first architecture is exactly the story we hear repeatedly from desktop users who won't upload photos to a cloud remover. ONNX Runtime Web + WebGPU is a nice fit here, and the same model graph ports cleanly into an Electron app because the renderer gets the same WebGPU/WebAssembly stack — the only thing you add is Node-side file I/O, so you can batch over a folder of RAWs without a drag-and-drop step. The one caveat from the desktop side: a multi-hundred-MB model bundle you download lazily in the browser becomes an install-size decision when it ships inside a signed DMG/EXE, so the three quality tiers (small / medium / full) you already expose should probably be pre-built as optional download packs rather than bundled in.