This Open-Source Repo Just Rebuilt Seven Adobe Apps
A week-old open-source project called ArtCraft cloned Photoshop, Premiere, After Effects, Illustrator, Lightroom, InDesign, and Acrobat for free, mostly by pointing Claude Opus at the problem, and this breaks down which clones are actually ready to use today.
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3 days ago
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educational
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Big Idea
The argument in one line.
ArtCraft rebuilt seven Adobe apps as free, open-source software largely with Claude Opus, and while none are ready for paid client work yet, four of the seven are already solid enough to replace Adobe for everyday use.
Who This Is For
Read if. Skip if.
READ IF YOU ARE…
You pay for Adobe Creative Cloud but only use one or two apps casually, like photo touch-ups, simple vector art, or PDFs.
You're a Claude Code builder curious what an AI agent can realistically ship when pointed at cloning complex professional software.
You shoot JPEG or RAW on a Nikon or Sony and want a free Lightroom alternative for organizing personal photos.
You want a quick, current readiness score before trying any of the seven apps yourself.
SKIP IF…
You deliver paid client work in Photoshop, Premiere, or After Effects today — none of the three clones are rated ready for that yet.
You rely on plugins, generative AI fill, or need your existing project files (.aep, complex PSDs) to open without issues.
TL;DR
The full version, fast.
ArtCraft is a small AI-tools company that rebuilt seven Adobe apps from scratch as free, open-source software, writing most of the code with Claude Opus. Each clone opens real Adobe-compatible files and is legally built 'clean room,' from public info and visible app behavior only, never Adobe's source code. Readiness varies sharply: DesignCraft (InDesign) and PDFCraft (Acrobat) are strong enough to use now, LightCraft and VectorCraft work for casual use with caveats, while PhotoCraft, FilmCraft, and EffectCraft aren't yet reliable for paid client work. Adobe costs about $840 a year; every ArtCraft app is $0 and downloadable with no coding required.
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01 · Cold open: a free repo that rebuilt every Adobe app
Duncan introduces ArtCraft, a small AI-tools company that cloned seven Adobe apps as free open-source software, states the $70/month vs $0 cost comparison, and previews the verdict format.
01:15 – 02:17
02 · PhotoCraft: the free Photoshop
Layers, masks, 27 blend modes, and real PSD file support, 307 of 309 test files saved identically, but the roadmap puts Photoshop parity below 50%, with no generative fill and about 20 missing tools.
02:17 – 03:06
03 · How is this legal? Clean-room rebuilds
ArtCraft's apps are built 'clean room,' from public info and visible app behavior only, never Adobe's source code, though outside reporting flags Adobe's patent exposure as still unresolved. 71 of PhotoCraft's last 100 commits list Claude Opus as co-author.
03:06 – 03:57
04 · LightCraft: the free Lightroom
Albums, star ratings, culling, and editing sliders at about 79% feature parity (60-70% as a true daily replacement). JPEG and Nikon/Sony RAW work well; newer Canon RAW files open as low-res previews only.
03:57 – 04:38
05 · FilmCraft: the free Premiere Pro
Edits, trims, multicam, color, titles, and captions score about 87% on a feature checklist but only 50-60% ready for real work; slow on big footage, no plugins, MP4-only export.
04:38 – 05:18
06 · EffectCraft: the free After Effects
One week old (first commit October 1) and already claims nearly every After Effects effect, but can't open old .aep projects or run AE plugins.
05:18 – 05:55
07 · VectorCraft: the free Illustrator
Pen and shape tools, gradients, and text at a self-reported 51-70% of Illustrator's features, the lowest and least certain score of the seven, with no 3D or scripting.
05:55 – 06:49
08 · DesignCraft: the free InDesign
The strongest clone in the lineup: 99% of 275 tracked InDesign features present in basic form (about 83% counting minor options), with the remaining gap estimated at 170 hours of one Claude Opus agent working alone.
