Best Pixel, Tile, Sprite and drawing tool?

I've been looking at a few options and trying to wrap my head around whether or not to buy one of the programs below or just use good'ol MSPaint.

Does anyone have experience or ideas about the programs I've listed below? I really want something to create tiles and maps quick and easily for game jam scenarios. Please post any pros or cons you have for these programs and if you happen to know of something far better than I've listed please share it with me! Thank you

(Free) Pixothello: http://teknopants.com/pixothello/

Amazing and free! The problem is I don't think it's really supported because it's somewhat of a passion project. The limitations I run in to is constant crashing and corrupted save files. I don't think it was meant to be used on windows8 (Like most things) but It's gotten me through some tight jams and I want to replace it with something more robust.

(Free Trial or $25 ) Pickle: http://www.pickleeditor.com/

Costs more than the other options but it looks like it's really well supported.

(Outdated free virsion or Minimum of $9) Pyxel: http://pyxeledit.com/

Looks a lot like Pickle but lower cost. Also looks like it's only beta and beta releases scare me haha.

(Free Version or Pro for $20) AutoTileGen: http://autotilegen.com/buy/

Looks amazing, but I don't know a lot about it. Looking for life experience on this product especially.

Pixothello looks pretty good, but the unstable nature is a deal breaker. I'd be willing to deal with bmp's, especially since its got the first pixel perfect circle tool I've seen.

Pixothello looks pretty good, but the unstable nature is a deal breaker. I'd be willing to deal with bmp's, especially since its got the first pixel perfect circle tool I've seen.

Which one are you referring to?

BMP's?

Pixothello.

Haven't used the others much, and the AutoTileGen demo went straight to the trash bin as soon as I saw it was basically just a bunch of locked features.

Who ever came up with the idea of getting people to buy a product by showing a lock icon is an idiot.

wow very good info, can you also please edit and write how much is the application?

pixelthello (free)

pickle: Free trial or $25

Pyxel: (minimum $9 )

AutoTileGen: Free version and pro version $20

wow very good info, can you also please edit and write how much is the application?

pixelthello (free)

pickle: Free trial or $25

Pyxel: (minimum $9 )

AutoTileGen: Free version and pro version $20

Updated

Pixothello.

Haven't used the others much, and the AutoTileGen demo went straight to the trash bin as soon as I saw it was basically just a bunch of locked features.

Who ever came up with the idea of getting people to buy a product by showing a lock icon is an idiot.

I've sent the creator of Pixothello a message through his youtube account, I really hope he's willing to make a few updates but I don't have ton of faith.

I really like pyxeledit, its got a great set of tools and the author updates is every month or so.

i've tried pickle, but the author wasn't open to the ideas of requests or usability adjustments

You missed out one of the best, if no the best one. Aseprite, which is free and open source:

http://www.aseprite.org/

I don't do a lot of pixel art, but when I do, I tend to use a combo of PyxelEdit and Aseprite. Aseprite is better for animations and Pyxeledit rocks hard for tiles/tilemaps.

Can't really go wrong with these 2 and costs next to nothing....though it would good to give the Pyxeledit author what it is worth, which is definitely more than $9! Btw, don't let the beta tag fool you, as it has never crashed on me. It is missing a few tools, mainly shape tools which are sorely missing.

Just thought I drop a note that I stopped using MS paint for anything except cropping images after I found Paint.net (free/open source).

Paint.net is better in almost every conceivable way that I've tested, except that it's slightly harder to crop images in (you have to enter the number of pixels large you want the canvas to be).