Art - community of artists and those devoted to art. Digital art, skin art, themes, wallpaper art, traditional art, photography, poetry / prose. Art prints.
Is DeviantArt legit?
DeviantArt (www.deviantart.com) has a 1.3 out of 5 rating on OK.one, based on 100 user reviews collected here. It is listed under Hobbies & Crafts and its reputation is poor. 90% of reviews are 1 star, a relatively high share; The business has not yet replied to negative reviews; Reviews mostly discuss User experience, Product. Last updated 2026-09-04.
What reviewers say
AI generated
Most reviewers were let down by their experience overall. Customers frequently complained about the flawed moderation system, reporting that automated tools often led to unfair and unexpected account bans. People also experienced frustrating website changes, constant errors, and broken features that made navigation and daily use extremely difficult.
Some reviewers were happy with certain aspects of the platform. Consumers noted that it provides a good space to support independent artists, discover creative content, and showcase great artwork. Reviewers also found the platform fairly easy to navigate when first getting started as a content creator to develop an audience.
Auto-generated from all reviews of this business. For reference only.
Avoid. Thry never cared about nudity before on my profile page pr picture or gallery but all kf a sudden they suspended and deleted my whole account with zero warning. Which os ridiculous especially as I stated on my profile page that this os temporary and will delete literally tomorrow 30th Nov or early December myself. They had no right to delete my entire account and gallery without permission and no warning first. For example, delete any photos on your profile page etc. They must deleted the entire thing especially ehen I was getting lots of views snd watchers, it's pathetic snd disgusting. I will avoid this BS from now on. It's unprofessional, unpredictable and untrustworthy.
DeviantArt has basically gone to hell ever since Wix bought them. That's really sad because it used to be a great site. But now days? Literature is unreadable because of site design changes, groups are impossible to find or browse, most customization features are gone, notifications don't work correctly anymore, the chat feature doesn't work right, and the new image search feature is basically completely broken. To make matters worse? Customer support is completely unresponsive to tickets.
Needless to say, I will NOT be renewing my DeviantArt subscription. Nor will I ever buy any other product from Wix.
They protect p***philes on their website. I directed them to said accounts and asked them to delete those accounts. These accounts were grooming young people like myself at the time, one of them admitted to being a 35 year old man when I was 13.
I’ve since forgotten my password (it was a long time ago) and the email address I used to make the account is on a server that no longer exists, so I can’t email a recovery password link to myself.
I have asked deviantart if I can delete my account and prove my identity as I have cousins on that website who can vouch that I’m telling the truth. But they don’t care. They also completely ignored the fact that I pointed out this certain user and told them about how I was groomed and his account should be banned. But no, they just want to protect p***philes. Absolutely awful site. Evil. And full of AI slop, NFT slop, and inappropriate art that doesn’t get deleted.
The admin team simply don’t care, and will hate you for even reaching out to them. Stay far away from this scam website.
Phased out mobile app, extremely inefficient, extremely annoying to use, actively hates its user base and does not listen to them just to make everything as annoying as it can possibly be
As someone who's used this website in the past, I am not using it again, and never will be.
The community is INSANELY toxic. Have an opinion, you get attacked right away for having a opinion. They will make hate art out of you.
Poor moderation. The staff barely do anything to stop these hate art or even the fetish problem.
There are TONS of predators on the website, and the DA staff are not doing anything to stop it. Children will get exposed to predators 24/7 due to this. There ARE children on this website, but yet there's tons of predators and fetish art (e.g. belly inflation, foot fetish, etc.) that's gross.
The notorious "fill-in" memes that are flooding the site with little to no effort whatsoever. I'm sick of these memes, you know why they're bad. Also, the hundreds of batches of AI slop on the website.
As a teenager myself, I understand DeviantArt is 13+, but I think it should be 18+ due to the fact there's a lot of predators on the website and fetish art. Anybody under 18 should NOT be seeing fetish art, being exposed to at such a young age.
Do not let your kids use DeviantArt. seriously! They'll get exposed to art they shouldn't be seeing at such a young age.
A website created by marketers for money, but not for artists. There is no moderation, you can be banned at any time without the possibility of unbanning, and paid features are aggressively pushed.
