Can I use photoshop cc 2019 on my desktop without creative cloud?

Thank you.

I disabled all creative cloud settings that I could find and also from it launching in the startup menu, and went back to some of photoshop's legacy settings, and that has improved the app's performance greatly. I dread opening indesign cc, so see what issues I'll have there.

That being said an entire afternoon wasted. I had been holding out on updating to Adobe's subscription plans for indesign and photoshop until recently, as I find Adobe's price points too be to high for a single user. I use the latest mac os and devices, and using adobe products seems to be harder and harder, with my time spent troubleshooting, than creating. I've migrated out of illustrator a couple years ago to other apps, such as sketch, graphic and invision studio, and sketchbook (!which is a great alternative to for drawing!) And now I'll be on the hunt for a replacement for photoshop, so that I can migrate out of adobe for good. Indesign will be a hard one, as I really like that app.

There is more than on part to it.  In its preferences I do not have it start. However Adobe moved what was the extension manager into the Creative cloud desktop so that part needs to be around to install extension and most likely updates so it needs to be installed as far as I know.

...and that way you'll also find out whether the CC app is really the problem (which I very much doubt). It's much more likely to be a buggy video driver, or a font manager, or a third-party plugin.

On Windows i just disable the CC app from the Start-up list in the Task Manager.