DeviantArt

About DeviantArt

DeviantArt was officially launched on August 7 created by Scott Jarkoff, along Angelo Sotira. These are the one of the world’s most popular online art communities that hosts illustrations and photography, digital art. In 2025, the site had more than 100 million users registered with more than 5 million artworks. It has become a worldwide culture hub for literary and visual arts.

The mobile application aimed to compress the extensive features of the desktop website to provide a user-friendly experience. It includes browsing, uploads of art, portfolio management and notifications, social interaction and even monetisation. In the course of time, the interface has gone through multiple revisions to enhance UI user-friendliness and feature discovery. But the changes have been slowing down, and differences between desktop and mobile capabilities persist.

Features

 Browsing & Discoverability

The core experience of the app channels the visual vitality of DeviantArt’s huge collection through feed-based discovery. Its key features include:

• Today Page/Editorial Highlights: Daily curated content, which includes news as well as features and collections of thematic content, curated by the team of editors at DeviantArt.
• What’s Hot/Undiscovered Daily Deviations/ Explore A curated stream of the latest trends as well as hidden gems and noteworthy deviations, all accessible with a few swipes.
• More Similar To This. When you press and hold this feature, the algorithmic feature displays visually related works using aesthetic intelligence that is derived from collections curated by members
• Gallery View and Zoom users can dig into the depths of an artist’s portfolio and zoom in more detail, thanks to the ability to zoom in on more information to let you see the finer details of art on a mobile device.

The layered experience of browsing — shallow surfing for those who are casual as well as deep portfolio examination for the more avid-minded created to mimic the gallery experience, slowing the viewers in a curate space, but giving deep dives at any time.

Upload & Submission

The DeviantArt app allows rapid and easy creation as well as sharing.

• Arts and Literature Upload Upload visual art as well as text to directly upload it onto the account of your DeviantArt account, complete with description and tags
• Photos-to-Status Integration Use your smartphone, attach, tag and then post status updates. This feature was introduced in the first version of the application.
• Hashtag-enabled posting: Tags that are integrated into the upload enhance searchability and increase the participation of groups.
• NOTE from Deviants Hold and press to access short actions such as favorite, share, and view similar, etc. UI improvement

Notifications & Social Interaction

DeviantArt is a community-oriented website that focuses on the improvement of its social interface.

• Watch Feed The feed is updated in real-time and includes posts, changes, journals, favorites, status updates, and more from the artists you follow.
• Filtering options: Allow users to customize their feeds, allowing them to look only at specific interactions, such as journals or favorite posts
• Notification Hub Centralizes comments, replies, mentions, status alerts, as well as group deviations.
• Notes (Direct Messaging): Enables sending notes and managing them using the most basic features for organization, such as replying and starring, deletion, not reading, and marking them as read.

Profile, Gallery & Folders

Artists are able to manage their presence, but some desktop tools aren’t available:

• Profile Editing: You can customize banners, bios, and other variations from mobile, but more advanced desktop customization isn’t yet accessible.
• Favorites and Gallery Folders: Sort and view, but full folder management can only be done on a desktop. The inability to create new folders has been a common request from users.

Groups & Community Tools

Group interactions are incorporated into the PWA-based version, which is newer:

• Submission to Groups: Upload artwork directly to group galleries.
• Group Management: Accept suggestions, moderate, or take part in group polls, or other events.

However, the full feature parity with desktops is not yet available.

 Monetization & Marketplace

Professional creators will appreciate that the app provides an integrated way to monetize their work:

• Prints and Commissions Users can make sales of prints, merchandise, as well as digital content via mobile.
• Subscription and Points System The system allows fans to support artists with monthly subscriptions or through point-based transactions.
• Adoptables/Exclusives: Unique artworks with monetization to be introduced in 2023, accessible on both desktop and mobile. Core membership management, Premium memberships are controlled directly within the app (including the payment set-up).

Security Features

Authentication & 2FA

Standard Login through email or other platforms is in existence. It does not provide 2-factor authentication (2FA) for users who are free.

Explosion Risks: Some users have reported being locked out because of the loss of 2FA access.

Community backlash: Many users consider this a “paywall to provide simple security,” stating it is “2FA is a paid option”.It expressing concerns about the security of accounts and the possibility of earning the ability to withdraw funds.

 Reporting & Copyright Protection

In-app reporting: The deviations can be spotted under copyright violations or policy violations. Users are directed to forms that are mobile-friendly for browsers.

DeviantArt Protect: The new format was introduced in July 2021 in order to track copyright infringement. It can support mobile-posted work via enforcement across the entire site.

 Privacy & Data Handling

Conformity to Guidelines : The app conforms to Apple/Google privacy guidelines for stores. Giving users access to the data shared with them.

Security Transparency:  Privacy Transparency in iOS App Store lists a collection of contact information, user content, identifiers and usage information.

 Stability & Storage Concerns

• Excessive storage usage complaints about the size of app data growing into gigabytes, frequently way over the size stated in the app.
• Features Decay: The absence of updates from 2023 onwards has made the application outdated, lacking the latest OS compatibility as well as bug fixes.
• Performance issues and crashes. Users often complain of crashes, blank loads, as well as app stability.

Conclusion

The DeviantArt mobile app offers a vibrant, artist-focused experience, enabling browsing, creation, community engagement, and monetisation layered in a gallery-style interface that optimises both casual and devoted viewing. From the Today Pages and editorial selections to tools for submission, Watch Feed interactions, and even marketplace support, it brings a wealth of capabilities for mobile devices.

For those who are new to the hobby or just casual users, this app is an efficient and inspiring access point to DeviantArt’s vast collection. For serious artists managing core member features and earning is possible, but there is a paywall that 2FA paywall has caused a lot of discontent.