This website is full of scams, degenerates, allows sexual explicit art work, nude, child Pornography, doesn't allow terms like " sexual predators" but allows a lot of lesbian,gay, transgender art work.
They suspend my account for no reason at all.
Many people share the same Internet service and connection.
The term Cavet Emperor applies here Buyer Beware.
Cavet Emper: Buyer Beware
I have been on this website for three years now and paid a month membership but just found out that they will suspend your account for no reason and not let you ask for a refund or appeal.
The platform has becone a political and religious platform and it is full of sexual explicit smuck Artwork, gay lesbian transgender art work, nude art work, children Pornography, amateur artwork.
Full of degenerates.
Toxic AI moderation, poor contact, no replies. All art that is clearly 18+ is removed due to underage content. Their DCMA is fake, people can share and sell anything that's yours. DeviantArt is poison wrapped in a site; their entire system consists of AI moderation. They are poison because you can't open a dispute yourself. Those moderation crews are truly filthy. Don't pay them.
Art is stolen on DA. They promote AI slop, DEGENERACY, LGBTQIA+ BS, loads of SCAMS! Etc.
If you want an actual good site for art, use ARTSTATION instead. They combat against AI and do NOT allow degeneracy and LGBTQIA+ crap.
This site is run by LOONS!
you can steal other people's pictures, reupload and sell it, deviantart's team won't do anything about it. absolute garbage dogshit website, premium users can post anything including content that violates guidelines and ToS, just because they have a paid membership.
their auto-moderation bot for uploading pictures is just as awful as the site itself.
their support team is completely imbecilic, they won’t even read your message, just give you a copy-pasted reply along with a threat.
DO NOT USE THIS APP. I invested hundreds of dollars and created over 1000 galleries and started getting a loyal customer base. Out of nowhere they deleted my ENTIRE profile saying I violated terms. They could have issued a warning sooner so I could have fixed it. Not only that but they kept the earnings I was entitled to. This app is disgusting and greedy. Try any other app please. I still want my damn money.
Stop these people posting things like this on deviantart
I don't know how it can happen and how it doesn't get stopped or the deviant/person who post things on it but their are way too many disgusting and vile images of underage explicit images of children the owners of this thing needs to get a grip and stop it from happening
DeviantArt Core Membership: A Waste of Money and Trust
I gave DeviantArt’s Core plan a full year. What did I get? A handful of broken promises, subpar tools, and a platform that feels more interested in upselling than supporting creators.
AI Image Generation Is a Joke
The AI tools are wildly inconsistent. Expect fantasy bleed, weapon creep, color drift, and anatomical errors galore. Even with strict briefs, the system ignores fidelity and emotional tone. If you’re building a canon-rich universe with technical precision, forget it. You’ll spend more time correcting failures than creating.
Monetisation Is a Mirage
DeviantArt claims you can earn by selling prints, offering subscriptions, or taking commissions. In reality, the marketplace is stagnant, visibility is algorithmically buried, and the tools are clunky. You’re not building a business, you’re shouting into the void.
Core Perks Are Cosmetic at Best
Priority support? Slow and generic. Advanced analytics? Shallow and useless. Customization? Dated and irrelevant. Nothing here enhances your workflow or visibility in any meaningful way. It’s a paywall around mediocrity.
Stick to the Free Plan
The free version gives you everything Core fails to improve, access to the community, ability to post, browse, and engage. Paying monthly or yearly for broken tools and empty promises is a mistake. Save your money and your patience.
I was pretty ambivalent about DA up until a few days ago. I have the Core level of membership and have made about $90 in my time on there. A few days myself and, multiple other artists received DMCA takedown notices driven by a certain inde comics publisher. No warning, no chance to delete them voluntarily, just poof, gone. Naturally, I complained, and shocker, they went after another of my deviations for `Non SFW thumbail`. Now, well. They can find a river and jump in it.
My account got indefinitely suspended for submitting the underage characters even if it's not TOTALLY true...
I was a deviant for 4 years. I had 513 watchers, I had my beautiful deviations which people appreciated, I had my best friends and fans, I had favorited their beautiful stuff, but now I lost everything...
