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This Open Source Repo Just Killed EVERY Adobe Product! (free)

This Open Source Repo Just Killed EVERY Adobe Product! (free)

Duncan Rogoff | Learn Claude Code8 min2026-10-10 ▶ Watch on YouTube
What this video is
⚡ a 9-minute video, readable in 60 seconds

The video weighs whether to try ArtCraft's free, open source rebuilds of seven Adobe apps (PhotoCraft, FilmCraft, EffectCraft, VectorCraft, LightCraft, DesignCraft, and PdfCraft) against paying for the matching Adobe apps (Photoshop, Premiere, After Effects, Illustrator, Lightroom, InDesign, and Acrobat). The comparison turns on price (free vs Adobe Creative Cloud Pro's roughly $70/month) and on each app's self-reported feature-parity percentage and readiness for daily professional work. The creator reaches no single overall winner: it depends on the app and the user, with a recommendation to try PdfCraft, LightCraft (for Nikon/Sony/JPEG shooters), and VectorCraft now, but wait on PhotoCraft, FilmCraft, or EffectCraft for client deadlines, and a note that anyone not currently paying for Adobe loses nothing by testing all of them.

Options: ArtCraft rebuilt seven Adobe apps from scratch - Photoshop, Premiere, After Effects, Illustrator, Lightroom, InDesign, and Acrobat. [00:10]
Key takeaways
+ 33 more takeaways
  • PhotoCraft vs Photoshop: PhotoCraft includes layers, masks, adjustment layers, and 27 blend modes. [01:23]
  • PhotoCraft vs Photoshop: in PhotoCraft's own test, 307 of 309 PSD files looked the same after saving. [01:40]
  • PhotoCraft vs Photoshop: the makers put Photoshop parity below 50%, with no generative fill, about 20 missing tools, and no working plug-ins. [01:57]
  • PhotoCraft: built using a 'Clean Room' approach, rebuilt from public info and visible app behavior, never seeing Adobe's source code. [02:24]
  • PhotoCraft caveat: whether the apps infringe Adobe's patents is still an open legal question, per Petapixel. [02:37]
  • PhotoCraft: 71 of the last 100 code changes on its codebase list Claude Opus as a co-author. [02:46]
  • LightCraft vs Lightroom: LightCraft has albums, star ratings, side-by-side culling, and editing sliders. [03:07]
  • LightCraft vs Lightroom: the makers say LightCraft has about 79% of Lightroom's features, but as a daily replacement it's more like 60-70%. [03:25]
  • LightCraft weakness: newer Canon RAW files only open as small previews, and other RAW files look a little muted for now. [03:32]
  • Best for: LightCraft fits JPEG or RAW shooters on Nikon or Sony today; newer Canon shooters should wait. [03:46]
  • FilmCraft vs Premiere Pro: the makers score FilmCraft at about 87% of Premiere's features on a checklist but only 50-60% ready for real work. [04:11]
  • FilmCraft weakness: it's slow on big footage, has no plugins, and for now only exports standard MP4. [04:20]
  • FilmCraft: fine for a quick cut on a Mac but not ready for a client deadline. [04:28]
  • EffectCraft vs After Effects: EffectCraft is only a week old, with its first line of code written October 1st. [04:38]
  • EffectCraft vs After Effects: the makers say nearly every After Effects feature exists, including every single effect. [04:47]
  • EffectCraft weakness: it can't open old After Effects projects (.aep/.aepx) or run After Effects plugins, saves projects as .ecproj instead, is most tested on macOS, and in the makers' words isn't yet a replacement for After Effects on client work. [04:57]
  • VectorCraft vs Illustrator: VectorCraft has pen tools, shape tools, gradients, and text, and opens many Illustrator files. [05:18]
  • VectorCraft vs Illustrator: as of 2026-10-07 the makers put VectorCraft at roughly 69-75% of Illustrator's features working, about 40-55% indistinguishable to a power user, with no 3D/Materials and no scripting yet. [05:38]
  • DesignCraft vs InDesign: the makers listed 275 InDesign features. [06:08]
  • DesignCraft vs InDesign: they say about 99% of those features are in, at least in basic form. [06:12]
  • DesignCraft: counting all the small options too, they put the completion rate at about 83%. [06:17]
  • DesignCraft: the plan says the remaining work will take about 170 wall-clock hours of a single Claude Opus 5.5 agent, not a team. [06:23]
  • DesignCraft weakness: it can't place EPS files yet and layout for Asian languages isn't finished. [06:34]
  • PdfCraft vs Acrobat: PdfCraft can view, search, combine, and split PDFs, plus fill in forms, add comments, redact, and do basic signatures. [06:58]
  • PdfCraft vs Acrobat: the makers say about half of Acrobat Pro's features are in PdfCraft, including 88% of the must-have features. [07:12]
  • PdfCraft weakness: editing text already in a PDF isn't reliable yet, and the makers' own testing still finds crashes on broken files. [07:17]
  • Context: on October 7th ArtCraft also released free copies of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, AutoCAD, and Pro Tools, bringing the total to 12 free apps. [07:30]
  • Best for: PdfCraft for everyday PDFs, LightCraft for Nikon/Sony/JPEG shooters, and VectorCraft for simple vector art. [07:45]
  • It depends: wait on PhotoCraft, FilmCraft, or EffectCraft for client work. [07:45]
  • Pick: if you don't pay for Adobe right now, you lose nothing by trying every one of the apps. [07:58]
  • Pick: seven free rebuilds in about a week, mostly written with Claude, is worth watching even though it didn't kill Adobe today. [08:03]
  • Caveat: they are shipping updates almost every day, including 43 releases in 8 days, so these scores will be out of date fast. [08:11]
  • It's only $9 a month and the link's in my description.
PhotoCraft vs Photoshop: in PhotoCraft's own test, 307 of 309 PSD files looked the same after saving. [01:40]
PhotoCraft vs Photoshop: in PhotoCraft's own test, 307 of 309 PSD files looked the same after saving. [01:40] ▶ 1:43
PhotoCraft caveat: whether the apps infringe Adobe's patents is still an open legal question, per Petapixel. [02:37]
PhotoCraft caveat: whether the apps infringe Adobe's patents is still an open legal question, per Petapixel. [02:37] ▶ 2:40
DesignCraft: the plan says the remaining work will take about 170 wall-clock hours of a single Claude Opus 5.5 agent, no
DesignCraft: the plan says the remaining work will take about 170 wall-clock hours of a single Claude Opus 5.5 agent, no ▶ 6:26
How this brief was shaped: Comparison / Buyer Guide · confidence Medium

The transcript structures the whole video as seven head-to-head pairs, ArtCraft app versus its Adobe counterpart, with price ($70 a month versus free), GitHub star counts, and feature parity percentage cited, ending in a per-app try-it-or-wait verdict. OCR confirms this with the makers own parity assessment and explicit alpha status disclaimer for the Photoshop clone.

The lens sets this brief's structure, never its facts — every claim is held to the same citation and fact-check standard.

Jump to a moment
0:00A free repo that rebuilt every Adobe app1:15PhotoCraft: the free Photoshop2:17How is this legal? Clean-room rebuilds3:06LightCraft: the free Lightroom3:57FilmCraft: the free Premiere Pro4:38EffectCraft: the free After Effects5:18VectorCraft: the free Illustrator5:55DesignCraft: the free InDesign6:49PDFCraft: the free Acrobat7:29Plot twist: five more free apps7:43Who should switch and who should wait
Their links, sorted & clickable
🏛️ Communities & courses1👉skool.com
🔗 Other links1👉getartcraft.com
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