06:49 – 07:29
09 · PDFCraft: the free Acrobat
View, search, combine, split, fill forms, comment, redact, and sign, about half of Acrobat Pro's total features but 88% of the must-haves, with unreliable text editing and crashes on broken files.
07:29 – 08:47
10 · Plot twist, the verdict, and the pitch
ArtCraft quietly shipped five more clones (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, AutoCAD, Pro Tools) on October 7. Final verdict: try PDFCraft, LightCraft, VectorCraft, and DesignCraft today; wait on PhotoCraft, FilmCraft, and EffectCraft for client work. Duncan closes with a pitch for his $9/month Cloud Code Club.
Atomic Insights
Lines worth screenshotting.
ArtCraft rebuilt seven Adobe apps (Photoshop, Premiere, After Effects, Illustrator, Lightroom, InDesign, Acrobat) as free, open-source software, with Claude Opus listed as a co-author on most recent commits.
The free Photoshop clone, PhotoCraft, saved 307 of 309 test PSD files with no visible changes, but its own roadmap puts Photoshop feature parity below 50%.
71 of PhotoCraft's last 100 code changes list Claude Opus as a co-author.
The legal workaround for cloning commercial software is a 'clean room' rebuild: engineers use only public information and what the app visibly does, never the original source code.
LightCraft claims 79% feature parity with Lightroom by count, but the makers themselves rate it closer to 60-70% as a true daily replacement.
Newer Canon RAW files only open as low-resolution previews in LightCraft; JPEG and Nikon/Sony RAW files work today.
FilmCraft scores 87% on a feature checklist but only 50-60% ready for real editing work, exports MP4 only, and has no plugin support.
EffectCraft's first line of code was written October 1, and within days the makers claim nearly every After Effects effect already exists in some form.
VectorCraft is the weakest clone by the makers' own count, roughly 51-70% of Illustrator's features depending on which status page is read, with no 3D or scripting.
DesignCraft scores highest in the lineup: 99% of 275 tracked InDesign features present in at least basic form, about 83% counting minor options.
DesignCraft's own roadmap estimates the remaining feature gap at about 170 wall-clock hours of a single Claude Opus agent working alone, not a team.
PDFCraft covers about half of Acrobat Pro's total features but 88% of the 'must-have' ones, and can view, search, combine, split, redact, and sign PDFs.
On October 7, ArtCraft released five more free clones (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, AutoCAD, and Pro Tools), bringing the open-source suite to a dozen apps in about a week.
Adobe's full Creative Cloud suite costs about $70 a month, around $840 a year; every ArtCraft clone is $0 and downloadable with no coding required.
The PhotoCraft GitHub repo picked up over 24,000 stars in its first eight days.
Every feature-parity percentage in the video is self-reported by ArtCraft's own team, not independently audited.
Takeaway
Parity percentage and ready-for-work percentage are different numbers
READING AI BENCHMARKS
Every one of these seven Adobe clones reports a feature-parity score and a real-world-readiness score, and the gap between the two is where the actual risk lives.
02PhotoCraft: the free Photoshop
PhotoCraft can open and re-save genuine Photoshop PSD files, and in the maker's own test 307 of 309 files looked identical afterward.
The project's own roadmap rates Photoshop feature parity below 50%, with generative fill and about 20 tools still missing, a clear signal to keep paying for client-facing Photoshop work.
03How is this legal? Clean-room rebuilds
The legal workaround for cloning commercial software is a 'clean-room' build, referencing only what the original app visibly does and public documentation, never its source code, and even then outside reporting says Adobe's patent exposure remains an open legal question.
04LightCraft: the free Lightroom
LightCraft hits about 79% feature parity with Lightroom by count, but the makers themselves rate it closer to 60-70% as an actual daily replacement.
Camera-file support is the real gate: it works well for JPEG and Nikon/Sony RAW, but newer Canon RAW files only open as low-resolution previews.
