Key takeaways
- Open source apps like LibreOffice, Krita and Inkscape offer free alternatives to Office 365 and Adobe Creative Cloud.
- LibreOffice competes with Microsoft Office, Krita replaces Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator, and Scribus replaces Adobe InDesign.
- Kdenlive is a popular open source video editing suite that can replace Adobe Premiere Pro.
Once upon a time, you would pay for an app and be able to use the version you paid for indefinitely. Now you have to pay a monthly fee to keep using it. However, there are free alternatives to many of these subscriptions, so here are the best free alternatives to Office 365 and Adobe Creative Cloud.
It doesn’t hurt to try Open Source apps
Unless you work for a company that relies heavily on Microsoft Office or Adobe Creative Cloud software, you probably don’t need to use (and pay for) them. Open source alternatives to Microsoft Office, Adobe PhotoShop, Illustrator, InDesign and other paid productivity tools have come a long way – they look great and offer enough functionality for home users (and are even preferred by some professional users!).
And because all of these open source alternatives are free, if you don’t like them, you haven’t lost anything.
Krita replaces Adobe PhotoShop and Illustrator
Krita lets you edit both raster and vector graphics as an alternative to Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator. Originally developed for Linux, it now also runs on Windows and macOS.
Krita is a truly unique piece of software: it’s not only functional, it looks great, and it’s the paragon of open source creativity software.
Kdenlive replaces Adobe Premiere Pro
Video editing tools have historically been expensive. Now that phones have built-in HD video cameras (which are even used to record Hollywood movies), it’s just the software side of things that is out of reach for some people due to the high cost.
Kdenlive is a popular open source video editing suite that can replace Adobe Premiere Pro and is considered by some to be the best video editing software for Linux. It is also available for Windows and Mac.
Scribus replaces Adobe InDesign
Desktop publishing is almost niche these days (many people don’t even need to own their own printers anymore!), but it’s still in demand for creating distributable PDFs and occasionally for actually making printables like posters and pamphlets.
Scribus can replace Adobe InDesign for these tasks (when LibreOffice Draw is not quite enough). Although it’s a bit clunky, it gets the job done and the price is definitely right. It is available for macOS, Windows and Linux.
Open source productivity stalwart LibreOffice is a legitimate competitor to Microsoft Office. It offers Write (a Word alternative), Calc (to replace Excel), Impress (in place of PowerPoint), as well as a bunch of other high-quality desktop productivity tools. LibreOffice also includes Draw, which can be used to edit PDF files. LibreOffice works on Windows, Mac and Linux.
Inkscape replaces Adobe Illustrator
While Krita does a pretty good job with vector images, Inkscape is the true open source champion in this category. It has some rough edges, but once you get used to it, it’s a powerful tool for creating professional-quality illustrations and diagrams. Like the other Microsoft Office and Adobe Creative Cloud alternatives on this page, it’s available for Windows, MacOs, and Linux.
There are also other alternatives to the Adobe Creative suite of apps that are tailored for different use cases, so be sure to try them out. Because why pay if you don’t have to?