Harmony is the industry standard for 2D animation production. Studios use it for traditional hand-drawn animation, cut-out animation with rigged characters, and hybrids of the two. It offers drawing and painting tools, a timeline and X-sheet familiar to animators, deformers and bone rigging that let characters move naturally, and effects and compositing in one package.
It scales from individual artists to big productions. Versions range from Essentials for beginners to Premium for studios, with pipeline tools, scripting, and integrations with 3D and game engines. Many well-known animated series have been made with Harmony. It supports exporting to video, game engines, and other formats.
Harmony is paid, sold by subscription or perpetual license depending on the version, and has a steep learning curve. It’s not a generative AI product; its automation features are modest compared with new AI video tools. Alternatives include Adobe Animate, TVPaint for frame-by-frame, Moho for rigging, Blender’s Grease Pencil, Krita for free drawing animation, and OpenToonz. Toon Boom Harmony suits professional 2D animators and studios.