05FilmCraft: the free Premiere Pro
FilmCraft claims an 87% feature checklist score but only 50-60% readiness for real editing work, the gap between 'feature exists' and 'feature is reliable' is the number that actually matters.
No plugin support and MP4-only export make it fine for a quick personal cut but not yet safe for a paying client's deadline.
06EffectCraft: the free After Effects
EffectCraft's first line of code was written October 1, and within days it claims nearly every After Effects effect exists in some form, but it can't open old .aep project files or run After Effects plugins, so fast feature-cloning doesn't equal compatibility with existing work.
07VectorCraft: the free Illustrator
VectorCraft is the weakest clone in the lineup by the makers' own count, roughly 51-70% of Illustrator's features depending on which status page is read, with no 3D or scripting.
Every parity percentage in this video is self-reported by ArtCraft, not independently audited, treat these numbers as a starting point for testing, not a guarantee.
08DesignCraft: the free InDesign
DesignCraft is the strongest clone: 99% of 275 tracked InDesign features present in at least basic form, about 83% once minor options are counted.
The remaining gap is quantified in hours, not months, the roadmap estimates about 170 wall-clock hours of a single Claude Opus agent working alone to close it.
09PDFCraft: the free Acrobat
PDFCraft covers roughly half of Acrobat Pro's total features but 88% of the ones people actually rely on daily (view, search, combine, split, redact, sign), and its redaction permanently removes data rather than just covering it.
Glossary
Terms worth knowing.
Open source
Software whose underlying code is published publicly, so anyone can read it, copy it, modify it, and use it for free.
Clean-room rebuild
Recreating a competitor's software using only public information and observed behavior, never the original source code, to avoid direct copying.
PSD
Photoshop's native file format, which stores layers, masks, and edits so a project can be reopened and modified later.
RAW file
The unprocessed image data a camera sensor records, holding more editable detail than a compressed JPEG but requiring software support to open correctly.
Feature parity
How closely one piece of software matches another's capabilities, usually expressed as a percentage of tracked features present.
Redact
Permanently removing sensitive information from a document so it's actually gone, rather than just visually covered up.
“Open source means the code is public, so anyone can read it, copy it, and use it for zero dollars.”
clean, standalone definition that frames the whole video→ TikTok hook↗ Tweet quote
02:17
“It's like tasting a famous cake, then baking your own from scratch without ever seeing the recipe.”
tight analogy that explains clean-room legality in one line→ IG reel cold open↗ Tweet quote
06:40
“That's not a team of people. That's one Claude Opus agent writing the code.”
single most surprising claim in the video, lands in under 4 seconds→ newsletter pull-quote↗ Tweet quote
The Script
Word for word.
Read-along
Don't just watch it. Burn it in.
See every word as it's spoken — crank it to 2× and still catch all of it. The same dual-channel trick behind Amazon's Kindle + Audible.
17px
metaphor
This free open source repo just killed every Adobe product. It's called Artcraft, and Artcraft is a small company led by an engineer named Brandon Thomas, and they make AI tools for artists. And they just rebuilt seven Adobe apps from scratch.
Photoshop, Premiere, After Effects, Illustrator, Lightroom, InDesign, and Acrobat. And the best part is it's also open source and completely free. Open source means the code is public, so anyone can read it, copy it, and use it for zero dollars.
Compare that to Adobe. All their apps cost about $70 a month, which is around $840 a year. The Photoshop copy alone got over 24 ,000 stars on GitHub in eight days.
Now, I'm not out here saying that Adobe is dead or that Artcraft completely replaces Adobe. And honestly, the people who built Artcraft say the same thing. So in this video, I'll go through all seven Artcraft apps and we'll see how close they really come to killing Adobe.
And by the end, you'll know which ones you could switch to today and which ones to wait. And if we haven't met yet, my name is Duncan Rogoff. I'm a former art director for brands like Apple, PlayStation and Nissan.
I founded the cloud code club where we teach people how to build things like this with claw. If you want to join us the links in my description. So let's start with the big one, the app everyone is talking about.
