The world of Photoshop alternatives has become much more interesting in recent years, and not just because of the plethora of interesting candidates that have emerged. Companies like Canva and Affinity continue to give Adobe a hard time, but Adobe itself has also pushed some users away, thanks to its AI terms and cancellation policies.
And it’s the latter that apparently inspired a solo developer to recreate several of Adobe’s most popular tools, including Photoshop, Premiere, and Illustrator. These were rebuilt with Claude and Rust.
Writing on Hacker News, software developer Brandon Thomas said he was inspired to create the clones after “being bitten by the dark model’s ‘cancellation fees’ one time too many.”
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“I’m not just a casual coder. I’m a 15-year industry veteran who’s written everything from six-nine payment rails that move billions of dollars in transaction volume per day to advanced automation in robotics and optics,” Thomas announced on Reddit. “I’ve been using Rust extensively for about a decade and know how to build and maintain large-scale Rust projects.”
I’ve created 100% Rust Open Source cleanroom replacements for 7 of Adobe’s applications: Photoshop, Illustrator, Premiere, Lightroom, After Effects, InDesign, and Acrobat Pro. Free, no subscription and you own the source code
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“The software is over,” he added in a comment on Hacker News.
Really ? Really? It appears to me that Thomas used software to create a clone of software. And while copying Adobe may sound exciting, I’m not sure it’s a positive omen for the future of software or creativity. Is using AI to create a carbon copy of something as exciting as, say, creating something new?
And it’s hard to imagine professional creatives feeling confident enough to entrust their files and livelihoods into the hands of AI-generated software.
As one Reddit user puts it: “There’s a huge difference between unproven software that vaguely resembles Photoshop and can probably do some of the things Photoshop can do and reliable, robust productivity software that you can count on to perform well and maintain long term.” »
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