Courtesy to Twitter user XdanielArt (date of publication: 8 June 2024)
Penpot?
this post was submitted on 30 Apr 2025
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Another great alternative to Acrobat (Reader) is Okular; it's free, open source and runs on Linux, Windows and macOS.
It's been my go-to PDF reader since switching to Linux, since it already came pre-installed with Manjaro KDE.
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Or if you have to use Adobe products, at least have the decency not to pay for them.
Maybe it’s to only spy on Sony. They love pirating Adobe products; and hate when others pirate their stuff.
Without the title of this post, it's probably easy for any non tech person to misunderstand this image as being a list of Adobe programs that spy on you, at least on first glance.
Dreamweaver is still used? I used it a bit back in the day when Macromedia was around and shortly after Adobe got a hold of it. How does it work with the modern web? Does it work well with modern programming languages or is it still just a WYSIWYG HTML editor?
I am surprised that its actually still a product they sell and seemingly update. Looking on their product page, wow it has git support - it can be yours for $22.99/month too!
(That will also require you to give your soul to them too, via a contract signed in blood)
Adobe's prices are outrageous.
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So happy to see my beloved Paint Tool Sai on here! 😃 Really good list. Didn't know there were so many alternatives
Are there any good alternatives as far as PDF creation goes? Creating fillable forms, not just editing? I have some users I can’t shake from Acrobat Pro.
Draw from LO is pretty meh for a lot of things, but I use it a lot to edit pdfs, and it is very consistent
What the actual fuck is adobe acrobat? A pdf editor with subscription model payment? Firefox, the browser, can edit pdf files. It's 2025.
Firefox can do basic annotating, adding text and adding pictures but it can't make a new PDF from scratch.
You may be confusing Adobe Acrobat Reader with Adobe Acrobat? Full Acrobat is the proprietary tool to make a PDF file from scratch including some of the more complex functions.
PDF is an open standard and has been for a while, so there are now plenty of alternatives for most of the functions. LibreOffice Draw and Inkscape can do a lot of PDF creation functions but not all. There are also "print to PDF" options to create basic PDF documents too.
However some of the more niche functions are not widely supported or well supported; and there isn't really any opensource dedicated PDF maker that I'm aware of. Layout tools are abundant but I think it's things like building forms and document signing that is less easily replicated. There is Master PDF - a fully functional PDF maker which is proprietary and available for Linux; it $80 for a perpetual license. I'm not aware of any other alternatives myself.
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Adobe acrobat is THE PDF editor. PDF is a proprietary format created and developed by Adobe. Any software that can edit PDFs is doing so in a format they do not have any control over. And there just aren't any proper PDF editors that are feature complete. now if you're an individual who needs to make a PDF in the privacy of your own home, by all means, use a cheap or free or FOSS application to do so. But if you need that PDF to be readable and useable and seamlessly compatible on other computers for other users for ever? Better pay the Adobe tax because there is a good chance, it won't look the way you expect it to when someone opens it up in Adobe which their company definitely has.
I'm not sure this true - PDF is an open standard. The issue isn't generally with layout and reproducibility - a good PDF maker and a good reader will give you an accurate representation of how it looks on all devices once the PDF is created.
Certainly there isn't a dedicated FOSS tool for make PDFs; Libre Office and Inkscape do a decent job but not perfect which may be what you're referring to. And they're not dedicated PDF makers plus the real problem is building fillable forms and signature tools.
But there is a proprietary alternative called Master PDF that is a dedicated and supports all the PDF standard features I believe; one perpetual license is $80 compared to Adobe subscription based charging. I'm not aware of other options myself but they may exist. But it's a viable alternative to the "adobe tax".
Also of course if you have Office 365 from Microsoft, you can use Word to export docs to PDF reliably (in my experience). Obviously as far as you can get from FOSS, but it is an option on Linux via web browser if you have it from work for example; at least you don't have to pay Adobe but it's scraping the bottom of the barrel for this threat I know!
There are a few other PDF editors that are cheaper, but they don’t have the same features. PDF seems like something that has outlived its purpose. There has to be other document formats that provide a similar or better experience and prevents alteration.
Any document format could prevent alteration with the addition of a digital signature.
should be? yes. could be? if one of the big corpo's with money decides to spend it, yes. But don't assume 'there has to be one', it's not like file formats suddenly appear like a rare insect or something.
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it won’t look the way you expect it to when someone opens it up in Adobe which their company definitely has.
That sounds like a problem between them and Adobe tbh
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I have no clue what most of these abbreviations refer to 😅
I have no idea what any of those things really does and it's way too much to learn given how much GIMP and Krita do
Krita is not just good, I think the meta points it as the best drawing software in the market*
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I don't know what those two letters mean. I wish they had written out the name. I've avoided buying Adobe stuff because it's stupidly expensive, but I'm still aware that in some industries, some of these have been industry standards at one point or another. Being able to tell wtf their names are, or even what they do would be helpful.
Some are easy, I'll share the ones I know
Ps = Photoshop
Id = InDesign
Pr = Premiere
Ae = After Effects
Dw = Dreamweaver
I don't know what Xd stands for, because everyone just calls is Xd but it is UI/UX design like figma and sketch. Ai is confusing but they use it for (Adobe) Illustrator, possible they thought Il would be more confusing
Neat list, but imo photoshop is closer to being called a photomanipulation/image editor than photography. lightroom is the more dedicated photography software.
Also I wouldn't call paint.net an alternative to photoshop. I love paint.net but its a relatively simple image editor and its functionally limited even with plugins.
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