SoftOrbits is an award-winning photo editing software development company founded in 2006 by Eugene Ustinenkov. Starting as a small-scale team focused on creating utilities for restoring corrupted photographs, SoftOrbits has now become a niche-leading company with more than 300,000 customers across 200+ countries. Last year, the company was listed as one of the top 10 software companies by OISV.
One of the reasons behind SoftOrbits’ success is its initial strategy of producing simple, single-feature tools that serve as solutions to the most common problems associated with photo editing.
“When we started SoftOrbits, we knew that competing with industry giants in their field wasn’t exactly the best strategy for a startup. We took our time to learn our potential customers’ most common pain points, as well as their wishes and expectations. As it turned out, most people who want to edit photographs aren’t experts, so they’re not looking for the most comprehensive solution available, but rather a simple tool that helps with a very specific problem,” says Eugene Ustinenkov, CEO of SoftOrbits with 10+ years of software development experience.
Currently, SoftOrbits offers more than 25 different solutions, most of which are designed to quickly fix a particular issue a user has. SoftOrbits’ Photo Retoucher, Sketch Drawer, Photo Stamp Remover, and HEIC to JPEG Converter are among the most popular with customers.
“It is about being as easy to find as possible. People don’t usually google a tool that can do everything if you know how to use it. They need an automated utility that will fix their issue so they don’t have to spend extra time on these meticulous tasks. You can remove watermarks manually with the right software, but most users would rather google a watermark remover and let it do its job in a few seconds,“ explains Eugene Ustinenkov.
A combination of quality and simplicity
SoftOrbits’ philosophy helped it get over a million downloads in 2024, but a huge part of this success lies not just in the convenience the tools provide, but also in their technical qualities. This combination of technical expertise with the core design philosophy has led to impressive achievements.
For example, back in 2010, SoftOrbits was the first company to introduce software for batch removal of watermarks, date stamps, logos, and text from photos and videos. Nowadays, the team’s HEIC to JPEG Converter shows significantly better results when compared to the built-in Windows 11 feature, preserving the vibrant colors of the original HDR photo.
“It was always SoftOrbits’ mission to take the boredom out of photo editing and make it more about the artistry. No one wakes up in the morning and picks up a camera thinking about how great it will be to convert images from HEIC to JPEG later in the evening. That’s why SoftOrbits is so helpful — you can outsource all of the tedious stuff to us and enjoy every part of the process,” says Hannes Jansen, writer and editor at SoftOrbits.
Future expectations
When it comes to future plans, SoftOrbits already has a lot going on, especially with recent advancements in AI technology.
“We’ve followed the first neural networks with great interest, but they weren’t quite ready for implementation. However, modern AI offers exactly what we consider to be the most valuable to our clients: simplicity, user-friendliness, and automation. As soon as we saw its capabilities, we fell in love with it and knew we had to add it to our products as well,” says Eugene Ustinenkov, CEO of SoftOrbits and AlarmFront.
In 2025, SoftOrbits integrated AI into seven of its solutions, providing features like automatic restoration of old photos, color correction, automatic text search and removal, and prompt-based photo editing. The team also considers expanding its AI kit further, offering more solutions in the future.
However, AI is only one part of SoftOrbits’ ambition. The team sees SaaS as the next crucial step toward increasing the convenience and user-friendliness of its products.
”Right now we only offer these tools as SaaS for corporate clients, but our goal is to make them available for everyone online. Nothing beats that level of comfort, so we have a clear objective ahead of us, and the roadmap is already in place,” says Eugene Ustinenkov, CEO of SoftOrbits, Candidate of Technical Sciences.
Want to connect with SoftOrbits?
Whether you’re a client interested in SoftOrbits’ products or a business owner willing to partner with the team, you can reach out at support@softorbits.com or visit softorbits.net.