Here are free alternatives to all major Adobe CC programs

Jan 16, 2019

Dunja Djudjic

Dunja Djudjic is a multi-talented artist based in Novi Sad, Serbia. With 15 years of experience as a photographer, she specializes in capturing the beauty of nature, travel, and fine art. In addition to her photography, Dunja also expresses her creativity through writing, embroidery, and jewelry making.

Here are free alternatives to all major Adobe CC programs

Jan 16, 2019

Dunja Djudjic

Dunja Djudjic is a multi-talented artist based in Novi Sad, Serbia. With 15 years of experience as a photographer, she specializes in capturing the beauty of nature, travel, and fine art. In addition to her photography, Dunja also expresses her creativity through writing, embroidery, and jewelry making.

Join the Discussion

Share on:

A few days ago, Adobe had another price increase for its Creative Cloud programs. Annoyed by this change, Twitter user Ghost Malone created an extensive list of alternatives, in case you don’t feel like paying more for major Adobe CC programs.  They cover different areas, from image editing to building websites, and all of them are free.

https://twitter.com/ghosthikikomori/status/1083819936626159616

Adobe increased prices in spring last year, and now there’s another increase for the USA, Canada, and Mexico. If you use a single app, then it’s a $1/month increase, but All Apps plans will cost you $10 more per month.

In an article from a few years ago, you can find six Adobe Photoshop alternatives. But, Ghost Malone’s list includes the alternatives for other Adobe CC programs, too. All of them are free, but some have premium versions that are paid. You can see his list below, and we’ve also added a few of our own suggestions.

If you draw or design

Photoshop alternatives: GimpKritaFire AlpacaAutodesk Sketchbook, Medibang Paint, or Affinity Photo

Lightroom alternative: paint.net, Skylum Luminar

Illustrator alternative: Inkscape

InDesign alternative: Canva or Scribus

If you make pictures move

Premiere alternatives: Davinci Resolve or Hitfilm Express

Animate/Flash alternatives: OpentoonzPlastic Animation PaperEasytoon, or Blender

After Effects alternatives: WaxBlender, or Fusion

If you build websites or software

Dreamweaver, Spark, or XD alternatives: Notepad++WIXWeeblywordpress.com, OR Sublime Text

If you do stuff that requires these other programs

Audition alternatives: AudacityWavepadOcenaudio, or LMMS

Acrobat Pro alternatives: Foxit ReaderPDFmate, or PDF Escape

If you need stock photos or fonts

Adobe Stock alternatives: PexelsUnsplash, or Pixabay

Adobe Fonts alternatives: Google FontsFont Squirrel, or Dafont

BONUS:

Free music or sound effectsYouTube Audio LibraryIncompetech, or Soundbible
Clip artOpenclipart
Textures: textures.com

One more thing I’d like to add is Photopea, a Photoshop clone that works in a browser and it’s completely free to use. Judging from Stefan Kohler’s review, it’s pretty good. I tried playing with it a bit, too, and it really is impressive (although a bit slow on my crappy computer).

So there you have it, a whole bunch of free programs and websites if you’re fed up with Adobe CC for whichever reason. I already use some of them, but there are a few more that I’ll go and download straight away.

Do you already use any of these alternatives? Which ones would you recommend?

[via Ghost Malone]

Find this interesting? Share it with your friends!

Dunja Djudjic

Dunja Djudjic

Dunja Djudjic is a multi-talented artist based in Novi Sad, Serbia. With 15 years of experience as a photographer, she specializes in capturing the beauty of nature, travel, and fine art. In addition to her photography, Dunja also expresses her creativity through writing, embroidery, and jewelry making.

Join the Discussion

DIYP Comment Policy
Be nice, be on-topic, no personal information or flames.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

24 responses to “Here are free alternatives to all major Adobe CC programs”

  1. Rebecca Maier Avatar
    Rebecca Maier

    The basic photography plan isn’t changing it’s still going to be $9.99 a month

  2. Daniel Fernandez Avatar
    Daniel Fernandez

    And right at the top of the Adobe link sits:

    “Note:

    This increase was effective April 16, 2018 for United States, Canada, and Mexico.”

  3. Jürg Wolf Avatar
    Jürg Wolf

    As the first „Free“ alternative to Photoshop, GIMP is listed there.
    Whoever had to work with that crappy program knows that it’s far cheaper to work with a paid program effectively than to fumble ineffective for hours with GIMP.
    I won’t say, that the other listed programs are similar ineffective, but if you only look at the price, you only get what you pay for!

    …isn’t that the mantra, I read here repeatedly when it comes to “cheap photographers “…?!

    1. Vincent Avatar
      Vincent

      GIMP has improved a lot in recent years. But you just have to invest effort and time in it. It always amazes me how people can be so negative about stunning open source software like GIMP, Darktable and RawTherapee to name just a few. You have a very narrow view on it imho.

    2. Jürg Wolf Avatar
      Jürg Wolf

      Dimitri Gathy not really… and here, I don’t even talk about automation such as with macros, plugins and presets (this may also a valid point where Adobe products beat most of the “free” software in this list!) – I focus on usability, software performance and small, intuitive helpers like all the sliders in Lightroom.
      These helpers are to support YOU and are the reason why paid software in most cases are cheaper in the end – because it makes YOU more productive!

      Note: I don’t speak only about Adobe software but also of other well designed and crafted software such as the Affinity products.

      1. eraofd Avatar
        eraofd

        Capitalistic fanboy…. who really cares!