Number one is Photocraft, the free copy of Photoshop. If you've ever paid for Photoshop just to fix up a few photos, this is the one you care about. It's got what you'd expect, like layers, masks, adjustment layers, and 27 blend modes.
A layer is like a clear sheet stacked on top of your image, so you can change one part without wrecking the rest. It also opens and saves real Photoshop files, which are called PSDs. In Artcraft's own tests, 307 out of 309 PSD files looked the same after saving.
That means most Photoshop files should open and save without breaking. Should. Here's the catch, and it's in their own - own words, it is not yet a Photoshop replacement for daily professional work.
Their roadmap is even more blunt, and they say Photoshop parity, which means matching it feature for feature, is still well below 50%. There's no AI generative fill, and about 20 tools are missing. Plugins, which are the add -ons people buy for extra tools, don't work yet either.
If you edit photos for fun, try it. If clients pay you for Photoshop files, wait. But how is this even legal?
Before number two, you might be wondering how you copy Photoshop without getting sued. The answer is something called Clean Room. It means they rebuilt each app using only public info and what the app visibly does.
It's like tasting a famous cake, then baking your own from scratch without ever seeing the recipe. To be fair, Petapixel points out that Adobe's patents are still an open legal question, and they built it with a lot of help from Claude. 71 of the last hundred code changes on the Photoshop copy list Claude Opus as a co author.
To get any of them go to get art craft comm slash apps and download it for Mac, Windows or Linux. No coding needed. So it's real and it's easy to get.
And the next app scores a lot higher than photo craft with one big asterisk. Number two is like craft, which is the free copy of Lightroom. Lightroom is where photographers sort thousands of photos and edit them in batches.
Lightcraft does that. It has albums, star ratings, side -by -side culling, and all the editing sliders. watch this it's the same photo before and after edited right inside lightcraft the makers say it has about 79 of lightroom's features as a daily replacement they say it's more like 60 to 70 but here's the asterisk and it's raw files a raw file is the unprocessed photo your camera saves with the most detail newer canon raw files only open as small previews and many other raw files look a little muted for now If you shoot JPEG or RAW on a Nikon or a Sony, you can try it today.
If you shoot a newer Canon, wait. Photos are one thing, but videos is where most free editors fall apart. Number three is Filmcraft, the free copy of Premiere Pro.
Look at that timeline. If you've ever used Premiere, you already know where everything is. It edits, trims, and handles multicam, color, titles, and captions.
The makers score it two ways. They say about 87 % of Premiere's features exist, but they say it's only about 50 to 60 % ready for real work. The catch is that it's slow on big footage and there are no plugins.
And for now, it only exports the standard MP4 kind of video. So it's fine for a quick cut on a Mac, it's not ready for a client deadline yet. The next one is the app I expected to be the weakest because it's only a week old.
Number 4 is EffectCraft, the free copy of After Effects. After Effects is the app for motion graphics, like animated titles, sparks, and lens flares. The first line of code was written on October 1st.
And already, the makers say nearly every After Effects feature exists, including every single effect. The catch is that it can't open your old After Effects projects, and After Effects plugins don't run. In their words, it isn't yet a replacement for After Effects on client work.
If you're learning motion graphics, is a fun place to start if you've got old project files keep after effects that's four down and three to go and one of the next two has the best score in the whole lineup number five is vector craft the free copy of adobe illustrator illustrator makes vector art which is art made from shapes and lines instead of pixels so it stays sharp at any size this poster was made in vector craft It has pen tools, shape tools, gradients, and text, and it opens many Illustrator files.
Artcraft says about 70 % of Illustrator's features work, and every day vector art is close to usable. The catch is that there's no 3D and no scripting yet, and they admit the scores are self -assessed, which means they graded their own homework. for logos and posters try it for complex profiles wait now for the best score i promise which is number six number six is design craft the free copy of indesign indesign is what people use to lay out magazines books and brochures the makers listed 275 in design features They say about 99 % are in, at least in basic form.
