Alternatives to the Creative Cloud

[davedunlap1]

With Adobe's decisions to force users to go to subscribe to the creative cloud, I thought it might be a good idea to get a list going of some alternative programs. I'm a designer working mostly in print with some web - anyone know of some good alternatives for these?

Photoshop -> Gimp

Illustrator -> ?

Indesign - Quark

Dreamweaver - ?

Flash - been moving away from that anyway

What programs are you going to look into to replace the creative cloud?

[Phillip_M_Jones]

A Free alternative for Photoshop is Gimp and its different to get use to.

[mytaxsite]

mandelbrot wrote:

for me in the UK £46.88/month, £562.56/year (which incidentally works out at $857.12; quite obviously the UK must be a far richer country than the US, otherwise that would make Adobe a bunch of robbing scumbags), that would mean that your software which you purchase per month would quickly reach the cost of a single user Photoshop CS licence.

Where did you get these figures from?  I have received yet another invitation from Adobe to join the CC but the price they quote is well below what you have stated.  This is what they told me in their spam:

The freephone number is also there so it is worth your while to give them a call just to confirm with them if they have any special offers currently going.

For people updating their software every year this offer is the best so far.  For people like me who updates every two years, this may still work out cheaper because I mostly use: DW, PS, FW. & PSE, but FW and PSE are not part of the CC.  DW and PS are and considering upgrades were costing me £150 per product per year paying £27.34 per month (incl VAT that is claimable in business) is a good value.

The double asterisks refers to this notice at the bottom:

** VOID WHERE PROHIBITED OR RESTRICTED BY LAW. Eligible customers may purchase an Adobe Creative Cloud Complete membership with annual commitment for a reduced price. Offer valid for purchase of an annual plan, which requires a 12-month contract. Available only to customers who own a Creative Suite edition or individual product in one of the following versions (CS3.x, CS4 or CS5.x), and who purchase directly from the Adobe Store or by calling Adobe Sales. This offer is not available to Education, OEM or volume licensing customers. Residents of embargoed countries are not eligible. This offer is limited to one (1) purchase of one (1) Creative Cloud Complete annual membership per customer. Offer is subject to U.S. export control laws and laws where the recipient resides. Offer may not be assigned, exchanged, sold, transferred, or combined with any other discount or offer, or redeemed for cash or other goods and services. Offer expires on 31 July, 2013 and is subject to change without notice.

[God_I_hate_Adon_tbe]

mytaxsite.co.uk wrote:

Where did you get these figures from?  I have received yet another invitation from Adobe to join the CC but the price they quote is well below what you have stated.

I found it by clicking the link on their website:

http://www.adobe.com/uk/products/creativecloud.html?promoid=JNFMV

I don't know if you'll see it differently, but this appears to be the basic 'promo'.

However, as discussed in my other post, we relied on PS and, to a certain degree, DreamWeaver for over 10 years and they worked fine.  The only reason we actually needed to upgrade was because of our change in platform to Windows 7.

--Edit--

mytaxsite.co.uk wrote:

** VOID WHERE PROHIBITED OR RESTRICTED BY LAW. Eligible customers may purchase an Adobe Creative Cloud Complete membership with annual commitment for a reduced price. Offer valid for purchase of an annual plan, which requires a 12-month contract. Available only to customers who own a Creative Suite edition or individual product in one of the following versions (CS3.x, CS4 or CS5.x), and who purchase directly from the Adobe Store or by calling Adobe Sales. This offer is not available to Education, OEM or volume licensing customers. Residents of embargoed countries are not eligible. This offer is limited to one (1) purchase of one (1) Creative Cloud Complete annual membership per customer. Offer is subject to U.S. export control laws and laws where the recipient resides. Offer may not be assigned, exchanged, sold, transferred, or combined with any other discount or offer, or redeemed for cash or other goods and services. Offer expires on 31 July, 2013 and is subject to change without notice.

It looks like the small print has it.

[frankgrimes]

mytaxsite.co.uk wrote:

For people updating their software every year this offer is the best so far.  For people like me who updates every two years, this may still work out cheaper because I mostly use: DW, PS, FW. & PSE, but FW and PSE are not part of the CC.  DW and PS are and considering upgrades were costing me £150 per product per year paying £27.34 per month (incl VAT that is claimable in business) is a good value.

