Best Alternative to Every Adobe Program

this image has been floating around the web for a while what it does is it lists a whole bunch of alternatives for Adobe software on an app bya basis super helpful and really thorough and I have opinion while many of the apps on this list are good most of them are some of them only fill one section of what Adobe Illustrator or Adobe Photoshop may have done while others are more of a complete package that's tried to replicate the entire experience of an app and what you might need is going to vary from person to person so let's break it down hello my name is Brad I review tech for Creative professionals and this image was created by someone named X Daniel art who's a graphic designer in Spain I'll link the original down below his Twitter post I love this and I I want to really go through it piece by piece and talk about my favorite pieces of software to use on this list now I do want to throw a disclaimer on this I've used most of these pieces of software Photoshop illustrator uh even Adobe like XD Premiere Pro After Effects I've used these but there are some pieces of software I have used less I've never touched Adobe Audition uh so I'm going off of research that I've done based on what apps might be a good replacement for that when I get to some of those categories where maybe I have less experience I'll let you know so if there's other YouTubers who do have a ton of experience in that area they may be talking more from personal experience than I am they might be better resources for this stuff cool cool start with photography okay we have the Photoshop section open here and my favorite Photoshop alternative at least for photography graphy editing some graphic design and that sort of thing is definitely Affinity photo on their website they call it the photo editor you've been dreaming of and and basically it takes a lot of photoshop's most popular features and it replicates them down to many of the photoshop brushes and things like that in fact you can import brushes into this the way you can import brushes into Photoshop often times using the exact same brushes as well but photo really is designed for photography and mind hence the name and right now all of affinity software is 50% off it's a one time purchase every few years they release a new version I think about 2 years ago they released version two and that is a paid upgrade but for the most part it's a onetime purchase you own it forever sort of thing so you can buy it for Mac OS windows or the iPad or you can get the entire Affinity Library currently it's only 82 bucks it's not bad because you're getting Affinity photo you're getting Affinity designer and Affinity publisher those two we'll be talking about in a minute here if you're looking for something for free what I would check out on this list is photo phia or photo let's go with photo now this is a webbased version of Photoshop they've copied a lot of photoshop's interface a lot of this is going to look really familiar to you you've never used it before as you can see on the right hand side there are ads but over here on the left hand side you have the same tools almost the same icons on the right hand side You' got your layers your history a lot of the palletes are in the same place they look the same um this is web based so it's not quite as fast as Snappy um but it's still really shockingly good and it's free so if you just need to jump in and open a Photoshop file once in a while this is a good thing to check out and just see if it fits your needs before you jump into something more expensive another thing on this free list is is now I have uh I have bad talked for a long time a lot of people love it's an open- Source software extraordinarily well known my biggest problem with is I don't really like the workflow and how the tools are laid out and that sort of thing and it's super super slow especially on the Mac but it is free and a lot of people love it and for the most part it does replicate many of the features or the most common features that you're used to seeing in Photoshop since it's free it's hard to not recommend it so if you are looking for something open source that runs on the desktop it might be worth at least checking out quick shout out I've got two courses learn to draw in 60 days an intro to digital art over at Brads Arts school.com check those out if you're just jumping into digital art or wanting to learn more about drawing back to the video some of these others I haven't used quite as much for example paint.net I wasn't really a fan of that um some of the others I haven't used I have used pixel Mater Pro which is available on iOS and it's available on the Mac it's not available for Windows that's a really good Photoshop clone as well but overall Affinity photo is is my choice in this category now then there's the painting section this is something that I talk a lot about in these videos so if you've been around for a while you know I love clip Studio paint this is a onetime purchase I should put an asterisk by that they their purchasing options have gotten a little bit more convoluted but this is they do have an option where you can purchase it and own it forever you'll only get security updates doing that you won't get updates going forward if you want all the updates as they happen there is a very affordable subscription available for this as well this is also available on Mac windows it's available on Android it's my favorite thing to draw on an Android