Courtesy to Twitter user XdanielArt (date of publication: 8 June 2024)
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The wave of GenP refugees today appreciate this post.
Affinity Designer 2 might be the only one close to what Adobr Illustrator can handle.
GIMP is unfortunately not a good competitor, the UX/UI is atrocious, and that’s after spending 25 years using it now… I switched to Krita for most things at this point. GIMP needs some sort of revamp.
Seriously, gimp is barely usable for anything, they need to put the damn thing our of our misery.
And it spawned gtk, which is yet another monument to software masochism.
Will give krita a shot, this shouldn’t be that hard.
Like maybe a GIMP 3.0?
Adobe… Fucks people hard.
Shout out to pdfgear.
Does almost all the pdf file manipulation anyone needs and it’s free.
is the image not loading only for me?
It loads for me on voyager, but is unreadable.
Wish there was a good FOSS Acrobat/Blue beam alternative.
I use those tools for the majority of my work as an engineer.
bluebeam is great
Libre Office Draw is another Ai alternative
Ive been using Sumatra for pdfs. It’s open source too.
Does anybody have a similar list of alternatives but for the Autodesk Suite/Ecosystem? Some open source CAD and BIM programs, some FOSS modeling and rendering programs?
If you are looking for FOSS CAD, then FreeCAD 1.0 is about the only game in town. SolveSpace is fine for fairly simple uses but lacks all the advanced toys one might like. Nor has it been updated in 3 years now. Siemans SolidEdge has a free community edition, but it’s Widows only. OnShape is is a popular alternative to Fusion, and is fully cloud based, but it is restricted like Fusion.
As an acolyte that wears the sackcloth and ashes of FreeCAD, there is a growing community of tutorials, (I highly recommend MangoJelly on youtube) for beginners to learn with. But the learning curve can be steep as you get past the basics. There is a FreeCAD community here, but it’s small and not very active. Sadly the best place for answers remains on reddit.
I’ve spent the better half of six months trying to answer this question. (not continuously, just passively)
For some background, I used fusion 360 for a number of years, so I witnessed it turn to absolute shit, but that means parametric CADs are my cup of tea.
Here’s my thoughts.
FreeCAD: I tried this, but I’ll admit I gave up quickly.
It doesn’t feel like a complete solution. It feels like more and more tools have been tacked on without the realisation that people who haven’t been using it for years are going to have even less of an idea of where to start.
I do want to come back and give it another shot, as it hit 1.0 recently.Plasticity:
I was originally interested in it because if how easy it could be to model something. After having used it for a number of days, I agree that it’s relatively intuitive to get something going, but it lacks the precise feeling of a parametric CAD. Don’t get me wrong, you can be precise with it, but it feels something akin to a 3D paint and less like a CAD program.
I can imagine if you just want to do something small, it would be sufficient.OpenSCAD: I’ve been a programmer for 15+ years, and I expected to like this.
Sadly, if you lack a strong maths background, you’ll find this difficult to master.
I’ll be the first to admit my maths isn’t as great as it used to be.
The beauty of a parametric CAD is that I don’t need to know how to position everything exactly, I can just give it the constraints and it manages it for me.
With this, it felt like I kept on testing a value, measuring the resulting dimension that I was trying to go for, tweaking it again, rinse and repeat.
Didn’t feel like I was programming, it felt like I was writing the 3D model itself with a DSL.
The lack of fillets and chamfers was also frustrating.And this brings me to my current recommendation:
SolveSpace:
I’ve been using it for about a month now, and I’ve been happy with it.
It didn’t take much to understand what it’s trying to do.
It’s completely parametric and I felt at home pretty quickly.
You can do fillets and chamfers easily, it just requires a bit of creative work.Let me know if you have any other questions.
I’d be happy to answer them.Try blender. I use it for CAD.
It really isn’t made for that anymore but I too find myself using it for CAD occasionally too.
I’d be curious to hear your thoughts on the 1.0 of freecad.
I don’t use CAD professionally, and even my hobby usage is less than it was, and it was only a dozen or two small projects.
I had never used freecad, always fusion 360. I’ve been away for awhile, and also switched to Linux in the meantime. I needed to make a simple object, and tried freecad 1.0, and I literally could not intuit how to begin. Not a single shape, I was so lost, it was very frustrating.
I tried onshape and got a bit further, but still don’t like the corporate nature of it.
I’m not trying to slam freecad, I really want it to work, and when I have more time to sit down and study it, I want to try again. But in the meantime I went back to fusion 360 in a VM, which was very sluggish, but at least I knew where everything was.
Countering Animator with Blender, that’s brutal. For at least some stuff Blender is also the better Illustrator.
Another great alternative to Acrobat (Reader) is Okular; it’s free, open source and runs on Linux, Windows and macOS.
It’s been my go-to PDF reader since switching to Linux, since it already came pre-installed with Manjaro KDE.
i mean eveb masterpdf editor paid would help to not support adobe. this list should not be an image but a wiki. bitwig i also expected to see.
Affinity + BMD’s Davinci Resolve FTW. Best combo IMOO. I did the switch back in 2017 and never looked back. Worth the single low price and long term free upgrades. For acrobat replacement (basics only) Apple’s preview is flawless and Ubuntu 25.10 Pages looks promising. Looking for recommendations for Lightroom replacement. Apple’s pixelmator purchase looks promising but I don’t want subscription.
Or if you have to use Adobe products, at least have the decency not to pay for them.
