Intro
Unlock the potential of your creativity with free Adobe alternatives. Discover powerful tools like GIMP, Inkscape, DaVinci Resolve, and more to enhance your creative projects without breaking the bank.
Explore a range of options for photo editing, video production, graphic design, and more, all without the hefty price tag of Adobe’s software suite.
Adobe has long been a leading software maker for creators, with monthly plans for tools including Photoshop, Premiere Pro, Illustrator, and more.
It started at around ten dollars per month for individual programs or around 55 dollars per month for their Creative Cloud Suite.
Those costs can add up throughout the year. I’ll show you the best free alternatives for 10 of Adobe’s most popular programs to help you get the job done without breaking the bank, most of which are available for Windows, Mac, and Linux. Let’s get started.
Photoshop Alternatives
The raster graphics editor Photoshop is perhaps the most well-known of Adobe’s products. While the feature set is impressive, like most Adobe software, it’s quite honestly overkill for most people.
The best free alternative to Photoshop is that, despite its goofy name, this professional-quality cross-platform image editor is packed full of features you likely won’t miss using Photoshop, including the ability to work with layers.
It supports the most popular file formats, including Photoshop PSD files, and offers many filters and effects, drawing tools, and more.
I’ll mention this briefly. Another Photoshop alternative to consider is this online image editor. It works in any web browser and may be more suitable for those who want a layout that resembles Photoshop more closely. It’s also completely free.
Illustrator Alternative
Designers use the vector graphics editor Adobe Illustrator to create diagrams, illustrations, logos, charts, and other types of art. The key advantage of vector graphics is that they never lose their quality when scaled up or down.
Inkscape is the best free alternative to Illustrator for working with vector graphics. It includes a massive set of tools for object creation and manipulation and is 100% compliant with the SVG file format.
This makes it an excellent option for file generation and editing. I recommend that you check out the useful tutorials on their side.
Premiere Pro Alternatives
Adobe Premiere Pro is a timeline-based and non-linear video editing program widely used by creators of YouTube videos and content on other services.
For this one, I’ll recommend two alternatives to Premiere Pro. The first is DaVinci Resolve, which has a steeper learning curve than our other pick.
Professionals have used this high-quality video editor to edit many popular TV shows and movies. I
t supports multicam editing with advanced trimming features and supports most file formats with its built-in Fairlight tools. It offers tons of options for mixing and editing audio.
The free version of DaVinci Resolve will be all that most people will ever need if they need additional features, including dense noise reduction and multi-user collaboration.
DaVinci Resolve Studio will cost you a one-time fee of $295. Another alternative to Premiere Pro, with an easier learning curve than DaVinci Resolve, is ShotCut.
This open-source video editor is great for beginners. It includes a ton of features, is 100-free, supports resolutions up to 4K, and includes various audio and video effects with support for most popular media formats.
Lightroom Alternatives
Adobe Lightroom is a nondesnondestructive editing tool and management system that supports working with raw image formats. I have two free alternatives for this one as well.
The first is open-source raw therapy, which, as the name suggests, supports working with raw image files and most other image formats.
Its interface has improved significantly over the last few years and allows non-denondestructiveness. This keeps the original image separate while editing and saves the edited image as a new file.
Another excellent alternative to Lightroom that’s popular with some people is Dark Cable.
It’s also open source, supports raw files and most image file formats, and offers non-denondestructiveness, so your original images are never modified.
After Effects Alternative
Adobe After Effects is a popular tool for creating motion graphics and visual effects. It is widely used in the post-production process of filmmaking, television production, and video games.
While no free alternative can truly match After Effects’s feature set, many professionals use Blender instead to create 3D visual effects and animated graphics.
It’s one of the most impressive open-source programs available. Instead of directly comparing it to After Effects, I like to think of it as an all-in-one production suite.
It includes tons of tools for creating motion graphics, a composer, and an easy-to-use video editor built in.
Audition Alternative
Adobe Audition is a digital audio workstation that records and mixes audio. Its widespread use cases include video post-production podcasts and restoring audio.
At this time, the best free alternative to Audition is Audacity. I say this because, as I’ve mentioned in other videos, a couple of years ago, Audacity had some issues that upset its community.
Thankfully, those issues have been resolved. Audacity is open source, offers various themes to change the look, and includes almost every feature you need.
It supports most of the popular audiophile formats and offers plugins that can increase functionality while using it.
Acrobat Alternative
Adobe Acrobat includes tools to view, create, and edit PDF files. Out of all those mentioned in this post, this program is the one I probably get the most questions about.
Is there a free alternative? Sadly, the short answer is no. There are no free alternatives to Adobe Acrobat with all its features. I can offer a solution I’ve recommended to many people: first, download and install the accessible version of Foxit PDF Reader.
This will let you view, fill in forms, annotate, and sign PDF documents. If you need a tool not in Foxit PDF Reader, go to the website tools.pdf24.org.
As I mentioned in a prior video in our useful website series, the site has a huge collection of free tools that can be used in any web browser on any operating system.
InDesign Alternative
This will be a quick one. This software works with publishing and page layout design software.
That is used to create magazines, posters, brochures, flyers, books, presentations, and so much more.
The best free alternative for those who don’t want to pay for InDesign is Scribers.
It offers almost every feature you need, including colored profiles, font management, and support Vector drawing tools.
Express Alternative
Adobe Express has gained popularity over the last couple of years. The web bubble app is an all-in-one solution for editing photos and videos and creating designs.
Canva is a better alternative to Express, which is available with both free and paid plans. It’s also web-based and can be used in any browser.
It includes thousands of pre-designed templates to help you or provide inspiration when starting a project.
Animate Alternative
Adobe Animate creates 2D animated content for games, cartoons, TV shows, apps, and other interactive content that can quickly be published on multiple platforms. The best free alternative to Animate is Synthetic Studio.
This open-source program provides excellent tools to produce high-quality 2D animations. It offers layer support with various types of filters, along with vector tweening to save time when drawing every frame.
Synfix Studio, like many of the free alternatives mentioned, depends on donations from its users. So, if you can afford to donate a few bucks, I’m sure they would appreciate it.
Otherwise, you can still download and use these programs for free.
Up and share it with others. What free software or web app do you use that you think would be a great alternative to any of Adobe’s products?