Who was ever able to update every year? The typical upgrade cycle from Adobe was about every 18 months.

One thing that really gets me is how Adobe is trumpeting the fact you can now access ALL of their software for one low price. I've been a professional multimedia developer for more than 20 years and never use all their software. Most of it is crap. Audition? No way. Sound Forge. Dreamweaver? Gave up on that a long time ago. Ultraedit. DW is too bloated to be effective anymore.

I think anyone who has access to these at first may be excited, but once they realize some of them have steep learning curves or really aren't useful to them, they won't be used and all of a sudden they're paying for things they're not using. Who wants that?

[Danny_Michael]

frankgrimes wrote:

I think anyone who has access to these at first may be excited, but once they realize some of them have steep learning curves or really aren't useful to them, they won't be used and all of a sudden they're paying for things they're not using. Who wants that?

I've used Photoshop for 15 years and still haven't come close to mastering it. It's incomprehensible to me how anyone could devote enough time to all the apps "they are paying for" in the full suite. All you need to do is read the questions being asked in the forums lately and you can see what a mess is about to be thrust onto the creative world. Adobe should have kept smaller suites at better pricing. I think one of the biggest questions people will ask themselves over time is, "why am I paying for all this software when I only need 4 of the apps. Why couldn't I just pay half as much for those 4 apps?". Adobe screwed up by offering one size fits all. It will bite them in the end.

[Greg_Bohn]

> . I think one of the biggest questions people will ask themselves over  time is, "why am I paying for all this

> software when I only need 4 of  the apps. Why couldn't I just pay half as much for those 4 apps?".

> Adobe  screwed up by offering one size fits all. It will bite them in the end.

  I'm guessing they were going for something similar to the 'All you can eat' plans for DRM protected music. You could listen to all the music you wanted as long as you paid each month. More music is available than you would actually listen to.

  It seems they're hoping most people will think "What a great deal for all these programs" and not "Why am I paying for all of this when I only want a few parts".

[frankgrimes]

Greg Bohn wrote:

> . I think one of the biggest questions people will ask themselves over  time is, "why am I paying for all this

> software when I only need 4 of  the apps. Why couldn't I just pay half as much for those 4 apps?".

> Adobe  screwed up by offering one size fits all. It will bite them in the end.

  I'm guessing they were going for something similar to the 'All you can eat' plans for DRM protected music. You could listen to all the music you wanted as long as you paid each month. More music is available than you would actually listen to.

  It seems they're hoping most people will think "What a great deal for all these programs" and not "Why am I paying for all of this when I only want a few parts".

Exactly. It's buy one or buy all. And even one user can't have two subscriptions, meaning you will need two accounts to subscribe to two products or licenses. What a FUBAR they made with this.

[Guest]

The cloud is financially a horrible thing for me. I upgrade once every 4 or so suites. That means if I subscribe to the cloud, I will be paying Adobe three times as much money as I would have If I had just bought the Design Premium suite. There is no reason for me to upgrade more than every 6-8 years. And then, when all is said and done, I will not "own" anything. If at any time I stop paying Adobe their monthly subscriber fee, I will loose all access to my files. The applications I use are Photoshop, Imageready (although I would switch to Fireworks when I upgrade), Illustrator, and Indesign. I don't need anything else. I work with lots of companies and have never needed to upgrade faster than I have. The features released with new versions of these programs are nice but never essential for me. I'm going to be forced to buy the CS 6 Suite and then, hopefully, another company(s) will come along and give Adobe some competition. This arrogant, head in the sand, monopolistic way of doing business reminds me of the way Quark operated before it got its lunch eaten by Indesign - overpriced, tone deaf to customers needs, technologically lagging.

[frankgrimes]

blahlaaaablah wrote:

The cloud is financially a horrible thing for me. I upgrade once every 4 or so suites.

And that's exactly why their moving to the subscription-based service. More revenue. Who cares they don't add any must-have features (and haven't in years). They get your money every month now instead of every 5 years or whatever.

When they added video editing to PS, I stopped caring.

