Sib Icon Editor is a free icon software. It looks very professional, edits icons with multiple layers, draws shape with many color gradient and all effects are very useful and easy. Sib Icon Editor and Sib Icon Studio have the icon editing features identical. It is a freeware without demo icons, but it has some ad links.

Easy Icon Maker is an easy-to-use icon utility like windows paint. Easy Icon Maker increases the movement, reversal and some filters. There are three icon tools with it: Icon Searcher(search icons from your computer files), Icon Changer(change binary file's icons (EXE, OCX, DLL, SCR, ...) and Icon Explorer(broswer Icons from Your computer files).

Microangelo Creation is an icon creator and very simple to use if you are familiar with Adobe Photoshop. Besides the basic graphics editing features, the software also includes the useful functions such as editing icons with multiple layers, adding the drop shadow, selecting upon their color value and gradient.

Now Microangelo Creation has a new alternative product Microangelo Toolset.  

IconForge IconForge is an icon maker and contains a full set of painting tools. But many features do not apply with the icon editor, such as effects filter. IconForge occupied many system resources and the interface does not look very well. 

Paint Express is a powerful and easy-to-use application made by SlavaSoft. It can help you to create, edit, convert, capture, search, extract, and print images, icons. It has a fully integrated workspace that allows to work efficiently and quickly create high-quality, professional icons, cursors, and bitmaps.

Paint Express supports Windows XP cursors and icons, and 32-bit bitmaps with smooth transparency alpha channel.