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Free alternatives to paid software
(thelemmy.club)
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this post was submitted on 04 Aug 2026
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Idk about the rest of the software on this list, but presenting gimp as an "alternative" to photoshop seems disingenuous to me.
Gimp is an alternative to photoshop in the same way that a 56K modem is an alternative to a 1 gig fiber line. Yes, they technically do the same job. But to suggest that your experience is going to be comparable to photoshop is a stretch.
I'd suggest Krita before Gimp, and even Affinity (although I'm sure there's a gotcha coming with that one)
I've been using Photoshop for 24 years and I gave Affinity a try. Affinity still has a lot of kinks to work out. Cross compatibility wrt brushes and tools is spotty at best, unusable at worst. UI and workflow/workspace definitely needs improvement. No right click to adjust brush size and no saveable workspace option was a dealbreaker for me.
But is Gimp Affinity's Gimp? Or is there competition there?
Krita is the way to go. Even has AI retouching add-on if you're into that.
GIMP is also a massive pain in the ass. Paint.net is the one piece of software I still miss after moving to Linux.
Da Vinci Resolve is great though. Crazy that it's free and Linux compatible.
I'm switching to Linux right now and I haven't really looked into replacements for each piece of software. Used Paint.net for at least 10 years, tried Gimp first but didn't like it. What do you use?
Try Pinta. Unless you do digital painting/illustration, then go for Krita.
The image doesn't say it's a replacement, it says it's an alternative. What piece of sofware would you suggest instead?
Same with Inkscape IMO. Anyone have a different alternative?
Dunno how advanced its vector graphics features are, but krita does support making them at least, you could try that. The overall interface is good at least.
Photopea is pretty good for casual use
Gimpshop i think it's called at least tries to make the GIMP workflow and UX (including keyboard short cuts) not completely, well, gimped.
Yeah GIMP is shit. Anyone who says otherwise has no idea what they’re talking about. Inkscape is better than gimp but still suffers from UI issues.
Depends what you are doing. If you are drawing-krita, if you are manipulating images-gimp, making svg stuff-inkscape. I've been using gimp long enough that the newest photoshop makes me want to crashout.
Quality features often confuse people.
Nah, pretty sure it was the ai jammed in everything.
So then you admit that pre-AI Photoshop was significantly better than gimp. Thanks
Oh. Hands down. I miss the old creative suites. But the current product? Glitchy pos. Fuck em. Once you use gimp for a few years the pain dulls. Now how you think inkscape is comparable to illustrator is baffling. Is illustrator also a shitshow now?
I wouldn’t actually know. I don’t use Adobe Products.
But if you exclude the AI features, and don’t make “anti-ai” your entire personality, gimp is pretty shit
...?? Gimp is what it is. It doesn't hold your hand-and there is admittedly an element of bootstraps. But once you are used to it, it will do what most people need it for.
Why have such aggressive opinions on software you apparently don't even use?
Why do you have such aggressive opinions on Photoshop if you don’t use it?
I think our conversation is over, don’t you think?
I'm not sure it could be defined as a conversation.
I wish you the best of luck working out whatever it is you are going through. Hang in there buddy 💪.
The GUI/UX is shit. If you wanna design automated workflows from the shell, it can be quite flexible and powerful.
Like they used to have a website that would generate tags or like styled text. They used GIMP for the backend image generation. I thought that was a pretty impressive use case.
Imagemagick.