What Faststone does

FastStone Corporation is a privately held, bootstrapped software company headquartered in Alberta, Canada, that develops a suite of four Windows-native desktop applications for image viewing, editing, batch conversion, and screen capture. Its product line comprises FastStone Image Viewer (a free-for-personal-use browser, converter, and editor supporting BMP, JPEG, HEIC, WEBP, GIF, PNG, PDF, PSD, TIFF, camera RAW and other formats), FastStone Capture (a screen capture and video recorder with annotation and OCR), FastStone MaxView (a compact viewer with direct support for password-protected ZIP, RAR, and 7-Zip archives and comic book formats), and FastStone Photo Resizer (a batch converter and renaming tool with multithreaded processing). All products target Windows 11 down through XP and offer broad format coverage, lightweight performance, and a strict no-adware/no-spyware/no-data-collection policy.

The company operates a product-led, freemium go-to-market model: Image Viewer and Photo Resizer are free for personal and educational use, while commercial licenses are sold as one-time, lifetime purchases priced between $19.95 and $34.95 USD per product, with volume discounts for teams and organizations up to 1000+ users. Distribution is direct-to-consumer through faststone.org, with payments processed via FastSpring and PayPal; no third-party resellers, channel partners, or subscription plans are used. The interface is community-translated into more than 20 languages, enabling global reach without dedicated localization investment.

FastStone appears to be founder-operated with a small team (11–50 employees). There is no evidence of external institutional investment, parent company, subsidiaries, acquisitions, or partnerships, and revenue is not publicly disclosed. Customer concentration is diffuse across individual consumers, SMBs, and educational institutions, with no named enterprise logos and no disclosed enterprise contracts. Active development continues, evidenced by four product releases between November 2025 and June 2026.

Name

Faststone

Legal name

FastStone Corporation

Website

https://faststone.org

Company type

Private

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

FastStone Corporation is a bootstrapped Canadian software company that develops four Windows desktop applications for image viewing, batch conversion, screen capture, and encrypted archive viewing, sold primarily through one-time lifetime licenses to individual consumers, SMBs, and educational users worldwide.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Headquarters

HQ city

Basildon

HQ country

United Kingdom

HQ region

Europe

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2C

Offering type

Software

Cost components

Personnel, Technology or R&D, Operations, Marketing or Sales

Revenue model

1. Software License Sales: One-time purchase model with lifetime license. Products sold individually with volume discounts for teams and organizations.
2. Freemium Distribution: Free versions of Image Viewer and Photo Resizer for personal and educational use drive adoption; commercial use requires paid license.
3. Donations: Voluntary donations accepted for non-commercial users with appreciation reward of registration code for Image Viewer.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels3 records

Marketing channels1 record

Core offering

FastStone Corporation develops and sells a suite of four native Windows desktop applications for image processing and screen capture: FastStone Image Viewer (image browser, converter, and editor with broad format and RAW support), FastStone Capture (screen capture and video recorder with annotation and OCR), FastStone MaxView (compact image viewer with direct support for password-protected ZIP/RAR/7-Zip archives and comic book formats), and FastStone Photo Resizer (batch image converter, resizer, cropper, and renamer). Products are sold under a one-time perpetual license model with free versions for personal and educational use.

