DeviantArt Reviews 388

Unfit for purpose. A terrible waste when you're paying so much for membership.

I write and am now illustrating my work and TRYING to post on DaviantArt. As of Friday 19/09 it has been IMPOSSIBLE to update the so-called "LITERATURE Deviations" (the DeviantArt term for written pieces). I have sent a "ticket" to Customer Support -- NO REPLY AT ALL. Still not working today (22/09).

And that is without all the CONSTANT, unnecessary, unannounced, complicated, redundant, ridiculous CHANGES to the way things are supposed to be done on this site. You NEVER KNOW WHERE YOU ARE.

SHAME on YOU, DeviantArt! This is all EXTREMELY unprofessional and unbusinesslike way to behave.

PLEASE ... Get this SORTED. It is not just me ... there are LOTS of people who are DESPERATE regarding LITERATURE POSTS, and are posting in FORUMs asking each other for help.

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

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.

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.

Always abusive bans, moderated by AI without any human action, no refund, no correct moderation, just random bans on the most honest people.

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.

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.

To the DeviantArt Administration,
I want to give my highest compliments for how absolutely terrible your team is at doing its job. Seriously — you're absolute masters at ignoring real reports and only springing into action when a frustrated user dares to post an angry comment. Then suddenly, as if by magic, you wake up and rush to punish — not the rulebreaker, but the person who dared to point out the problem.

I’ve reported a user multiple times for spreading pornographic content. This person clearly violates both the site rules and basic standards of decency. And what did you do? NOTHING. No warning, no ban, no action at all. But the moment I left a harsh comment calling out this behavior, you miraculously found time and energy to react — and immediately blocked me.
Your priorities are disgraceful. You’re not protecting the community — you're protecting the offenders. You’ve become moderators of silence, not moderators of content. As long as people suffer quietly, you don’t care. The moment someone speaks up — you punish them instead of fixing the actual problem.

I paid upfront for the annual PRO+ plan in April — and since then, THEY TOOK AWAY ALL MY PREMIUM TOOLS. No explanation. No support. NOTHING.
I’ve been blocked from posting artworks for sale since April, even though I have a fully paid PRO+ subscription. Every week I receive dozens of phishing and scam messages in my inbox. I reported them. I even cursed one of the scammers — and now I can’t even leave comments anymore!
I’ve contacted support multiple times, begged for a refund, and they NEVER replied.
They took my money and disabled all the features I paid for.
This is outright theft and fraud.
DeviantArt is not a professional platform anymore — it’s a scam-infested joke, run by bots and completely abandoned by any real support.
DO NOT GIVE THEM A SINGLE CENT.

From the unmoderated AI and NSFW content to actual CSAM, the website is simply not worth using (ESPECIALLY if you're a minor)

It used to be an beacon of internet culture but now it's a slum.

STAY AWAY

please don't show this stuff to children.

Full of scams, and the team does nothing about that. It seems they are completely ok, some trash people are trying to steal data from their users. Awful. Also, full of bugs in the UI.. At all, I don't recommend this place. Every day, I receive up to 15 scam messages. Anywhere else I don't receive such quality of shits like this place.

Originally, DeviantArt was a platform for sharing fan art, personal creations, and artistic passions.
But today, it has become a full-blown 18+ network, flooded with v*re, infl*tion, foot fetishes, and countless other similar types of content.

(And if you don’t know what those are… don’t look them up. You’ve been warned.)

The problem isn’t that some people enjoy this kind of content.
The problem is that it’s accessible to everyone, including minors.
There are no proper 18+ filters, no serious warning messages, and no reliable age verification.
Worse still, some artists are banned without explanation for vague reasons, while others upload entire galleries of highly sexualised fetish content without any moderation whatsoever.

And yet, DeviantArt was never meant to be like this.
It’s not Rule34 or a specialised NSFW platform.
It’s supposed to be a public art website.

To fix these issues, the following steps should be taken:

✅ Implement a mandatory 18+ filter for visual fetish content
✅ Clearly distinguish between mature art and explicitly fetishistic material
✅ Protect young users with proper, reliable age verification
✅ Offer artists a moderated, ethical, and coherent space to share their work

Until these changes are made, DeviantArt will continue to be seen by many not as a showcase for art, but as a site known for its troubling and unchecked excesses.

I had been a member of DeviantArt for nearly twenty years, but lately the site has become extremely toxic and unfriendly.
Avoid!

If you got suspend you dont even know how you submit a ticket and if you send mail its more bot people who talk to you. Just 1 answer and its more do it yourself we wont help you. They even just take off your art nothing inappropriate even of a child hugs lara croft. Deviantart should taken down until its gets better.

I have loved DeviantArt for the last 20 years. Yesterday they temporarily suspended my account, and then told me I had 1 week to fix the problem. I jumped on it and worked hard to clean up any issues with 3 hours, and then emailed them back asking if I had done it correctly. Instead of being helpful, 1 hour later they terminated my account, for content that I had already deleted. I have thousands of hours of work on their site and thousands of dollars in Art purchases. This was wiped, and in fact, the art is still selling on their site. This is essentially art theft, the thing they are trying to avoid. The service was absolutely horrendous, and I will be starting a new website to replace the hole in my heart DeviantArt has left. Please read the Trustpilot reviews for DA before joining. Hundreds of 1 star reviews attributed to them not helping their artists & being greedy.

I have purchased thousands of dollars in Art on the DeviantArt website. And then they Deactivated my account, and are still selling it!. Is this not highly illegal. Where is Purchase Protection for your Artists and Customers? At least PayPal has it, I will be logging approx 350 PayPal Disputes for this.

DA has also just implemented a new AI moderator called "DevArt" which seems to be rapidly terminating artists for a wide range of reasons. 5 of the top 10 artists that I followed, along with myself have all been booted in the last month.

who the hell puts a rule in place were you can only block a certain amount of people the site is disgusting i have been reporting accounts of people uploading pics of kids and of animals having sex with humjans the site has done nothing to take it down its all the site is full of on top of that cant even block them as the site restricts blocks its rediculess and the site should be taken downb for all the disgusting and ilgegal stuff on there