and it's available on iOS as well fantastic for drawing comics and Line work and art and and that sort of thing I love it another thing that's on this list that I really like is procreate if you've been around here for a while you've heard me talk about procreate quite a bit that's iPad only though but if you are on an iPad it's fairly inexpensive it is a one-time purchase It's a Wonderful app to draw in and then there's K now I'm mentioning CR here because it's open source so it's totally free you can find it in some places to buy for example I think they charge for it on the steam store or somewhere they charge for it might be the Windows store but if you just go to cr.org you can download it for free and it's fantastic it has all the brushes that you would ever need to make any AR it's it's a fully featured professional drawing application even has some animation features in there I recommend this a lot for beginners who are just getting into digital art who maybe don't want to invest a lot of money in this hobby yet but want all of those features and want to experiment not only that but here on YouTube there's a ton of videos that'll teach you how to use crit so if you're getting used to the interface I find it's not quite as Snappy and fast and responsive as some of the other apps I like on this list but for free software it is fantastic it's also on Android I find the Android version gets a little cluttered because there's a lot of like interface element elements and stuff like that around so the area that you have to paint in is kind of small but again it's free and fully featured ibz paint X is also on this list that's something that I have used not a ton but I tend to test it out a lot on Android and iOS devices when I'm playing with them it's got some really cool inking tools it is free but also ad supported so you can pay a small fee to make the ads go away forever but also if you just want to watch an ad it'll open up a lot of the features I think every 16 hours or so they reset that's another drawing app that's worth checking out just because some of the pens are really nice especially if you're into comics and inking and that sort of thing what else is on this list that's worth mentioning a lot of people like paint tool saigh I I find that to be a little bit more old school for my taste Sketchbook I have not checked out in a while they had a change of ownership fire alpaca and medy bang are open- Source medy bang I'm not sure they're built on the same kind of Open Source engine I would prefer going with something like CR myself but they're also free so it might be worth checking out my another free one I didn't care for that quite as much as K but anyway we should move on from painting I could talk about painting all day so let's talk about Adobe Illustrator I'm going to go right back to Affinity again and talk about Affinity designer Affinity designer is one of my all-time favorite apps one of the cool things about it is it's got different personas so if you're in the drawing Persona it works kind of like Photoshop where you have all your pixel brushes and things like that but then there's also a um Vector Persona in there too so you can click on that and now you have Vector shapes and Vector brushes and infector stuff it's not only a fantastic alternative to Adobe Illustrator but it's just a fantastic program altogether because you could do your sketching in there and then do your vectors on top of that on a different layer I love this program I'm I'm currently building my comic in this program I like it so much A lot of people do think of this as just a vector program but it's a vector and painting program so there's a lot of cool stuff that this can do and totally worth checking out it's got a decent price tag on it highly highly recommend this application also on this list is inkscape now inkscape is something that I a lot of people have told me I really need to dive into there because this is an open-source Vector alternative to illustrator very popular a lot of tutorials online I've used it a little bit um but since I'm so used to Affinity designer I tend to kind of fall back on that one because I have it I should really do a deep dive into inkscape because the little I have used it is pretty impressive and I've seen people create great stuff in this app open source free good reviews might be worth checking out so neither inkscape or Affinity designer have a live Trace feature it's interesting that that's called out here on this list so it also mentions Vector magic which is uh basically what live Trace is is it can take a bit map image you import it into illustrator and it can turn it into a vector image there's all sorts of settings and things like that oftentimes if it's a lower resbid app it does some weird things but anyway a lot of people do rely on that feature in illustrator so if you need it in another program Vector Magic might be able to help you out next let's take a look at Adobe animate now this one is a little interesting because there's there's nothing quite like it there are some that can do really high-end animations uh applications like moho toune boom Harmony these are fantastic they're also very expensive these are used by professional Studios to do professional level animation and and in many ways these two applications are like higher end that adobe animate based on what they can do I don't have a ton of experience with these apps but I know since they are used by professional Animation