[Craig Curtis]

in my case, I actually updated when the new versions came out. There was usually at least one new feature that made it worth the upgrade for me. But not so much with this one. Even if there WAS a compelling reason for me, I just simply don't like the idea that I have to rent the software, even though in some ways it would work out a little cheaper for me. Business cycles around for me (as many other prople in this industry). Just because I can afford to buy the software now doesn't mean that I can in a few months, or years or whatever. but if I can buy it now while I am busy I don't have to stress on those times when work is slow...

[frankgrimes]

Danny Michael wrote:

I've used Photoshop for 15 years and still haven't come close to mastering it. It's incomprehensible to me how anyone could devote enough time to all the apps "they are paying for" in the full suite. All you need to do is read the questions being asked in the forums lately and you can see what a mess is about to be thrust onto the creative world. Adobe should have kept smaller suites at better pricing. I think one of the biggest questions people will ask themselves over time is, "why am I paying for all this software when I only need 4 of the apps. Why couldn't I just pay half as much for those 4 apps?". Adobe screwed up by offering one size fits all. It will bite them in the end.

Same thing here. I've used it since 4.0 and still learn new techniques. Too bad that was all wasted.

[quenton8]

mandelbrot wrote:

Hi Chazinbermuda,

If you consider the basic cost of (for example) Photoshop CC as $49/month $588/year, or for me in the UK £46.88/month, £562.56/year (which incidentally works out at $857.12; quite obviously the UK must be a far richer country than the US, otherwise that would make Adobe a bunch of robbing scumbags), that would mean that your software which you purchase per month would quickly reach the cost of a single user Photoshop CS licence.

I am not sure where people are getting their numbers from.  If all you use is Photoshop, the price is $19/month, not $49.  The $49 gets you all of the adobe CS applications, so you cannot compare that price to the cost of buying just one of them.

I still think $19 is higher than I would like, unless it also included Lightroom (which it does not, only the $49/month includes LR), but lets try and compare the correct numbers.

[God_I_hate_Adon_tbe]

Yes - you're right, Dennis - I stand corrected; that is the whole package, though their advertising is a little misleading on the front door (see the link I posted).

It's still not going to happen for me, though - I will be buying Corel next time (in another 10 years!).

Is it true that the cloud itself (i.e. the storage) is managed by none other than Amazon?

[frankgrimes]

Chazinbermuda wrote:

Adobe has argued that the cloud will reduce costs as they are able to deliver producst via the net... gone is the day of needing DVD's boxes etc...

What is the "etc" they say? I haven't needed a DVD from them for a while as I've downloaded suites. This is just more smoke from them to sell this cloud, which is really just more smoke.

[Guest]

the etc here referes to all the associated costs of producing shipping and housing of physsical products..... even though adobe made a 1 billion net profit this is one their arguments for the cloud... the cost they say is too high

[frankgrimes]

Chazinbermuda wrote:

the etc here referes to all the associated costs of producing shipping and housing of physsical products..... even though adobe made a 1 billion net profit this is one their arguments for the cloud... the cost they say is too high

Ah, okay. Wasn't thinking along those lines, but I agree. It can be costly to produce all the packaging in addition to the media. Shipping costs are BS since they charge the customer for that.

I still haven't found one argument from Adobe regarding the cost savings of the cloud to be at all compelling. Cheaper, more efficient, better sharing...none of that holds any water IMO. It's just greed. Now they have a monthly revenue stream instead of bi-annual.

[Guest]

I have my doubts that the cost to produce and store the products is prohibitive for Adobe. I'll bet it costs them less than $5 for each complete package of their software. Probably less. They are all small boxes, square and about the same size. Storing would be no more than it costs for anyone else to store small packages. Going cloud is a win, win, win, win, etc for them in the short run. Their investors love it and the stock price goes up. The execs with lots of stock make lots of money. No more licensing theft. They have no reason not to do it. They are a monopoly. If people grumble, where are they going to go? But this is where the problems start for Adobe and why this is the first real step in their obsolescence: there is very little upside and a whole lot of downside for a large number of their customers. These unhappy customers will feel gouged and start to look around for alternatives. The alternatives will get better and more viable as Adobe alternatives because they will have more market share flocking to them and a newer, better product to sell. At least I hope this is what happens.