Honestly, GIMP is not a good alternative to Photoshop. I know, “it’s free” is enough for many people, but it … just isn’t.
With GIMP 3.0 it’s a bit better at least, they’ve finally added non-destructive editing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfaq-Cm1ZkAFull changelog here:
https://www.gimp.org/release-notes/gimp-3.0.htmlI’d dare say that unless you’ve already learnt Photoshop (and have to unlearn it) then Darktable+GIMP works fine for home photo editing.
If you’re used to Photoshop and your skills with it is what puts bread on the table… then I completely understand not switching tools.Yeah but it should tell you something that they just figured out non-destructive editing by 2025. Love the team, want to see it succeed, but it’s not PS at all.
GIMP didn’t “just figure out non-destructive editing by 2025”. You’re talking as if it was something that the GIMP development team just decided to randomly add recently, after previously ignoring user demands.
The foundation for that functionality (GEGL) has been in development for ages and was also used for some functionality in 2.6 for a long time. The reason why it took this long is that it’s a pretty fundamental change to how the app works. Also, that meshed with other upcoming changes at the time. Also, small development team.
I have said several times I have gimp and support them. I didn’t think they just discovered it - I’m saying the fact that in 2025 they just implemented it is indicative of why I say they’re behind.
They do good work. Yes they’re a small team. It doesn’t change the fact that the software has limitations.
The question isn’t “are they working hard?” or “are they doing a lot for what they are/their size?” It’s “how does it stack against PS?” And of course they can’t hang with the billion dollar international company with an army of programmers.
My understanding is that a lot of tech debt has been removed with the release of 3.0 and I’m hopeful it will make future updates simpler and faster. :)
Rooting for them! I have had it installed for like 15 years lol
I have had it installed for like 15 years lol
Does never removing it count?
ha that definitely accounts for the stretches I don’t use it
As somebody who has been trying to decided which of the RAW photo editors to use, I can tell you that Darktable has a steep learning curve over Lightroom. The UI is incredibly dense and the names of sliders don’t make sense unless you’re an image science expert.
Been usin DT for close to a year now. I agree the learning curve is a little steeper than light room but once you get it, everything clicks into place. I can’t believe how powerful this program is and it’s free. It’s unbelievable
I’ll take your word for it, I’ve never used Lightroom.
Whenever I played around with Darktable it seems finding a tutorial to get the effect I wanted was just a minute of searching away, and there’s a ton of beginner tutorials available too.
https://www.darktable.org/2024/12/howto-in-5.0/But then I was the kid that rtfm the game manual on my way home from the store and love dense UIs as an adult. :)
Darktable is a godsend to me for converting film negatives.But I pretty much only use image conversion, RGB curve, then fidget with the exposure and RGB sliders in negadoctor a little more then I’m done. No idea how to do anything else.
Yeah I really like what they’re doing and I applaud their efforts, but they are a solid decade behind PS when it comes to feature parity.
And UI usability.
More than a decade on that. I would say the usability is so bad that they are not on track to catch up ever unless something changes. Every year or so I download GIMP and try to use it for something basic, and I always fail and give up.
It’s in the roadmap. :)
https://developer.gimp.org/core/roadmap/#guiI imagine Gimp users revolting if it ever improves a lot.
Have users ever not revolted against change? :P
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I wonder if it would be feasible to create a different UI on top of the existing GIMP backend.
Look into PhotoGIMP, afaik it precisely delivers Photoshop-like symbols, maybe even layout, and shortcuts
I thought they had stopped development? Have t checked them in a decade.
Last release was in mars to make it work with GIMP 3.0
https://github.com/Diolinux/PhotoGIMP/releasesLast release was in mars
Which tech billionaire flew the dev team into space for this? /j
I assume you are right. So then I ask myself, for my own occasional use, would a standalone version of Photoshop from 2015 cover my needs?
Yeah, I think it would!
I was always a much heavier user of Lightroom than Photoshop anyway. I still need to choose between the FOSS options there.
The same with Lightroom sadly. The open source alternatives are either too buggy or have UX designed by very “opinionated” people, making them painful and frustrating to use. I currently want to get rid of Lightroom but can’t.
Give Darktable a go. I switched from LR to DT a year ago and im never going back.
I use krita way more than gimp
Krita is also more of a Paint.NET than a Photoshop replacement.
It is an alternative if you are a casual user.
No
You could give Photopea a try, if you’re looking for a free (as supported) alternatives, it has all core functions and a interface that looks very familiar. No installation required so you can easily test it, and use it in any browser (not sure how well it works without mouse and keyboard or low end devices though).
If you want more than core functionality I don’t think there is a (legally) free option out there.
My go-to PS app:
All online, same controls, hell, same icons. I’m a little stunned that Adobe hasn’t sued them into oblivion.
You can pay to drop the ads, but I’m not really seeing much end user benefit otherwise. Not seeing ads ATM, maybe I blocked 'em.
I love love love GIMP!!!
But yeah it’s not a PS alternative, and tbh that’s not really what it’s supposed to be or what its developers want out of it. it’s different
Always with the GIMP hate. You make a better free alternative then.
It’s not on the end user to make a UI that isn’t total ass.
If all you care about is the price its great but the UI is trash.
This meme from the late 90s is still going? It’s honestly an impressive record.
The meme that GIMP is in any way comparable to PS? Yeah, I agree.
I mean, “compares as bad” is comparable, right? :p
