Creating an NFT sounds complicated when you first hear words like blockchain, smart contracts, gas fees, metadata, and minting. But you don’t necessarily need to be a programmer to create an NFT.
Modern NFT software can handle much of the technical work for you. Depending on the platform, you can upload artwork, create a collection, generate thousands of unique images, control rarity, deploy a smart contract, and allow collectors to mint your work.
The bigger challenge is choosing the right software.
Some platforms are designed for artists who want to mint a few individual pieces. Others are built for large generative collections with thousands of NFTs. Developers may want complete control over smart contracts, while beginners usually prefer no-code tools.
For most beginners, OpenSea Studio is one of the easiest places to start. Manifold Studio is a strong choice for creators who want greater control over their work and contracts, while Bueno stands out for creating large generative NFT collections.
What is the Best NFT Software?
Here are some of the best NFT software tools to consider.
1. OpenSea Studio – Best NFT Software for Beginners
OpenSea is widely known as an NFT marketplace, but it also provides tools for creators. OpenSea Studio allows you to create NFTs without needing to write code. The process is relatively straightforward.
You connect a compatible crypto wallet, create a collection, upload your artwork and metadata, deploy the contract, and mint your NFT.
OpenSea currently allows creators to create collections and drops through Studio. A collection can be useful when you want to mint NFTs directly to your own wallet, while a drop allows your community or buyers to mint NFTs themselves.
OpenSea’s current creation process uses on-chain smart contracts, so you should expect blockchain gas fees when deploying contracts or minting.
That is important because older tutorials may tell you that creating NFTs on OpenSea is completely free through lazy minting. OpenSea replaced its older lazy-minting creation system with Studio.
For someone creating an NFT for the first time, OpenSea Studio remains one of the easiest platforms to understand.
2. Manifold Studio – Best for Creator Control
Manifold Studio is a great choice for artists who want more control over how their NFTs are created and distributed.
The platform describes Studio as a collection of tools for creating and distributing digital assets while giving creators control and provenance over their work. You can create several types of NFT releases.
For example, Manifold supports 1-of-1 NFTs. These are useful when you want one unique blockchain token representing a single artwork. You can also use Manifold for other types of editions and on-chain creative projects.
One of the biggest reasons artists choose a platform like Manifold is independence. Instead of thinking only about which marketplace will sell your NFT, you can think about the underlying contract and how you want your work distributed.
Your NFT can then potentially appear or be sold through compatible marketplaces. This approach may require slightly more understanding than the simplest beginner tools, but serious NFT creators may appreciate the additional control.
3. Bueno – Best NFT Generator
Creating one NFT is relatively simple. Creating 10,000 unique NFTs is another story. That’s where Bueno becomes particularly useful. Bueno’s Generator is designed for creating large generative NFT collections without coding.
Imagine you’re creating a character collection. You might have several backgrounds, hairstyles, shirts, hats, eyes, accessories, and other traits.
Instead of manually creating thousands of combinations, you upload those individual layers to Bueno.
You can then control rarity and create rules governing how different traits appear together. For example, perhaps you don’t want a particular hat appearing with a certain hairstyle. You can create rules around those combinations.
Bueno lets you preview the token set before generating the final collection. It can also generate the artwork and associated metadata. The platform supports IPFS integration for storing NFT assets and metadata.
Bueno also provides no-code smart-contract tools, making it possible to move from artwork generation toward an actual NFT launch without building the entire technical infrastructure yourself.
4. Adobe Photoshop – Best for Creating NFT Artwork
NFT software doesn’t necessarily need to interact with a blockchain. Before you mint an NFT, you need something to mint. For many creators, that’s digital artwork.
Adobe Photoshop remains one of the most useful applications for creating and editing raster-based digital art.
You can use it for illustrations, photo manipulation, textures, backgrounds, digital paintings, and individual layers for generative NFT projects.
Photoshop is particularly useful when you’re creating layered artwork.
You don’t need Photoshop specifically to make NFT art, but professional image-editing software gives you much greater creative control than an NFT minting platform alone.
5. Blender – Best Free Software for 3D NFTs
Not every NFT needs to be a flat JPEG. If you want to create 3D artwork, Blender is one of the best tools available. Even better, it’s free and open source.
Blender can be used for modeling, sculpting, animation, rendering, visual effects, and other types of 3D content.
This opens up completely different possibilities for NFT artists. You could create a 3D character. Animate it. Render it as a video. Or create an entire collection based around different 3D traits. The disadvantage is the learning curve.
Blender is a serious professional creative application. You’re not going to understand every tool after watching one ten-minute tutorial. But you don’t need to learn everything.
Start with modeling and basic materials. Learn lighting. Then learn how to render your finished work.
Once you’ve created the digital asset, you can use NFT minting software to put it on-chain.
6. Procreate – Best NFT Software for iPad Artists
If you prefer drawing by hand, Procreate is an excellent creative tool. It’s especially popular among iPad artists because you can draw directly onto the screen using an Apple Pencil.
This feels much more natural to traditional illustrators than drawing with a mouse.
You can sketch characters, paint backgrounds, create illustrations, and develop individual assets that later become NFTs.
The important thing to understand is that Procreate itself isn’t your blockchain platform. It’s where you create the artwork.
Once your image is finished, you’ll still need an appropriate minting platform to turn the digital artwork into an NFT.
This separation is actually useful. Choose your art software based on how you like to create. Then choose your NFT platform based on the blockchain and distribution features you need.
7. Figma – Best for Designing NFT Traits
Figma isn’t normally the first application people think about when discussing NFTs. But it can be surprisingly useful for certain types of projects.
It’s particularly helpful for vector-style artwork, interfaces, design systems, and projects involving reusable visual components. That component-based approach can translate well to generative NFT collections.
Bueno even provides resources for preparing artwork from design applications such as Figma and Photoshop before bringing those assets into its NFT Generator.
If your project uses clean vector shapes and repeatable design elements, Figma may fit your workflow better than traditional painting software.
It also provides strong collaboration features. That’s helpful when several artists or designers are working on the same project.
Best for: NFT traits, vector-style artwork, teams, collaborative projects, and generative collections.
Final Thoughts
For a beginner who wants to mint individual NFTs or launch a straightforward collection, choose OpenSea Studio.
For an artist who wants greater creator control and on-chain publishing tools, consider Manifold Studio.
For a large generative collection, Bueno is my favorite option because its Generator is specifically designed to create thousands of NFT combinations without coding. For creating the artwork itself, use the creative application that fits your style.
Photoshop is excellent for image-based artwork and layered assets. Procreate is ideal for artists who prefer drawing on an iPad. Blender is a powerful free option for 3D art and animation. You don’t need to force the entire process into one application.