Beyond Adobe's pricey products: my graphic designer’s toolbox on Linux
I've spent years polishing my craft with Adobe’s heavyweight suite, Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, and Premiere mainly, on macOS, treating each launch like a ritual. But the closed nature of macOS and Apple hardware eventually felt more like a cage than a canvas, so a few years back I made the jump to Fedora, Linux. The move forced me to say goodbye to Adobe, which stubbornly refuses to run on anything other than Windows or macOS, and start hunting for open‑source or cross‑platform replacements that could keep my workflow humming without breaking the bank.
For vector work, Inkscape has become my new trusty sidekick. It handles complex illustrations with aplomb, though it still lacks native CMYK support, a minor inconvenience when I need print‑ready files. In those cases, I either swing by an online converter or hand the job off to Scribus, which, despite its ~~nostalgic~~ outdated UI, does a solid job converting PDFs to a proper CMYK color profile. Scribus itself is a respectable InDesign alternative, but I rarely reach for it now that desktop publishing isn’t a daily chore. On the commercial front, I dabble with Affinity (previously Affinity Designer, Photo, Publisher). After Canva’s acquisition, the suite was turned into a free all-in-one creative product, yet it remains officially bound to macOS and Windows. Fortunately, a few manual steps let you run it on Linux, and Canva has also hinted at a native Linux version in the pipeline, good news for anyone who’s been petitioning for it.
Web design lives comfortably in the cloud. Figma is my primary tool, with Penpot as a handy open‑source backup; both offer (unofficial) desktop wrappers (Figma one; Penpot one) that feel just as snappy on Linux as they do on any other OS. When it comes to raster images, I’ve tried GIMP countless times, but its workflow never clicked for me. Instead, I turn to Photopea, a browser‑based editor that opens Photoshop PSD files without a hiccup, perfect for the occasional photo retouch that doesn’t merit a full‑blown desktop app. Video editing, once a Final Cut Pro affair on macOS, now lands in the capable hands of Kdenlive and DaVinci Resolve. Both deliver professional‑grade tools without demanding a subscription, and they run smoothly on my Linux workstation.
All told, my toolbox is a patchwork of community‑driven projects and savvy web services. And many other software exist, such as Krita for digital painting, Blender for 3D, Boxy SVG for quick SVG edits, and a handful of other utilities that pop up when a client throws a curveball. It’s a reminder that creativity doesn’t have to be shackled to pricey, platform‑locked software. With a bit of experimentation, Linux offers a surprisingly rich ecosystem for graphic and web designers alike.
- Vector Graphic App
- Free
- Open Source
Comments
Very nice rundown. Thanks! I don't agree with all alternatives listed, but that is just our different use cases and particular needs shining through. Personally, Affinity was a game changer for me for alternatives to Adobe CS. Only Lightroom remains unchallenged. I do use Skulym Luminar, which is the only alternative I have found that can equal LR, when processing large amounts of pictures (in the hundreds at a time) if not in speed; it has a slightly better workflow for me, though. I haven't tried Luminar on Wine yet, but seeing that it already lacks in speed over LR, I don't expect it to be enough. As for Illustrator, I can work considerably faster there than in Affinity Designer, but feature wise they both fit me well. So, in a pickle I can in fact be fairly productive on Linux compared to Windows, if not exactly all the way there yet.
p.s. There were some annoying changes in the Canva release of Affinity, but all in all it is an interesting situation and before all a solid democratisation of design tools. Difficult not to applaud it (even if it feeds the inner sceptic 🤗).
Interesting article. Thanks for sharing! Affinity's announcement for the Linux release of their suite is definitely exciting. While I do love to use Linux as part of the open source nature of work, it'll amazing to see more commercial apps for the platform - like DaVinci Resolve. I wouldn't mind paying for an app on Linux if it's really good and has that commercial backing.
The Corporations want to be on Linux and there's free stuff already, Open Source might never become a normal everyday thing, but it's beginning to reinvigorate the market. Interesting how an anti-Capitalist ideology can be good in the long run for Capitalism?
thankfully I've been an inkscape user from day one. always nice to see more users!
Always fun to read about people's setups. I've thought about switching to Linux, but as a solo game dev it'd just make everything harder with no real benefits.
The benefits are having more control and getting out of the big tech shackles. You can always just try Linux for a few days to see if it works for you.
The "no real benefits" part implies those aren't benefits to me in comparison to what I lose.
You can always dual boot for times when you're off game development, if you have the space. And then maybe you can slowly start testing and seeing if you can switch and/or compromise some things, unless you know for certain there is something you need without any alternative on Linux.
i too had thoughts like this, but more and more i found myself not needing to boot into windows cuz everything i wanted to do (and could do) i can do on linux... i can use my typically windows-only game engine and IDE of choice on Linux, and even heavy software like FL Studio. and with the way things are, it's only gonna get better, I feel.