The GIMP team has officially announced that the popular open-source image editor is now available as a Snap package, expanding its presence across Linux distributions that bet on this package format, especially the Ubuntu family and those based on it.
Until now, the GIMP Snap package was maintained by the community-driven Snapcrafters project. Following a careful handover process that took several months, GIMP has taken over official ownership.
The highlight of this first official Snap release is the new gimp-plugins plug interface. Previously, the Snap version came bundled with a few third-party plugins, but the GIMP team decided to follow its “vanilla package” policy—meaning no extra code outside of GIMP, GEGL, or BABL.
Instead, developers implemented the gimp-plugins interface, which works similarly to GIMP’s Flatpak extension point or Microsoft’s MSIX modification packages. It allows plugin developers to ship their extensions separately, without breaking Snap’s strict confinement model.
Currently, two plugins—GMIC and OpenVINO—can be installed through their respective Snap repositories. GIMP has also published a how-to guide on its developer website for anyone who wants to create or package Snap plugins.
The first officially supported Snap release is GIMP 3.0.6, co-produced with the Snapcrafters team. It’s now available on the latest/stable channel, while users who prefer to test new features can grab the development version from the preview/stable channel.
Just like with GIMP’s Flatpak and Microsoft Store (MSIX) packages, future Snap releases will be deployed automatically on release day. Users can install the official Snap right now from gimp.org/downloads.
For more information, see the announcement.