[urdaddi]

blahlaaaablah wrote:

I have my doubts that the cost to produce and store the products is prohibitive for Adobe. I'll bet it costs them less than $5 for each complete package of their software. Probably less. They are all small boxes, square and about the same size. Storing would be no more than it costs for anyone else to store small packages. Going cloud is a win, win, win, win, etc for them in the short run. Their investors love it and the stock price goes up. The execs with lots of stock make lots of money. No more licensing theft. They have no reason not to do it. They are a monopoly. If people grumble, where are they going to go? But this is where the problems start for Adobe and why this is the first real step in their obsolescence: there is very little upside and a whole lot of downside for a large number of their customers. These unhappy customers will feel gouged and start to look around for alternatives. The alternatives will get better and more viable as Adobe alternatives because they will have more market share flocking to them and a newer, better product to sell. At least I hope this is what happens.

I am failing to understand how you can actually make a claim that Adobe is a monopoly in the same paragraph that you talk about alternatives.......in a thread about alternatives to Adobe.

[Guest]

There are no real, viable alternatives now to Adobe's main products in the same way that Freehand was an alternative to Illustrator. Most people would agree with this. But there is much more of a financial opening now for not-quite-there products like Sketch.

[urdaddi]

blahlaaaablah wrote:

There are no real, viable alternatives now to Adobe's main products in the same way that Freehand was an alternative to Illustrator. Most people would agree with this. But there is much more of a financial opening now for not-quite-there products like Sketch.

So, you are saying that the products mentioned in posts from this thread as alternatives to Adobe are not viable and the people making the posts are wrong?

[God_I_hate_Adon_tbe]

blahlaaaablah wrote:

There are no real, viable alternatives now to Adobe's main products in the same way that Freehand was an alternative to Illustrator. Most people would agree with this. But there is much more of a financial opening now for not-quite-there products like Sketch.

That's not entirely true.  The limits of a product can be defined by what you do as a user; if you only use 10% of a product and another application can provide that 10% then that other product is perfectly viable.  I honestly can't see the majority of Adobe users using more than 30% of the potential of any given Adobe app daily.

Even by using pairs of alternative products you can save large wedges of cash.  It may not be as pretty or may be a couple of extra key presses, but, let's face it, applications even on different platforms can be incredibly interconnected and cost you very little to no extra time in processing and money.

In fact, I will go as far as saying, that in my job there is no one single package that fulfills all of my needs; and by 'package' I am referring to a single application, so I am used to switching around.

You want value for money?  Buy an extra 26" monitor and open those apps!

[billhdz]

That's true, the limits of a product can be defined by what you do as a user and most users only use between 10% - 30% of what the apps can do.  Most of the Adobe apps are way too bloated with extra stuff that most people don't use ( even most of the pro's ).  There is only a very small percentage of power users that constantly use a lot of the features, but this is a very small number.

There are plenty of good alternatives out there for the majority of people. 

If you search online for Adobe alternative software, you will find many good lists. These many lists show that many customers want nothing to do with the new forced Adobe cloud model.

If Adobe continues to force the cloud model, they WILL lose a lot of customers.  Is that simple. Give it a year or so, and the true real numbers will come to the surface.

[Danny_Michael]

There is no substitute for Photoshop for professional level retouchers and compositors. What we have in CS6 is acceptable, if only we could trust Adobe to keep it running in future OS's and also provide camera updates to it. My guess is once the Cloud starts showing less than stellar growth, they will end support for CS6. I don't trust Adobe's word any longer.

[Professional_Pirates]

Danny Michael wrote:

There is no substitute for Photoshop for professional level retouchers and compositors. What we have in CS6 is acceptable, if only we could trust Adobe to keep it running in future OS's and also provide camera updates to it. My guess is once the Cloud starts showing less than stellar growth, they will end support for CS6. I don't trust Adobe's word any longer.

so you haven't tried gimpshp right?  If you haven't then give it a try.

[Danny_Michael]

I tried Gimpshop and it's painful to use on a Mac. Maybe they will devote more time to advancing it on the Mac in the future, but for now it's not a good replacement.