Create without Adobe (free & paid)
There is no doubt that Adobe Suite is great, even in some case it's probably the best. But you can be mad at Adobe for many reasons, expensive monthly subscribtion method, bad stability, useless features, paying for tools you don't use. Here is my list with the best way to ditch Adobe monopoly in my opinion. I tried to add Open Source alternatives too as some are really good.
I only covered Adobe softwares that I've used so I'm sorry if you don't find what you came for...
Replacing Photoshop and Lightroom
Basically a freemium Adobe Photoshop clone in your web browser !
Worth mentioning : Pixlr
For a Lightroom alternative this one is probably the closest as a full package. Easy to use, clean almost modern interface, amazing processing and snappy. It's a one time paiement that is profitable in only 2 years if you compare it with the subscription of Adobe Lightroom. It's probably the best RAW editing software I've found.
Worth mentioning : Capture One a bit more expensive but really good too Exposure X7 cheaper, still really good ON1 Photo RAW You will need paid plugins to match Lightroom but still a great option. Luminar Neo cheap price, nice UI/UX, a bit laggy and slow, AI powered features
For macOS users also worth mentioning Pixelmator .
The Affinity Suite is my go to as a professionnal alternative suite to Adobe's one. Affinity Photo can replace Photoshop AND Lightroom simultaneously. Even tho I personnaly prefer Lightroom's workflow, I've manage the switch. You will need some re-learning as it's a bit different to Adobe photography softwares. Worth the attention as the license is not expensive at all.
If you want to go open source GIMP2 is the king ! In my opinion the UI is not as intuitive but you can install an open source plugin called PhotoGIMP that will change the interface of GIMP to looks like Photoshop. Those combine gives you a really powerful free and open source alternative to Photoshop.
GIMP is the open source alternative to Photoshop and Darktable the open source alternative to Lightroom. It's really powerful and complete but it does need a lot of relearn as the UI is not the more polished and intuitive. Still a great alternative and it's free so what are you waiting to download ? I would recommend this guide if you are used to use Lightroom https://mathiashueber.com/darktable-settings-for-lightroom-user/
Worth mentioning RawTherapee as a FOSS alternative to Lightroom but Darktable is in my opinion more fun to use even if it's slightly not as powerful and feature rich than Raw Therapee. If you just want basic editing and just organized your pictures digiKam is a great option, you can also integrate it with darktable worflow and probably RAW Therapee too.
If you use Photoshop as a painting app STOP, Krita is the way to go, free and open source you won't find better app.
Check Procreate for iPad !
Replacing InDesign
The Affinity Suite is my go to as a professionnal alternative suite to Adobe's one. Affinity Publisher is in my opinion the only good alternative to Adobe InDesign. You can't open .indd but .imdl (InDesign MarkUp) which is really good to transition from your old project to the new software you just acquired.
QuarkXPress looks good but I never tried it.
Canva is a easy to use tool to replace many Adobe software. It is more oriented to template based creation and for semi professional or amator content creator. It is a freemium subscription based service.
If you want to go free and open source there is not really any good alternative. You can try Scribus but it have a really outdated UI. It can suites you if you do 2 flyers a year or a small book, but if you ever used InDesign go with Affinity Publisher.
Worth mentioning : Polotno Studio A really cool online open source tool that might suits basics usage.
Replacing Illustrator
The Affinity Suite is my go to as a professionnal alternative suite to Adobe's one. Affinity Designer is not perfect (yet), but in my use case completly replace Illustrator easily. It's intuitive and powerful. It can open .ai files with no to little issues.
Worth mentioning : Corel Vector Amadine Apple only
A 100% free web based alternative.
For macOS users check Linearity Curve it's free, has a great UI and pretty powerful. As a paid alternative Pixelmator .
Replacing Premiere Pro
DaVinci Resolve is the top recommandation as a professional colorist tool. But now it is a complete video editing software with awesome features. Also the free version is almost identical to the paid one, so there is no reason not to try it. It will need some relearning as it's not like Premiere Pro but you can choose at the insatllation to have a more Premierish UI.
It even can replace Adobe After Effects with Blackmagic Design Fusion built-in and Adobe Audition with DaVinci Resolve Fairlight also built-in.
Only for mac user Final Cut Pro X is a good and powerful alternative to Premier Pro that I think I don't have to mention here as it is really popular.
For Windows 10 users Corel VideoStudio is a great Final Cut alternative as it's inspired by that Apple UI.
For open source video editing Shotcut is my recommandation as it's powerful and quite simple to learn and use.
Worth mentioning Kdenlive , Olive Video Editor and Flowblade
Replacing After Effects
I said that DaVinci Resolve was a complete video editing software with awesome features ? Fusion is one of them. It's really professional and powerful. But as it's not layer based like Adobe After Effects you will need to relearn for a node based used.
Worth mentioning HitFilm Pro .
Natron is a really powerful and open source Adobe After Effects alternative. Like Blackmagic Design Fusion Natron is node-based so you'll need to learn how it works.
Replacing Media Encoder
Handbrake is a must-have if you're in the video industry. It's free and open source.
Replacing Animate
Probably the option you will choose as a professional.
Worth mentioning Spine , Creature and Animation Desk
One time purchase for iPad only !
A really good free and open source Animation and Interaction tool to create animation and things like small video games or some interactive assets for a website.
A feature-rich open source animation tool with an old but pretty clean UI.
Worth mentioning OpenToonz and enve For drawing animation check Pencil2D For Stop-Motion animation look at Boats Animator
Replacing Audition
Audaciy is well known and even with Audition I was still using Audacity as it is simple, fast and efficient.
But if you need more advanced mixing consider Ardour It will probably suites you more
Replacing Adobe Xd
This one is easy
Figma is now owned by f*cking Adobe so I'm switching to Penpot or Lunacy which looks to be the best free cross-plateform alternatives !
Figma is in my opinion the more polished and feature rich UI design tool. For mac user I would recommand Figmac or Figgy which are alternative figma clients with a more Appleish UI.
The king before Adobe Xd enter the market, Sketch was the most used UI design tool. On mac you can also check Principle that helps you easily create animated interactive UI !
For Windows 10 users check Lunacy it's free :)
Penpot is the first Open Source design and prototyping platform meant for cross-domain teams. Non dependent on operating systems, Penpot is web based and works with open web standards (SVG). For all and empowered by the community.
Worth mentioning : Wireflow Quant-UX Also check : Akira but it is still in early stage of development and only for Linux kernel users .
Replacing Dreamweaver and Brackets
I still don't understand why people are using Dreamweaver...
Microsoft Visual Studio Code or just VS Code is a really nice free and open source coding environement. With a lot of great extensions to install. If you're not against using a Microsoft tool give it a try.
If it bothers you install VSCodium instead. It's a script that will build a Microsoft's VS Code repository into freely-licensed binaries with a community-driven default configuration.
And that's it my list of Adobe free creating tools. Hope you find something interesting. Please like and share ^^ Also comment the one that you use !
Thanks 👍😊
You're welcome 😊
Reply written