Product overview

FastStone offers a suite of four desktop image and capture tools for Windows: FastStone Image Viewer (free for personal/educational use, $34.95 commercial), FastStone Capture (one-time $19.95, 30-day trial), FastStone MaxView ($19.95, 30-day trial), and FastStone Photo Resizer (one-time purchase). The product line covers the full spectrum from free/ad-hoc image viewing and light editing (Image Viewer, Photo Resizer) to specialized compact viewing with archive security (MaxView) and full-featured screen capture with video recording (Capture). All products are Windows-native desktop applications with no cloud or API component.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• FastStone Image Viewer An image browser, converter and editor for Windows that supports all major graphic formats (BMP, JPEG, HEIC, WEBP, GIF, PNG, PCX, PDF, PSD, TIFF, WMF, ICO, TGA and camera RAW files). Includes viewing, management, comparison, red-eye removal, emailing, resizing, cropping, color adjustments, musical slideshow with 150+ transitions, scanner acquisition, and screen capture. Free for personal and educational use; commercial license $34.95 with volume discounts for teams.
• FastStone Capture A powerful, lightweight screen capture tool and screen video recorder for Windows. Captures windows, objects, menus, full screen, regions, and scrolling pages; records screen activities with audio and webcam into MP4/WMV video files; includes annotation, OCR text capture, and built-in video editor. One-time purchase $19.95 standard or $49.95 family license (up to 5 computers), with 30-day trial.
• FastStone MaxView A fast, compact image viewer that supports all major graphic formats and opens images directly inside password-protected ZIP, RAR, and 7-Zip archive files (including 128-bit and 256-bit AES encryption). Also reads comic book files (CBR, CBZ, CB7) and supports viewing, rotating, resizing, cropping, annotating and printing. One-time purchase $19.95 with 30-day trial and volume discounts.
• FastStone Photo Resizer An image converter and renaming tool for batch converting, renaming, resizing, cropping, rotating, changing color depth, adding text and watermarks. Supports common image formats including JPEG, JPEG2000, PNG, GIF, BMP, TIFF, PCX, TGA, WMF, EMF, ICO, HEIC, WEBP. Includes drag-and-drop operation and multithreaded processing. Free for personal and educational use; commercial license $19.95 with volume discounts.

Quantifiable outcome

• Supports all major image formats including BMP, JPEG, HEIC, WEBP, GIF, PNG, PCX, PDF, PSD, TIFF, WMF, ICO, TGA and 15+ camera RAW formats

Segments3 records

Ideal customer profiles3 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Feature4 records

Scale indicators3 records

Recent moves5 records

Expansion highlights4 records

Direct peers

• IrfanView: Long-standing Windows image viewer/editor by Irfan Škiljan. Closest direct peer: same Windows-only desktop positioning, free-for-personal/commercial-paid model, broad format support, and lightweight installer footprint.
• XnView: Multi-platform image viewer and converter (XnSoft). Direct competitor for Image Viewer and Photo Resizer use cases, with similar format breadth and a freemium personal/commercial license model.
• ACDSee: Commercial Windows photo viewer/manager/editor suite. Direct overlap with FastStone Image Viewer's photo management and editing features, but at a higher price point and broader feature set.
• Snagit (TechSmith): Industry-leading commercial screen capture and recording tool. Most directly comparable to FastStone Capture — both target Windows users needing annotated screenshots and video, with Snagit priced at a premium subscription/perpetual tier.
• Paint.NET: Free Windows-native image and photo editor. Competes for the light editing segment adjacent to FastStone Image Viewer, especially among users seeking a no-cost, ad-free Windows image tool.
• ShareX: Free, open-source Windows screen capture and productivity tool. Overlaps heavily with FastStone Capture on capture modes, annotation, and scrolling capture — competing on price (free) against FastStone's $19.95 paid tier.
• Greenshot: Lightweight open-source Windows screenshot tool. Competes for the lightweight capture segment that FastStone Capture also serves, particularly among enterprise users needing annotation.
• Honeyview (Bandisoft): Fast Windows image viewer supporting archive and comic book formats. Closely comparable to FastStone MaxView in its compact-viewer niche and format breadth.

Broad incumbents

• Adobe Lightroom: Industry-standard photo management and editing platform from Adobe. Overlaps with FastStone Image Viewer's viewing, batch editing, and RAW support, but at much higher price and subscription-only — representing the broader incumbent in the space.

Others

• IrfanView Skins / Plugins ecosystem: Third-party plugins and customization ecosystem around competing Windows image viewers. Adjacent/ecosystem participants that shape user expectations around extensibility FastStone does not currently offer.

Market position

Strengths4 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat4 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles1 record

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Faststone