https://affinity.serif.com is quite good. It's not the same, but I switched (95% personal use) when Adobe forced everyone onto subscriptions and it's been more than sufficient for that.
I read that they were acquired by Canva. Does that create any risk of their pricing changing to a subscription model or maybe a risk of them adopting the same terms as Adobe?
Ask HN: What alternatives to Adobe products are you switching to?
21–30 of 74 posts
Re: Ask HN: What alternatives to Adobe products are you switching to?
#22https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adobe_Creative_Cloud#Desktop,_...
I think the big ones are:
Acrobat
Audition
Illustrator
InDesign
Lightroom
Photoshop
Premiere
I think a lot of people also use Fonts and Stock just because it’s convenient but they aren’t the same type of desktop product as the other ones.
Re: Ask HN: What alternatives to Adobe products are you switching to?
#23Re: Ask HN: What alternatives to Adobe products are you switching to?
#24I switched a long time ago. I use Affinity Photo and Corel PaintShop Pro. Only features I feel I'm missing out on are the generative ai features in latest Photoshop versions.
I just hate GIMP myself, never liked it and it feels extra clunky. For quick edits, I can usually get away with Pinta (Paint.Net fork), but would like something more. I've thought about digging out an old copy of JASC PSP, which IIRC ran fine under WINE.
Re: Ask HN: What alternatives to Adobe products are you switching to?
#25https://affinity.serif.com is quite good. It's not the same, but I switched (95% personal use) when Adobe forced everyone onto subscriptions and it's been more than sufficient for that.
I read that they were acquired by Canva. Does that create any risk of their pricing changing to a subscription model or maybe a risk of them adopting the same terms as Adobe?
Re: Ask HN: What alternatives to Adobe products are you switching to?
#26https://affinity.serif.com is quite good. It's not the same, but I switched (95% personal use) when Adobe forced everyone onto subscriptions and it's been more than sufficient for that.
I used Premiere for about two years but never liked it as much as Final Cut Pro X, so I'm back on FCPX for video now that I've got a better Mac to run it on.
FCPX and Affinity are both one-time purchases, which I appreciate.
Re: Ask HN: What alternatives to Adobe products are you switching to?
#27Re: Ask HN: What alternatives to Adobe products are you switching to?
#28Illustrator -> Affinity Designer
InDesign -> Affinity Publisher
Premiere/AfterEffects -> DaVinci Resolve
All one-time payment licenses. I cancelled my Adobe subscription a couple years ago. It was such a mess of dark patterns to get out of it. Good riddance.
Re: Ask HN: What alternatives to Adobe products are you switching to?
#29Unfortunately, Adobe tools were already on its own league before the recent AI revolution. They are now even more untouchable. I say that with deep regret not only because of the update to the terms of service, but because they are terrible OS citizens, downright user hostile in many situations and a monopoly.
I used to feel this way. And then I discovered their Spectrum design and React libraries. I use them in production. And I am a huge fan. I don't think anything like this exists. Opensource or commercial.
Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of UI libraries. But nothing has the breadth of coverage that Spectrum does, including design guidelines.
https://spectrum.adobe.com/ https://github.com/adobe/react-spectrum
And Spectrum 2 is expected later this year.