ArtCraft: An Open Source Project Building Native Alternatives to Adobe, Office, and AutoCAD

A Project Born from Frustration… and Grown into a Revolution

On September 30 and October 1, 2026, software developer Brandon Thomas, known by his Reddit handle “ai_art_is_art”, published a collection of seven applications on GitHub under the name ArtCraft. The stated reason was simple: frustration with Adobe’s authoritarian policies and the cancellation fees it imposes on users. But what began as a personal reaction quickly grew into one of the largest free software projects in recent years.

🔗 Official Repository: github.com/storytold 🔗 Official Website: getartcraft.com

What Is ArtCraft?

ArtCraft is an open source project that aims to build native alternatives to famous proprietary creative software, using the Rust language from scratch. The applications are not wrappers around Adobe software, nor are they copies of its code. They are clean-room reimplementations: reading public specifications, observing behavior, and then writing the code entirely independently.

The result is extremely lightweight applications that start instantly, run natively on Linux, Windows, and macOS, and support WebAssembly for running some of them in the browser.

The Applications It Offers

The Adobe Creative Cloud Family

Application	Alternative to	Status	Key Features
PhotoCraft	Photoshop	Early Alpha	Layers, masks, adjustment layers, text, vectors, brushes, reading and writing real PSD files while preserving layers
VectorCraft	Illustrator	In Development	Pen tool, direct selection, boolean operations, pathfinding, mesh gradients, image tracing, SVG and PDF export
FilmCraft	Premiere Pro	In Development	Multi-track editing, 3-point editing, color grading, ~55 video effects, 30 transitions, built-in H.264, HEVC, and ProRes encoders
LightCraft	Lightroom	In Development	Non-destructive editing, exposure curve, 8-band color mixer, sky/subject/background masks, RAW support (DNG, CR2, ARW, NEF)
PdfCraft	Acrobat Pro	Early Alpha	Read, organize, and protect PDFs, lightweight (100 MB) and fast
EffectCraft	After Effects	In Development	Animation and visual effects
DesignCraft	InDesign	In Development	Page layout and publishing

The Microsoft Office Family

Application	Alternative to	Key Features
WordCraft	Word	Word-like toolbar with Mailings tabs, text processing, tables
GridCraft	Excel	Automatic recalculation of SUM, AVERAGE, and MAX formulas, spreadsheets
DeckCraft	PowerPoint	Slide shows and presentations

Additional Applications

Application	Alternative to
SoundCraft	Avid Pro Tools (audio editing)
CADCraft	AutoCAD (computer-aided design)
FigCraft	Figma / Adobe XD (interface design)

Supported Platforms

All applications are written in Rust and designed to run natively on:

Linux (x86_64 and ARM64) — available as AppImage, DEB, RPM, and Flatpak
Windows (x64 and ARM64) — MSI installers
macOS (Universal, Intel and Apple Silicon)
WebAssembly — some applications can run directly in the browser

The project comes with the ArtCraft Launcher, which installs all applications in one place, with SHA-256 checksum verification for each release.

How to Build and Contribute

The project is fully open source under the MIT / Apache-2.0 dual license, allowing free use, modification, and distribution.

To build any application from source:

git clone https://github.com/storytold/photocraft
cd photocraft
cargo build --release

To contribute, developers can:

Submit pull requests to improve features
Report bugs on GitHub Issues
Help with translation and documentation
Join the project’s Discord community

Will This Contribute to More Adoption of GNU/Linux?

This is the most important question. Yes, it is likely to contribute significantly.

The reason is simple: one of the biggest obstacles preventing users from moving from Windows or macOS to Linux is the absence of native Adobe applications. Users of Photoshop, Illustrator, and Premiere Pro find strong alternatives in GIMP, Inkscape, and Kdenlive, but they are not identical in interface or workflow. This means a new learning curve, which is a real psychological barrier.

ArtCraft addresses this problem directly. PhotoCraft, according to tests, opens real PSD files with their layers and masks, in an interface that closely resembles Photoshop. For a user who has been using Photoshop for ten years, this means that moving to Linux no longer means “learning a new program,” but using a program that knows how it works.

In addition, the applications are written in Rust, which makes them extremely lightweight and consume far fewer resources than Electron applications. On an older machine, this means better performance than Windows itself.

Challenges and Criticisms

The project is not without challenges:

Application maturity: Most are in “Early Alpha” or “In Development” stages. They may not yet be suitable for daily professional work.
Use of AI: The applications were written with the help of Claude Opus, which sparked discussions about code quality and security.
Format limitations: The applications open public formats like PSD and SVG, but do not yet open proprietary projects like .aep (After Effects) or .prproj (Premiere).

Summary

ArtCraft is not just a software project. It is a statement that professional software can be free, lightweight, fast, and free of monthly subscriptions or vendor lock-in. For users who have considered moving to Linux but hesitated because of Adobe software, ArtCraft offers a real reason to try it. The project is still in its early days, but its rapid development pace and community interest (over 13,000 stars on PhotoCraft alone) indicate that this trend will continue.