Studios they come highly recommended as well another thing that's on this list is blender blender can do animations blender can do a lot of amazing things I love me some blender blender's going to show up a few times on a few of these different lists because it does do some of these things however it's a very different application it's free it's worth checking out but blender I think of blender primarily as a 3D rendering model animation app that just happens to be really good at animation just happens to be good at some of these other things some of the other things on this list that I have played with a little bit like I think open Tunes open Tunes is open source uh so it is free it might be worth checking out um when I've played with it it's more of a frame by frame animation tool it doesn't I I personally think of this as a very different application than Adobe animate even though the end result is you're animating with something the way you get there is very very different in these applications it's kind of cool that throws on some honorable mentions here like uh Critter CR fire alpaca and those sort of things because those do have some animation features in them as well I'd also throw clip Studio paint in here it's got an animation timeline too yeah so that's Adobe animated it's hard to find anything that's exactly like Adobe animated is kind of unique in this space uh but there are definitely applications out there what about in design I'm just going to go straight here to Affinity publisher Affinity publisher is basically I wouldn't call it a copy of in design but it's basically doing the same thing it's built for graphic design layouts and that sort of thing basically designing for print it's affinity's version of in design and it's part of the entire Suite this is where I would look also on that list is Quark Express now I have not I I started my career using Quark Express like 20 years ago and uh I I should give it another shot but I just don't do a lot of publication design so I don't know if I'd give it a fair shake at the time I did not like uh Quark Express but again that was 20 years ago a lot A lot has changed in software in 20 years and the open source version here is scribus I've never used that I'd be curious to hear what you guys think if you've ever tried it is it on par within design all right our next one is Adobe substance this is the first one where I have very little actually know what I'll say it I've never touched this application so this one's a little tough for me I have heard some good things about quickel mixer uh material maker is obviously the open- source alternative might be worth checking that out first armor paint 3D code that sort of thing again probably worth checking out somebody else's recommendation before you jump in and actually spend any money here Lightroom is another one of those things that I've never used but I've heard a lot of good things about this on one and I've also heard good things about capture one on one is known for its speed and all the features that allow you to crop things and change color and modify your photos and take care of your photos that way so that might be one that's worth checking out if you're kind of into this space and capture one is doing similar things with your ability to go in there and do some like more color correction photo editing type stuff as opposed to like some of that hardcore photo editing that you're used to in Photoshop all right let's talk Adobe XD I have only used Adobe XD a little bit but my former life I was an experienced designer a ux designer so I've used some of the competitors quite a bit I used sketch a ton back in the day actually when I started my job we were using Photoshop for all the layouts occasionally you'd find people who are using an app called fireworks which was a app that adobe purchased when they got macromedia and then abandoned a few years later to much people's dismay I really enjoyed using sketch back in the day it had a lot of interface elements and I found it super easy to use and duplicate pages and make different modifications to the pages and had a lot of great stuff and right when I was getting to the end of my career as a ux designer before I kind of jumped feet first into this YouTube thing another application came along that kind of took over the user experience design world and that is figma everybody I know in this space is now using figma everybody has shifted over they say great things about it it has some great collaboration tools you could do a lot of the same stuff it's all online in fact this was one of those areas where Adobe XD never really got a ton of traction because sketch and figma were just eating their lunch and a few years ago maybe two years ago Adobe tried to buy figma and failed so it's still around it's still the industry-leading you know software solution if you're in this space you're probably already using it I was curious about the open source stuff in this area this is called pen pot uh and it's like an open source version of some of these applications interface design it looks pretty cool like they've got a lot of like features and stuff going on here it looks super slick their website looks nice looks like there's some design code collaboration stuff that you could do this looks really interesting to me so if you are just kind of diving in and you need something for free this might be worth checking out here we are we're talking about Adobe Audition now I've said at the top I've