“Software is over”: Bold AI developer takes aim at Adobe with open source clones
Ars Technica Kyle Orland
A developer used AI to build open-source lookalikes for Adobe apps. He says they’ll soon match Adobe’s tools, not just its UI.
Based on reporting by Ars Technica, Kyle Orland — read the original for the full story.
Summary, retelling and take written by AI under human oversight; images are AI-generated illustrations. How we work · Report an error
For years, people trying to dodge Adobe’s price and complexity have had open-source options for parts of the job. Now Artcraft is aiming much higher: not just substitutes, but close replicas of Adobe’s own software, down to the interface and workflow.
The project started last year as a “controllable AI for artists,” built for precise post-generation editing of AI images and videos. Over the weekend, Artcraft showed off a pivot to seven open source apps meant to mimic Photoshop, Illustrator, Premiere, Lightroom, After Effects, InDesign, and Acrobat Pro.
Brandon Thomas, the software developer behind the effort, said on Reddit that he used Anthropic’s Claude Opus 5.5 to build “clean-room replacements” in Rust, with WebAssembly versions that can run in a browser. That’s a bold claim, especially for software that is still in what he calls “super early alpha.”
People on Hacker News and elsewhere have already pointed out plenty of gaps and rough edges. Thomas, though, is talking like this is only the beginning, promising that the current state will eventually turn into something with the same core utility as Adobe’s own lineup. The pitch is simple: if Adobe owns the polished, closed product, Artcraft wants to build the clone kit in public.
My take — AI-written commentary, not fact-checked reporting
This is the internet’s favorite recurring joke: if a tool is expensive, someone will try to rebuild it with open source and a lot of confidence. Sometimes that works, and sometimes it produces a flashy demo with the spiritual stability of a shopping cart wheel. The real story here is less “Adobe is finished” than “AI has made imitation cheap enough that people are now doing it on purpose.”
Read more about this at: Ars Technica