Brandon Thomas used AI to rebuild Photoshop, Premiere, Acrobat and four more Adobe apps as free open-source tools. Early testers say some work well, but most are still alpha.
Software engineer Brandon Thomas has released seven free, open-source copies of Adobe apps under his ArtCraft brand, built in Rust with help from Anthropic's Claude. PhotoCraft stands in for Photoshop, FilmCraft for Premiere Pro and LightCraft for Lightroom, with others for Illustrator, After Effects, InDesign and Acrobat. He has since added versions of Word, PowerPoint and Excel.
Thomas promised full feature parity within a month, but also called the apps super early alpha. Results vary: PDFCraft has won praise from testers, while PhotoCraft's own notes say it isn't ready for daily professional work.
Updates arrive often, so test on copies of your files and check back as the apps mature.
One developer, an AI model and a grudge against subscription fees: that’s the origin story of seven free apps built to replace Adobe’s best-known software. Brandon Thomas released copies of Photoshop, Premiere Pro, Lightroom and four other Adobe programs under his ArtCraft brand in early October, and they’re free to download, keep and modify.
If you pay Adobe every month just to crop photos or edit the odd PDF, that’s a tempting idea. But free isn’t the same as finished. Thomas himself calls the apps very early alpha software, and testers report a wide gap between the best of them and the rest. Here’s what you can actually use today.
The Adobe clone apps come from Brandon Thomas, a software engineer who first shared the project on Reddit and describes himself as a 15-year industry veteran with about a decade of experience in Rust, the programming language the apps are written in. His GitHub profile lists him as founder of ArtCraft, Storyteller.ai and FakeYou. He makes no secret of his views on AI either: his Reddit handle is u/ai_art_is_art, which some critics have pointed to.
Thomas says he vibe coded the apps, meaning he described what he wanted in plain language and had AI write much of the code. He named Anthropic’s Claude Opus 5.5 as the model he used. He says Adobe’s early cancellation fees helped push him to build them. In March 2026, Adobe agreed to a $150 million settlement with the US government over claims it hid early termination fees and made plans hard to cancel. Adobe denied wrongdoing.
Each app takes on one piece of Adobe’s Creative Cloud lineup:
They run on Windows, macOS and Linux, and reviewers say they need no account, send no tracking data and work fully offline. Days after the Adobe set, Thomas released WordCraft, DeckCraft and GridCraft, his versions of Microsoft Word, PowerPoint and Excel, bringing the total to 13 free apps on the ArtCraft site.
I've vibe coded replacements to 7 of Adobe's apps in Rust. They're open source (links below) pic.twitter.com/1c2CqEDz6J
— e/chelon (@echelon) October 3, 2026
The honest answer: it depends heavily on the app. Thomas promised on Reddit to reach 100% parity, meaning every Adobe feature, within a month. On Hacker News he struck a different tone, saying the apps are nowhere near ready and still super early alpha, and that near-complete parity would take months rather than years.
The projects’ own documentation is refreshingly frank. PhotoCraft’s notes say it isn’t yet a Photoshop replacement for daily professional work, and its Oct. 7 release listed incomplete tools, performance gaps and settings that don’t do anything yet. Some fixes are basic, such as a change merged on Oct. 5 that protects your existing file if a save gets interrupted. FilmCraft’s documentation estimates about 87% coverage of its feature checklist but only 50% to 60% readiness for real projects.
Hands-on reports are mixed. Simple PhotoCraft jobs like removing a background worked in a short test, while other testers hit problems with basic functions. PDFCraft has drawn the warmest praise so far. One Linux user found it fast and complete enough to edit text, reorder and rotate pages, redact lines, add form fields and sign documents.
Free software still costs money to maintain. Thomas says ArtCraft’s paid business, which sells credits for AI image and video generation, funds development, and that his team builds software for filmmakers, so the project won’t be abandoned. You don’t need to buy anything to use the Adobe-style apps.
He also wants outsiders to help. As of Oct. 9, GitHub listed 230 contributor accounts beyond Thomas across the seven projects, and PhotoCraft’s Oct. 7 release credited 31 community contributors.
There are real concerns, though. Critics have raised questions about the security of AI-generated code, and some Reddit communities removed posts about the apps. Legal experts warn that copying commercial software this closely could invite trouble. Thomas, for his part, has declared that software is over and predicts free one-to-one copies of many paid apps.
For light personal editing, these apps are worth a try, especially since there’s nothing to buy or sign up for. For paid work with deadlines, stick with what you trust for now. A broken export or a corrupted file costs more than a month of Adobe.
Some practical advice:
The apps are moving quickly, with frequent releases, so the one you tried last week may already behave differently.
From the official ArtCraft GitHub releases page. The Craft Launcher for Windows, macOS and Linux installs and opens each app.
Yes. They’re free and open source with no subscription or account. ArtCraft makes money separately by selling AI image and video credits.
Not for professional work yet. Its own documentation says it isn’t ready for daily pro use, though it can handle simple edits like background removal.
You're reading the quick version.
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