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Person Tired Of Adobe Increasing The Prices Of Their Programs Posts List Of Free Alternatives
A lot of Adobe Creative Cloud users have noticed their wallet getting thinner. For example, the Photography plan was the cheapest CC subscription option, offering Lightroom CC, Lightroom Classic CC, Photoshop CC, and 20GB of cloud storage for $10. Now, the new plan offers the same three apps plus 1TB of cloud storage, but double the price.
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Earlier this year, Adobe raised its prices
Image credits: burgerdrome
“Since launching Creative Cloud more than five years ago, we have not changed prices for customers in North America (United States, Canada, and Mexico),” the company wrote announcing the news. “As Creative Cloud continues to evolve and improve, we will raise prices for the first time beginning on April 16, 2018. For our All Apps plan customers, we recently released five all-new Creative Cloud apps — Adobe XD CC, Dimension CC, Character Animator CC, Photoshop Lightroom CC, and Spark with premium features. Single App customers also benefited from the addition of Spark with premium features and Adobe Portfolio in their plans.”
Pissed with the new pricing policy, Twitter users started sharing free alternatives to the major CC Programs.
The price bump came as a surprise to many users, so they started sharing free alternatives to the CC programs
Image credits: scaredyghost
One Twitter user, Kaeden “ghost malone” Stears, even put together an extensive list of free alternatives to all the major CC programs. “I made a blog post purely out of spite,” they said. “I actually made a whole blog out of spite, just to make that one blog post. I did it because I was furious about a spike in the price of the Adobe Creative Cloud Suite, which is already stupidly expensive.”
“I hate any company that tries to exploit the already poor-as-shit creator community, as I myself am a member of that group. However, I have a particular case of the ass against Adobe. Adobe, to me, symbolizes everything I hate about both capitalism and Western civilization’s complete disregard of the arts and humanities as not just valuable, but necessary parts of life.”
But the writer said they don’t want to preach or complain. “Instead, I’m taking a more proactive approach to my frustration. Instead, I’ve scoured the internet and rounded up free or cheap alternatives to every major Adobe CC product, many of which I personally use because I … hate Adobe so goddamn much.”
IF YOU DRAW OR DESIGN
Instead of Photoshop, try Gimp
Instead of Lightroom, try paint.net
Instead of Illustrator, try Inkscape
Instead of InDesign, try Canva or Scribus
IF YOU MAKE PICTURES MOVE
Instead of Premiere, try Davinci Resolve
Instead of Animate/Flash, try Opentoonz or Blender
Instead of After Effects, try Wax, Blender, or Fusion
IF YOU BUILD WEBSITES OR SOFTWARE
Instead of Dreamweaver, Spark, or XD alternatives: WIX, Weebly or wordpress.com, or wordpress.org
IF YOU DO STUFF THAT REQUIRES THESE OTHER PROGRAMS
Instead of Audition, try Audacity
Instead of Acrobat Pro, try Foxit Reader or PDF Escape
Instead of INCOPY, try LOVING YOURSELF AND USING LITERALLY ANYTHING ELSE (WHO USES THIS???)
IF YOU NEED STOCK PHOTOS OR FONTS
Instead of Adobe Stock, try Pexels, Unsplash, or Pixabay
Instead of Adobe Fonts, try Google Fonts or Dafont
BONUS: If you need Free music or sound effects, try YouTube Audio Library, Soundbible
Soon, people started sharing their take on the situation, debating if subscription software is really worth the money
Image credits: Scribble_Fix
“I have used Adobe products in the past, mostly InDesign, Premiere, and Photoshop,” Kaeden told Bored Panda. “While I can’t deny that they’re powerful programs with a lot of great features, I personally find them to be a bit clunky. The learning curve is also massive, which I find frustrating.”
Given how powerful the programs are, Kaeden doesn’t think a high price tag is unreasonable. “What really grinds my gears is the subscription. Clip Studio Paint’s full feature version is $220 USD and you only have to pay for it once. I much prefer that to the $50+ per month subscription Adobe forces you into, which is both cost prohibitive to beginners and freelancers and completely unreasonable when you consider that the subscription is for the whole Suite when most people only use one or two programs!”
“They also force you into a year-long contract, which I learned the hard way when I tried to cancel my subscription after six months (since I only needed the Suite for six months) and Adobe told me I’d have to pay my remaining subscription balance in order to cancel early. I would rather pay $200 or even $300 for InDesign once — basically the equivalent of one year of the One App subscription plan — than $600 a year for a suite of programs I’ll never use. Software should be something you pay for once.”
Of all the free alternatives, Kaeden probably likes Autodesk Sketchbook the most. They use it for drawing, and, since art is just a hobby for them, Sketchbook is like a happy medium. “I also use Paint.NET and Canva regularly for photo editing and graphic design. For writing (my actual profession), I mostly stick to Google Docs because it’s what my job requires, but I also use Evernote and I really like the free Grammarly editor, too!”
“Just because something is free doesn’t mean it’s automatically going to suck. Krita is 100% free and I’m amazed by how powerful it is relative to Photoshop. Paint.NET is also free but open-source and highly customizable with the use of plug-ins. Your mileage may vary depending on your job and specific needs, but I personally quit using Adobe after I graduated college and have never looked back. I haven’t needed to. The free and cheap alternatives that exist out there have been more than enough for me.”
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Image credits: SoushinSen
After the huge wave of disappointment, Adobe released an announcement: “From time to time, we run tests on Adobe.com which cover a range of items, including plan options that may or may not be presented to all visitors to Adobe.com. We are currently running a number of tests on Adobe.com.” They also brought back the famous $10 Photography plan which people can order online, via phone at 1-800-585-0774 or via major retailers.
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What do you think ?
Miklós Nagy 5 years ago
Forget GIMP. The layer management is bad and it rasterize fonts after any transformation. If you want a drawing program for free, there is Krita. If you are willing to pay, there is clip studio, or painter (from corel). Photoshop wasn't even made for digital paintings for the first place.
Reirei 5 years ago
I use GIMP and I've never had a problem with it. But then I do hobby art and photo manips, not professional stuff. I also just find the interface works for me whereas others don't. People shouldn't forget it, just find what works for them. :)
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Ray Heap 5 years ago
Affinity Publisher, Affinity Photo and Affinity Designer for me, Adobe can go and Freehand themselves out of existance.
Monica Michelle 5 years ago
I will absolutely pay for my tools but you should only have to pay once. The monthly payment is brutal especially for those who make a living with their art.
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Sean Harrison 5 years ago
Unfortunately we're in the era of "Captive Consumerism" where people have been conditioned over the years to just accept what companies do and give in.
Miklós Nagy 5 years ago
Forget GIMP. The layer management is bad and it rasterize fonts after any transformation. If you want a drawing program for free, there is Krita. If you are willing to pay, there is clip studio, or painter (from corel). Photoshop wasn't even made for digital paintings for the first place.
Reirei 5 years ago
I use GIMP and I've never had a problem with it. But then I do hobby art and photo manips, not professional stuff. I also just find the interface works for me whereas others don't. People shouldn't forget it, just find what works for them. :)
Load More Replies... Ray Heap 5 years ago
Affinity Publisher, Affinity Photo and Affinity Designer for me, Adobe can go and Freehand themselves out of existance.
Monica Michelle 5 years ago
I will absolutely pay for my tools but you should only have to pay once. The monthly payment is brutal especially for those who make a living with their art.
Load More Replies... Sean Harrison 5 years ago
Unfortunately we're in the era of "Captive Consumerism" where people have been conditioned over the years to just accept what companies do and give in.
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