Adobe alternatives
I can report that I have successfully removed Adobe's Creative Cloud from my system and no longer have to be concerned about subscription costs or Adobe's questionable terms of service from now on.
Of course, that means finding alternatives to Adobe apps I've used in the past. So what have I found to replace these (admittedly industry-standard) products? I can't claim to have found an alternative to all of Creative Cloud but for the parts of it which I used to use, I have now done so, with software which is either free or has a one-time perpetual licence.
1. Photoshop and Illustrator
Finding alternatives to this pair was easy. Simply switch to Affinity Photo and Affinity Designer. You can add Affinity Publisher to complete the set (I use that for producing manuals for my plugins) and it's significantly cheaper to buy the three apps in one go than to buy them separately. These three applications are so well integrated you can switch between them as required. Photo and Designer are very powerful and do everything I could want in terms of image editing. Photo works with Photoshop brushes of which I have a lot, and plugins of which I have a few, including Filter Forge which I really like. Is there some esoteric Photoshop/Illustrator function they don't have? Probably, but it's unlikely I'll ever find or need it.
2. After Effects
I think I've only ever used this once, because I rarely do motion graphics or video work. If I did, the obvious alternative is DaVinci Resolve, but there are numerous other alternatives. I've installed Resolve but never had occasion to use it yet. I guess the thing most users would miss is the integration between Cinema 4D and After Effects, so switching would depend on how important that is to you.
3. Premiere Pro
Again, not something I have much (any) use for, but there are alternative video editors if you don't need Pro's power. And again, DaVinci Resolve would be a fine alternative. If you don't need that much power and associated learning curve, until recently you could have used Adobe Premiere Elements, as that used to be a one-off purchase, but now it's the purchase of a 3-year licence, so presumably you need to pay all over again after three years to keep using it. That's a stealth subscription as far as I'm concerned. A better option is, for me anyway, Shotcut as it's intuitive and very capable without being overwhelming for the casual user needing to do a bit of video editing.
4. DreamWeaver
For me, this was the difficult one. I've been using DreamWeaver (DW) ever since it was owned by Macromedia, and I have a lot invested in it in terms not only of experience in its use but with a number of extensions from Project VII (now sadly closed) which make it so quick and easy to add complex features to a web site. Along with the use of templates, creating new pages for a site in DW is fast and simple. So I really hesitated before switching away until I realised that I was paying £20 per month, or £240 per year, for a piece of software I used for perhaps 4-5 hours per month. That's ridiculous.
I looked at several possible alternatives of which the best (my opinion, of course) was SiteDesigner by CoffeeCup, which is very nice-looking and is a one-off purchase, not a subscription. Like DW, it is oriented towards building web sites by design rather than code. Unfortunately, for me that is, it doesn't use DW extensions or templates, so regretfully I decided against it. In the end, I cheated a little: I already had an old perpetual licence for DW CS4 (CS = Creative Suite, the predecessor to Creative Cloud). Despite harking back to 2008, it runs on Windows 11, which is more than you can say for a lot of older software, uses my DW extensions and opens and utilises the DW templates I've developed over the years. For me, this works well and despite not being Adobe-free it isn't a Creative Cloud app and there's no subscription. It's not perfect, there are occasional display glitches, but I can live with that. It's also forced me to concentrate a little more on the code for my pages, which can only be a good thing.
5. Acrobat
The Acrobat reader is still free of course, and still very good so I must admit I've kept it. But what if you need to create or edit PDF files? There is a large number of alternative PDF editors, both online and offline, and you can pretty much take your pick. I chose PDF24 Creator, because it is free and available to use offline, but there are many others and I can't really recommend any particular app. In any case virtually all PDF creation I do is done by export from some other app, notably Affinity Publisher, so I don't really have the need for a fully-featured PDF editor; I certainly don't need Acrobat Pro!
6. InDesign
An app I've never used but for me the obvious alternative is Affinity Publisher due to its tight integration with its Photo and Designer stable mates. Nothing more to say, really.
7. Fonts
Everyone needs fonts. I'm no expert in typography but when I need a font I invariably head to Google Fonts. Some may feel that Adobe fonts have advantages or are of higher quality but for me the absence of a subscription fee and simple licensing model make Google by far the best choice, especially if you're doing away with all things Adobe.
8. Adobe Firefly
This is Adobe's AI image creator. It's part of Creative Cloud but it seems to be free to anyone up to a certain amount of use. Whether it stays like that of course is anyone's guess. There are several alternatives, both free and paid-for. I don't use this sort of thing much but it's useful to have available. Free alternatives include Apple's Image Playground if you run the latest macOS or iOS, or there is Microsoft Designer which uses DALL-E; again, there may be limits on how many images you can generate without a subscription, but for infrequent use these are fine.
9. Adobe Substance
This is not, in fact, part of Creative Cloud (more's the pity) but I thought I'd mention it here anyway. For C4D users, the biggest attraction of this is probably the ability to produce PBR textures in Substance Designer. The biggest downside is its cost: currently £49.98/month, or £588 per year. That's not much less than an annual licence for C4D (£772) and in my opinion is way too much for most hobbyist users. Unfortunately although you can find lists of alternatives to Substance, most are sculpting programs like ZBrush rather than texture designers. One possible alternative though is InstaMat, which is currently free for individuals or companies with a revenue of less than $100,000, but that might not be so forever. Looking at the web site and support forum there doesn't seem to be that much recent activity which is a little concerning (if you are paying for it, that is). But it's worth a look if only for its 'Materialize Image' function.
10. And the rest...
Creative Cloud contains a lot more than the above. If you happen to need one of the other apps included in it, there may or may not be alternatives. My guess is that there almost certainly are, but you would need to research them and find out if they do what you need. To be frank though, I suspect that the apps I've listed above meet the needs of the vast majority of people, though some companies might like the unified series of apps in Creative Cloud that all their workers can use without IT support having to worry about a mixed bunch of open-source or commercial software.
Conclusion
You can free yourself from Adobe's subscriptions and licensing practices. Although you will probably end up using a mixture of apps from different sources with differing capabilities, cost, and support, I think it's worth it. Try out some of the apps I've mentioned and say goodbye to Creative Cloud!
Where to find the above apps:
| Software | Compatibility | Price (current price, May 2025, in UK pounds) |
|---|---|---|
| Affinity Photo | Windows & macOS | £67.99 |
| Affinity Designer | Windows & macOS | £67.99 |
| Affinity Publisher | Windows & macOS | £67.99 |
| Affinity Suite Universal Licence* | Windows & macOS | £159.99 |
| DaVinci Resolve | Windows & macOS | Free |
| Shotcut | Windows & macOS | Free, open-source |
| PDF24 Creator | Windows only (offline version) | Free |
| SiteDesigner | Windows & macOS | £74 |
| Google Fonts | Any platform | Free |
| InstaMat | Windows & macOS | Free ('Pioneer License' when annual revenue is under $100,000) |
* includes Affinity Photo, Designer and Publisher for all supported platforms
Page last updated May 28th 2025