Counting all the small options too, they put it at about 83%. And here's the part that surprised me most. Their plan says the rest will take about 170 hours of one Claude agent working.
That's not a team of people. That's one Claude Opus agent writing the code. The catch is that it can't place EPS files yet, which is an older graphics format.
And layout for Asian languages isn't finished. flyers, or a small book, it's worth a try. And the last one is the most boring app on the list.
It's also the one I would use first. Number seven is PDF Craft, the free copy of Acrobat. Everyone deals with PDFs, so this one matters to more people than all the others.
Today, it can view, search, combine, and split PDFs. It can also fill in forms, add comments, redact, and do basic signatures. Redact means blacking out private info so it's really gone, not just covered up.
The makers say about half of Acrobat Pro's features are in, including 88 % of the must -haves. The catch is that editing text that's already in a PDF isn't reliable yet, and their own testing still finds crashes on broken files. If you mostly merge, split, and sign things, you can try it today.
But here's the plot twist. On October 7th, they also released free copies of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, AutoCAD, and Pro Tools. That's 12 free apps in total, but those five are even earlier, so just take a peek for now.
Okay, so as I promised, here's who should switch and who should wait. So try it today for everyone, PDFCraft for everyday PDFs, LightCraft if you shoot JPEG, Nikon, or Sony, and VectorCraft for simple vector art. Wait on anything clients pay you for in Photocraft, FilmCraft, or EffectCraft.
And if you don't pay for Adobe right now, you lose nothing by trying every one of them. So no, it didn't kill Adobe today, but seven free rebuilds in about a week, mostly written with Claude, is definitely something to watch. dates almost every day.
So the scores in this video will be out of date that if you want to learn to build things like this with cloud code and get all my skills and resources already done for you come join over 8000 builders inside the cloud code club. It's only $9 a month and the links in my description. If this helped hit the like and subscribe.
It really does help the channel a ton. See you in the next one.
The Hook
The bait, then the rug-pull.
A small team used Claude to clone seven Adobe apps and gave them all away free and open source. This goes app by app through how close each clone actually gets, and which ones are safe to switch to today.
Frameworks
Named ideas worth stealing.
02:17concept
Clean-Room Reverse Engineering
Rebuild a competitor's software using only public information and observed app behavior, never the original source code, to avoid directly copying protected IP.
Steal forany 'open alternative to X' build where the legal defense needs to be airtight from day one
07:29list
Try Today vs. Wait
PDFCraft, everyday PDFs
LightCraft, JPEG/Nikon/Sony shooters
VectorCraft, simple vector art
DesignCraft, zines and flyers
Wait: PhotoCraft, client work
Wait: FilmCraft, client work
Wait: EffectCraft, client work
A simple two-column decision framework separating casual-use-ready tools from ones still too unreliable for paid client deliverables.
Steal forany roundup review comparing multiple competing tools at different maturity levels
CTA Breakdown
How they asked for the click.
VERBAL ASK
08:12product
“come join over 8000 builders inside the Cloud Code Club. It's only $9 a month and the links in my description.”
Soft-sell pitch placed after the main review wraps and the value has already been delivered, paired with a screen capture of the community's actual curriculum. Low-pressure, well-timed, not inserted mid-content.
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An Anthropic engineer quietly revealed that Claude Code deleted over 80% of its own system prompt — and shipped a built-in /doctor skill that does the same cleanup on your CLAUDE.md, skills, and settings.
Every night at 1am, 3am, 4am, and 5am, a set of Claude Code agents build something, grade themselves against a rubric, and write their own rules before the next run.
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A screen-recorded read-through of Anthropic's own prompting playbook for Opus 5.5, tip by tip, with a mid-video pitch for the creator's $9 Claude Code community.
A walkthrough of the /design command now built into Claude's desktop app, from a one-prompt homepage to a reusable design system to multiple creative directions at once.