A software developer has released an entire suite of open-source applications designed to mimic Adobe’s industry-standard creative tools, built almost entirely using artificial intelligence. Atlanta-based programmer Brandon Thomas published the project on GitHub, featuring alternatives to Photoshop, Illustrator, Premiere, Lightroom, Acrobat Pro, After Effects, and InDesign.
The collection, collectively titled Artcraft, includes individual programs named Photocraft, Vectorcraft, Filmcraft, Lightcraft, Printcraft, Effectcraft, and Designcraft. Thomas utilized the programming language Rust alongside Claude Opus to recreate the seven applications. While Thomas notes he is a 15-year industry veteran with experience in payment rails and robotics rather than a casual coder, he admits the software is currently in an early alpha state and not fully ready for production environments.
Early testers examining Photocraft report that basic editing tasks function similarly to Adobe Photoshop, though advanced features like the Free Transform tool remain unpredictable and prone to glitches. The open-source release arrives amid widespread consumer frustration over subscription-based software models. Adobe recently agreed to a $150 million federal settlement following allegations regarding subscription cancellation practices.
Thomas has invited outside developers to contribute to the Artcraft repository and offered bug bounties for fixes. While the software remains rudimentary and plagued by early bugs, the project highlights a growing trend of utilizing generative AI tools to rapidly prototype functional desktop applications outside traditional commercial ecosystems.
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