      2. MegaNickels Avatar
        MegaNickels

        nah he’s right. This is a good list but i think it would serve working pros better if there was also a list of PAID alternatives as they will almost always be better than free alternatives. Affinity products are the best alternatives to photoshop and illustrator so far imo. Capture one Pro, ACDSee, and ON1 are damn good alts for Lightroom. Web design/ I never understood the use WYSIWYG editors unless it’s a web based site builder like WIX as they just add loooads of bloated code to your projects so I always recommend hand coding with note pad++, sublime text, or Atom text editors. For video work IMO Magix (previously SONY)Vegas 15 or 16 and DaVinci Resolve are the best very capable alternatives. I could not tell you a good alt for audio editing as I don’t do it. I would like to get into sound design as i have a few ideas for projects that would benefit form sound design skills. For animation Blender like stated above is excellent for 3D stuff. No clue on the 2 side. I’d have to ask my buddy about that. As for stock content I couldn’t tell you as I create my own assets. I hope these recommendations of paid alts help some folks out.

    3. Kevin Neoe Avatar
      Kevin Neoe

      I Use GIMP As My Image Editor. It Can Do The Same As Photoshop Once You Master The Tools. I Create Effects In GIMP By Watching Photoshop Tutorials. I’m Very Familiar With The GIMP UI/UX. But I Do Have The Old Version Of Photoshop, CS3. Well, GIMP Can Do Everything Except Smart Objects. I’d Rather Use GIMP Than Spending Money Monthly

  4. Vadio Avatar
    Vadio

    Great summary article. Thanks for creating it.

  5. Alan Laighleis Avatar
    Alan Laighleis

    Just got my renewal notice and it’s 9.99+vat for Europe

  6. BlueNinja Avatar
    BlueNinja

    Krita is a far better Photoshop alternative and looks way better than gimp. Granted its more for those who paint or illustrate…….but that’s mostly what I use Photoshop for anyhow. https://krita.org/en/

  7. Mr.Sabbath Avatar
    Mr.Sabbath

    Darktable is way better alternative to Lightroom.
    darktable.org

  8. Tj Ó Seamállaigh Avatar
    Tj Ó Seamállaigh

    Where is RawTherapee and GIMP ?

  9. KRISHANU DHAR Avatar
    KRISHANU DHAR

    I just download the free trial version from the official website and then crack them to make full version……lol

  10. Volker Bartheld Avatar
    Volker Bartheld

    HP Scan & Capture, Epson Scanner Software -> https://www.hamrick.com
    Helicon Focus -> http://enblend.sourceforge.net/enfuse.doc/enfuse_4.2.xhtml/enfuse.html
    Lightroom -> http://ufraw.sourceforge.net
    Microsoft Internet Information Serices -> https://httpd.apache.org
    Microsoft Office -> https://www.libreoffice.org
    Nero Burning ROM -> http://www.imgburn.com
    Photoshop -> https://www.pl32.com
    Premiere -> https://www.lwks.com
    ptGUI -> http://hugin.sourceforge.net
    SpyderELITE -> https://displaycal.net
    Symantec Ghost -> https://www.runtime.org/driveimage-xml.htm
    Triggertrap, Canon TC-80N3, Nikon MC-36, Promote Control, Little Bramper -> https://www.dreamingrobots.com/camera-axe, https://photoduino.com
    VMware -> https://www.virtualbox.org
    Vegas DVD Architect -> https://www.dvdstyler.org/en

    HTH.

  11. John Wojciechowski Avatar
    John Wojciechowski

    The problem was everyone jumped on the CC program instead of totally ignoring Adobe. Now they have everyone by the short hairs. I never subscribed and never will. I still use my original programs.

    1. Kaouthia Avatar
      Kaouthia

      Not everybody. This is why I stuck with CS6. :)

  12. Frank Nazario Avatar
    Frank Nazario

    Yeah… use Unsplash and you are just walking into a lawsuit, those people are nothing more than a setup for trouble.

  13. MegaNickels Avatar
    MegaNickels

    I saw this coming the moment Adobe announced subscription models. They get everyone reliant on their software then slowly hike the price over time while not really having to fix or improve anything because hey, you have to pay adobe monthly if you want to get any work done. I ponied up the cash for Capture one. Then I dropped Lightroom like 10 ton boulder in the Mariana Trench. Capture one is eons better. The only down side is that it does not have a photo merge That I’m aware of. :(

  14. moonshin Avatar
    moonshin

    the price hike is only outside of teh US. to catch up with teh US hike of last april.

    they are adobes first hike since they went to the subscription model 5 years ago.

    calling it ANOTHER price increase is wrong

  15. Peter Woods Avatar
    Peter Woods

    “Adobe had another price increase for its Creative Cloud programs” Who didn’t see this when they were offering $10 subscriptions way back then !?!

  16. Daniela Avatar
    Daniela

    Decent Adobe programs alternatives, PhotoWorks is missing from the list, it’s a good rival to Lr.

  17. Kitty Kat Avatar
    Kitty Kat

    Thanks so much for this! Adobe has been contacting me via popup screens starting yesterday–even though they have my email address and I have an account with them!!! Today was the first time they notified me that my software wasn’t “genuine”–which is interesting because they confirmed yesterday that they have my serial number on file, and in fact, THEY helped me reinstall the program on two computers about three or four years after suing what’s-their-names that I bought the program from. I will not be returning to Adobe.

  18. Johan Crijns Avatar
    Johan Crijns

    i have been using every adobe product since Photoshop 1.0 and have never spent any money doing so…hahaha