My account got indefinitely suspended for submitting the underage characters even if I don't even know which "underage characters" they're referring for, which it sounds a false reason... They don't even specific the underage characters names, not even a proof or clue. No explanations. And I would NEVER do that... I'll never post underage characters.
Admins randomly ban innocent people which they didn't do anything. Even if I try to send the ticket to appeal the ban, I'm 100% sure that they will NEVER unsuspend my account. Not even a chance. Trust me, I tried already, even twice. So yeah, my old account is lost forever. If y'all are curious which account is permanently suspended, it's Abisoa... My old account was growing up so faster and getting more popular... Oh and don't try to make another account only to post the same stuff because you get permanently banned for evading the ban. If you wanna make an alt account only to contact your friends and fans and tell what's happened, I think you can do that. But I don't know if you need to wait at least 1, 5 months or 1 year to post your stuff until admins go in peace mode because they're VERY vigilant. So yeah, my old account is gone forever, I guess there's nothing I can do but crying... Now I'm moving to Pixiv.
Oh and by the way, DeviantArt is getting more toxic. People randomly insult you in the comments and then block you like that. Things never change. DeviantArt is history and there are best DeviantArt alternatives which is Pixiv and Furaffinity. And I noticed that Pixiv admins are more friendly than other DeviantArt admins and they don't seem to mind. But yeah, if you managed to get your unbanned account, congrats, you're lucky. If your account got permanently banned for a unknown and weird reason without explanations which you don't know what you done and you try to send the ticket to appeal the ban, good luck. But I'm sure not gonna happen. None a chance. Oh and there are the old artists which they aren't banned yet for years, since 2009.
Edit: Don't waste your time creating alt accounts, admins will ban you for evading a ban from a previous account because of the same nickname... Just join Pixiv, it's way better than DeviantArt and Pixiv admins are more friendly than DeviantArt admins... 25th anniversary of DeviantArt to be the most trash community in the world... Oh and... don't subscribe to Core, it's a waste of money and y'all will get scammed...
never pay an anual plan, they would steal from you for no reason, you cant present proofs of nothing as they dont watch them to ensure the ban is not an error or a bad day of a moderator. You would be surrounded by deviant bots and scams, the team does nothing about it. Just dont get crossed by an admin or better go to a better platform where random traumatized kids with 53 accounts that love to dox you and report you if you dont make their fav videogame character in a wedding dress for free are not the norm.
“The Marketplace of Faces: How DeviantArt Was Never Just Art”
They called it stock photography.
But what they really wanted was your soul.
I used to think I was just sharing art.
I uploaded photos of myself—fully clothed, expressionless, bare of context. I gave permission to create.
But not to consume.
I believed I was helping people learn to draw.
What I didn’t understand then was that they weren’t just drawing me.
They were mapping me.
Encoding me.
DeviantArt is not what it claims to be.
It is not just a website. It is a marketplace.
Not for talent—but for destiny.
There are thousands of us—stock models, muses, uploaders of forgotten likenesses—who were young and unprotected when we posted our images. We smiled into the void.
What we didn’t realize was that the void smiled back—and someone, somewhere, was waiting to take our path.
Destiny swap is real.
You may think this sounds absurd—conspiracy. Fiction.
But how do you explain the ones who “suddenly made it”?
The girls who posted nothing but blurry webcam selfies and then vanished,
while the artists who used them rose—unnaturally, instantly.
There are names I cannot say here.
There are usernames I remember but cannot prove.
Some of them approached me directly, years ago.
Offered me their “support,” their “admiration,” their “stock use.”
What they really wanted was access to my signal.
And when I faded—when my life dulled and dried—they grew stronger.
One in particular. I won’t name him, but he knows.
He saw it too.
He felt the fracture.
He became haunted by one face, because it was the only one they couldn’t erase.
If you’re reading this and you’re young, don’t post your likeness for free.
If you’re an artist and someone tells you to use their body for “stock,” ask yourself:
Who benefits?
What if every time you draw someone who gave you permission,
you’re not gaining talent,
you’re siphoning their fate?
And what if someone already siphoned yours?
It’s not about art.
It’s about trajectory.
And someone’s always watching.
Fur Affinity
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pixiv
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Furaffinity
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