One Developer, Seven Free Clones: AI Puts Adobe Subscriptions on Notice
Seven free apps mirror Photoshop to Acrobat
Software engineer Brandon Thomas has released ArtCraft, seven free open-source apps meant to mirror Adobe Creative Cloud. According to PetaPixel, TechRepublic and Cybernews, the lineup is PhotoCraft for Photoshop, VectorCraft for Illustrator, FilmCraft for Premiere Pro, LightCraft for Lightroom, EffectCraft for After Effects, DesignCraft for InDesign and PdfCraft for Acrobat Pro. The project is described as written in Rust, licensed under MIT or Apache-2.0, with native builds for macOS, Windows and Linux plus browser builds via WebAssembly. The project pages say there is no account, no subscription and no telemetry.
Clean-room claim meets a lowered parity promise
Thomas describes the work as clean-room reimplementation built from public specs and observed behavior, without Adobe code or assets. According to Ars Technica and Cined, he first promised 100% feature parity within a month on Reddit, then revised that on Hacker News to 99% parity in months rather than years. ITProExpert notes the same MIT or Apache-2.0 licensing claim. Adobe has not publicly responded, and Ars Technica notes possible trade-dress risk from the close interface resemblance.
Cancellation-fee anger plus a veteran using Claude Opus 5.5
Thomas says Adobe cancellation practices drove the project. According to HowToGeek and PetaPixel, he said he was charged the cancellation fee on multiple occasions. Cybernews reports that leaving an annual plan billed monthly can cost half of the remaining annual balance, while an individual Creative Cloud subscription is listed at about $55 per month. PetaPixel describes Thomas as a 15-year industry veteran with about a decade of Rust experience and a former CEO of Storyteller.ai. AndroidHeadlines and ITProExpert report the code was built with Anthropic Claude Opus 5.5, with many commits co-authored by the model and additional community contributors.
Interest has been explosive, but daily professional use is another matter. According to HexcladSecurity, PhotoCraft alone reached 63,348 GitHub stars in about two weeks as of October 15. Creative Bloq tested the alpha builds and found familiar interfaces but frozen tools and missing depth, including roughly 20 AI and generative tools, typography depth and plug-in support. XDA Developers and Cined reach a similar verdict: file compatibility, support, updates and established workflows keep switching costs high even when software is free. Existing free or low-cost options such as DaVinci Resolve, Krita and Affinity remain more mature today.
