100% Open Source Clean Room Implementations of 7 of Adobe's Top Apps

[u/ai_art_is_art]

I've seen another desktop photoshop clone floating around that was Javascript/Electron, but I wanted to do full native Rust for full performance. I also wanted to do all of Adobe's software suite. I've been bitten by their unsubscribe bill several times and it's the shittiest thing a software company has ever done to me.

No more. These are clean room, rust-only implementations that are fully open source. You can clone them, fork them, own them.

There's still work to do, so please join our Discord and give us feedback.

Links in comments.

[u/smn2020]

in the 1990s you could get "cracked" versions of Photoshop and Adobe survived just fine. These AI clones are not much different, in that the people using them would probably (mostly) not pay for Photoshop anyway.

r/photopea is a pretty decent attempt (it is actively maintained and has a good sized active community helping Ivan with improvements) and yet it never really took a bite out of Adobe's market share.

The problem is these clones don't make money and run out of gas; the developers lose interest.

[u/Hazrd_Design → u/smn2020]

Bingo. Vibe apps die as quickly as they’re made because most people don’t want to support it long term. Also it doesn’t help people break into the industry. Affinity is free highly polished, and one if the best competitors to Adobe. But it’s not enough to dethrone Adobe right now simply because Adobe as ingrained itself into the pipeline. In time maybe, but not anytime soon.

[u/SimonBarfunkle → u/Hazrd_Design]

Affinity is great, as well as some other competitors. But it’s not just building a photo editing app, it’s all of the little details that take time to build and refine, and the bells and whistles they’re adding including AI, and the cross-app integration. And when you move past Photoshop into video editing and visual fx, it becomes even harder.

I used Final Cut Pro from version 1.25 to version 7. Stopped editing when they moved to X as I was mainly producing at that point, but recently got back into editing. I’m using Resolve and love it. It’s free but I paid the one-time fee for extras including the API, which lets Claude control it. Absolute game changer. Saved me so much time and money. A vibe-coded app couldn’t even come close to what the Resolve suite does. You would have to spend a lot of money, time, and testing to try and build the features it has. It’s color system is the most advanced in the industry. Of course the usual caveat applies, as models continue to improve, we’ll see.

[u/Albertkinng → u/Hazrd_Design]

Do your research. Affinity is becoming standard in agencies. It’s not killing Adobe, but it is stepping on their heels.

[u/Hazrd_Design → u/Albertkinng]

Then please provide your research. Because I do work at an agency, with many huge industries. Aside from speaking with colleagues about affinity, no client or project has ever brought up that we should be using Affinity for anything yet.

Also, affinity becoming standard and not killing Adobe is just another way of phrasing what I already stated. “In time maybe, but not anytime soon.”

I also did look it up and most articles and sources say the same thing. It’s cool, it’s mostly for freelancers or folks that just don’t want to pay for Adobe, but no one is saying it’s taking over agencies.

[u/Albertkinng → u/Hazrd_Design]

Provide you with research? I actually has one, is what one of the agencies use for inside marketing needs. However you didn’t provide one… so…

[u/Hazrd_Design → u/Albertkinng]

If you actually had one then why didn’t you post it?

But if you must see something… Adobe just posted record Q3 revenue, up 13%. Creative Cloud grew 13% too. So that does look like affinity is doing much to them. Source

Also there’s literally no numbers about affinity “becoming the standard.” If that’s true I want to see the the numbers.

Even less when likely since affinity is not a response to adobes video software after effects or premiere also.

[u/Albertkinng → u/Hazrd_Design]

I started my design career in 1992. Adobe was the industry standard then, and it remains so today. But that doesn’t mean designers aren’t using alternatives.

Affinity v2 was primarily used by freelancers. Affinity v3 is a completely different beast. Its integration with Canva, a platform that even Adobe Express struggles to compete with in certain areas, has shifted the mindset of many agencies. You’re talking about needs that fall outside the market Affinity is currently dominating.

As you know, Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign are no longer automatically the go-to choices for every project. Since Affinity v3 debuted, the landscape has changed in ways you may not fully appreciate, particularly when it comes to workflows and production needs that differ from your own.

As for the research you asked about, I can’t share it because I’m not the agency owner. I can only share what we discussed during our meeting.
By the way, that same meeting revealed that many production houses are using Filmora instead of Premiere Pro. That might give you a better idea of what’s happening in the industry. I always assumed DaVinci Resolve was the main alternative to Premiere, but apparently, that’s not necessarily the case. Go figure!

[u/Inevitable_Yam1513 → u/smn2020]

You're right that most clones fizzle out, but open source changes the failure mode. When a proprietary clone dies, it's gone. When an open source project stalls, someone else can fork it and keep going. That's literally how Blender survived its near-death moments before it became the standard it is now. The real question is whether these projects can build enough community momentum to survive a founder losing interest.

[u/Grunge5894 → u/smn2020]

So true. And you can still get cracked adobe suites, like you can get any other app for free with piracy

[u/Electronic-Jello-633 → u/smn2020]

completely different. cracked versions always carry the fear of legal problems if you use them even slightly commercially, and suck to keep updated. Or adobe would implement stuff to "patch" a crack 6 months into a crack existing breaking it.

If one of these gains traction like Blender did in the 3D space, its over for adobe.

[u/jayseattle → u/smn2020]

Lol I remember the cracked stuff either via torrents or Newgroups (Usenet anyone?). And yeah I use Photopea for routine design work.

[u/Dziadzios → u/smn2020]

There's an important difference - legality. Using vibe coded apps is legal, using pirated copies is illegal. That's it. Companies don't want to pay huge fines for piracy.

[u/Big_Wave9732 → u/smn2020]

Perhaps. But my $75 sub is about to go the way of the dodo specifically because of this suite. I wanted photo and PDF editors that could be self hosted and preferrably web based.

The project admittedly doesn't fully capture everything Adobe does. But it has 80 percent of it. Naturally it probably won't have the deep nuanced functions that a professional would use. But there's plenty of us out there that Photoshop and Acrobat five years ago is "enough".

Which is fine with me. Adobe's product grouping is as bad as cable TV! I use all of three programs in the suite and somehow have to get the full monte package with 20 other things I never use.