never used Adobe edition which is not totally true I used it once cuz someone had me on their podcast they had me boot up Adobe Audition to record my audio I know a lot of people in the space who use audacity which it looks here that's crossed out have they changed their name to tenacity Google sucks nowaday they they're not telling me but audacity still has a website they're still around doing sound editing might be worth checking out this is also the first appearance of some Da Vinci software here we have Da Vinci fairlite you're going to be hearing me mention Da Vinci's name several times the next couple categories that's another one that has a paid option but also has a free version of the software um which still has a fair amount of features so if you're kind of looking to go the free route that might be something that look that's worth looking into oh yeah Cakewalk I've heard of Cakewalk too and of course there's Garage Band if you have a Mac that's already pre-installed logic pro on here that's big Studio software type stuff yeah so that's that's Adobe Audition let's move over to Premiere I spend a very large portion of my life nowadays editing video and Premiere I have tried to replace premere in my iPad Pro video I tried using uh Final Cut Pro for the iPad that didn't go so well it was just a learning curve it was a great piece of software I it was just a lot to learn all at once but if you are on a Mac checking out Final Cut Pro might not be a bad way to go I know a lot of influencers uh use it but it's incredibly popular in the max Bas a lot of people talk about it obviously can get the job done and there's an iPad app version now now this is one that's been making a lot of waves in the Creator community in recent years and this is Da Vinci resolve now this has a free version that has almost all of the features or at least a ton of features packed in the free version there's also a paid version so if you want support and that sort of thing that's available to you as well and I guess the color correction On Da Vinci is fantastic it's used by a lot of Studios very professional level software and a true alternative to Premiere that's out there I think if I was going to break away fully from Adobe this is probably where I would look first kind of lumped this next category Al together we have acrobat uh Bridge Dream Weaver now acrobat is is acrobat and there's some online pdf makers out there like PDF exch change if you need to make it also a lot of apps just have PDF features baked in so you could like export from Google Docs as a PDF so it really depends on what you're looking to do then there's Adobe bridge I have always hated Adobe Bridge very easy to accidentally open it up way back in the day uh it was basically file management software but was big and heavy and slowed down your computer so I never used it but look xn view MP appears to be a decent alternative and then there's Dreamweaver back in the days when I was a web designer slux designer like everybody hated Dream Weaver I used Koda that's not on this list there's a billion other ones out there now it's kind of weird because web design has changed so much that if you're building a website I would recommend using something like Squarespace or WordPress or that sort of thing instead of writing like code on your own like like Dream Weaver does but there are some options listed here I have never heard of any of these it just seems like the world of web design has moved so far past Dream Weaver in the last decade or so all right we're ending here with After Effects it's interesting that blender is on this list again this is an area where blender could do a lot of things that after effects can do but I would not consider blender an After Effects alternative I have heard really good things about hit film now I as I understand it hit film does a few things one you can do all of your video editing in there but also it has a lot of effects and extra things that you could dive into and play with similar to what after effects does but I don't think it goes as deep as After Effects we're going to go back into the da Vinci world this is uh fusion um this is similar to Da Vinci there is a free version and also a paid version of this and this is some hardcore software this honestly scares me a little bit when I've looked into it it looks very intimidating it looks like it uh it's going to have a learning curve it can do a lot of things um but you're going to have to learn it you're going to really have to dedicate yourself here whereas hit fill might be great for making little Graphics to stick in videos for the kind of stuff that I do this seems like it's geared more towards the professional effects level of people who really want the kind of Hardcore solution that after effects provided yeah so this is the 2024 version of this list thank you ex Daniel art for compiling this and giving us something to talk about today a lot of fantastic recommendations on this where are your go-tos where do you differ from me what are some apps that I may have like skimmed over here that you think are awesome or worth checking out spending more time with let me know Down Below in the comments thank you all for watching and I'll talk to you in a couple of days

Channel: Brad Colbow

Views: 165,297

Keywords: tech, technology, art, illustration, drawing, wacom, ipad, apple pencil, procreate, review

Id: lLab5ChFFho

Length: 18min 56sec (1136 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 20 2024