From Ars Technica · · 1m 20s
Software is over
AI developer creates open source clones of Adobe software.
In brief
AI developer creates open source clones of Adobe software. Brandon Thomas uses AI to build free open source alternatives to Adobe's Creative Suite apps, promising 100% feature parity within a month. Originally reported by Ars Technica.
Artcraft launches open source Adobe clones
Software developer Brandon Thomas released seven open source apps mimicking Adobe's Photoshop, Illustrator, Premiere, Lightroom, After Effects, InDesign, and Acrobat Pro.
“We’re going to reach 100% [feature] parity within a month”
AI-powered reverse engineering
Thomas used Anthropic’s Claude Opus 5.5 to create clean-room replacements for Adobe’s closed source software in Rust with WebAssembly versions for browsers.
“We have a team building popular software for filmmakers, so supporting this is fully funded”
99% feature parity target
Thomas stated he aims for 99% feature parity with Adobe’s software within months, not years, after amending his initial promise of 100% parity within a month.
“99% parity will take a while, but I’m sure it’ll be measured in months and not years”
Funding through token access
Artcraft will fund its free open source apps by selling token-based access to its visual AI model and IDE, which is offered as an imagery-generation option inside the apps.
“We have a team building popular software for filmmakers, so supporting this is fully funded”
Legal concerns over trade dress
The Artcraft apps could face legal trouble if their "trade dress" too closely mimics Adobe’s familiar appearance and interface.
“trade dress”
Software is over
Thomas claims he has "one-shotted Photoshop" and predicts AI will enable everyday developers to create open source versions of popular paid software to "take back the internet and own tech forever."
“Software is over”
The bottom line
Brandon Thomas uses AI to build free open source alternatives to Adobe's Creative Suite apps, promising 100% feature parity within a month.
