Adobe has been a lightning rod for criticism for years over its steep subscription fees. Brandon Thomas, a developer with 15 years of software experience, has offered a practical answer: free, open-source alternatives to Adobe's popular programs, built with AI assistance.
The project, called ArtCraft, was created using Anthropic's Claude Opus 5.5 model. Thomas chose Rust, a language used for desktop app development, and wrote the seven programs from scratch, releasing the code for everyone to access. He notes the apps are in an early alpha stage and some features are not yet complete.
Which app replaces which Adobe product?
The apps in the project correspond to seven popular Adobe products. Users familiar with Adobe interfaces will find similar tools in similar layouts.
- PhotoCraft – Photoshop
- VectorCraft – Illustrator
- FilmCraft – Premiere
- LightCraft – Lightroom
- PdfCraft – Acrobat
- EffectCraft – After Effects
- DesignCraft – InDesign
The apps run both as desktop programs and in the browser. User data is processed locally on the user's own computer, without being sent to the cloud.
"The era of software empires is over"
According to Thomas, AI-assisted coding opens the door for anyone to build software tailored to their own needs. That, he argues, marks the end of the traditional software development era.
The programs still have bugs and gaps for now. Thomas says he aims to reach 99 percent feature parity with Adobe's apps in the coming months. The project is released under open-source licenses such as MIT and Apache, paving the way for community contributions.
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