Davinci Resolve isn't just an alternative to Premiere, it absolutely crushes it in almost every aspect. Insane that it actually comes free as well, with about 90% of its full features.
One thing I hate about Resolve is putting all your projects in this centralized database. I want my projects to be saved where I want them... But I would have switched already if I weren't so dependent on After Effects.
I would have Inkscape above S level! I use it for everything. I find it reasonably stable and use it for document creation (I don't need Word any more), book production, basic image editing and cropping and of course graphic design. My favourite piece of software by far.
are you on linux? because i find it stable too now compared to pre 1.0. I agree its higher, the PDF abilities as well and upcoming CMYK etc will be even better
It is kind of crashy though. Not fun to lose a lot of work if you don't save every three steps or so when using some of the live path effects or things like mesh gradients. If they can work out the stability bugs it would go up quite a bit. Some things like distortion effects are definitely improving, but still short of being on-par with Illustrator. (Either the workflow is awkward, or they still can't pull off the same things despite naming conventions that suggest they should.)
I pretty sure Blender is not a substitute for after effects, it does have a compositor but is pretty far behind. The true replacement for Adobe After Effects and all the video and audio software from Adobe is definitely Davinci Resolve. It has Fusion and Fairlight for compositing and audio editor. Besides the editing and color tools. Very powerfull and the studio version is really worth it for the price. Single payment vs subscription bleeding. Ahh and also runs in Linux. Pretty well if you ask me.
it's not as accessible as in all the instant replacement for AE in the same way, but Blender can be used as such if you don't want to pay for it, and add Natron and any of the open source video editors to the mix and you have everything you need, but while Fusion is free then of course that with Blender is more than capable of producing anything.
Pair Blender with Resolve + Fusion and you have pretty much the replacement for the Adobe video side of things. And it would cost you less than a yearly subscription. 👌
Unfortunately, none of these replace After Effects :( When I work on feature films, music videos... Nothing is as practical as Premiere/After Effects. But I do wish I could escape it.
@@lukastemberger That is correct in my case too. Since I deal with 2D motion design work, I have yet to implement a reliable workflow with Blender and Fusion for it.
Personally, I think I would have placed the Affinity Suite in the S level, as it can do 95% of things its Adobe counterparts can do. I'm not heavy into AI Creation, so not having that feature is fine for my usage. Also, IIRC Affinity still allows access to the Pantone books/swatches, so if that's a thing for you, Affinity wil have you covered.
"95%" is an overestimate. Affinity Photo still lacks such obvious important features as Auto Trace and automatic background removal. And Affinity Photo has absolutely no AI functions, which Adobe has added to Photoshop. The lack of AI-based object removal is a real limitation of Affinity Photo. Nowadays, nobody who has seen Photoshop's AI object remover is going to use Affinity Photo to remove a background by tracing around and around and around with the Pen tool.
@@stevenlitvintchouk3131 And those people can use an online method to remove a background, if they need to. I'm not one for AI to begin with, so those who don't want/need AI will be fine with Affinity Photo.
Canva is B tier IMO...mainly for the fact that it's tricked people into thinking they are "designers" when they really don't know anything about design. Source? I used to own a small, boutique marketing agency and have recently moved back into the sign/pop/print side of marketing (where I started) and the amount of people doing their own "design" in Canva and then sending completely unusable "artwork" to be printed at scale is mind boggling. And then they get mad *at us* when we tell them their "beautiful design" can't be printed on a billboard when they sent us a postage-stamp-sized thumbnail. Canva has literally made design *worse* for actual designers and other industry pros.
This is why I now use Krita. I feel like I’m using a powerful software that can take advantage of my Nvidia Quadro GPU. Canva can be used on a poony Chromebook probably because it have less capabilities than a Krita. I would look so stupid to buy a Mobile Workstation just to use a poony Canva
Cava is for people who don't know how to design and want something quick and easy. No professional in their right mind would use canva. Even canva themselves say its not for professional use. affinity on the other hand is S teir. It's really close to photoshop and illustrator, in same ways even better than adobe. Also blender is 3d software not alternative to after effect. Its an alternative to Maya and 3ds max
Every digital painter and illustrator I talk to, and every forum I look at, when they discuss programs for digital painting besides photoshop, they say "Krita". I've dabbled in it, and it's hard to see how there would be anything better. Definitely S tier. Affinity... yeah, that's S tier.
I would put Affinity in S tier, after using Photoshop and Lightroom for many years i can say that it's like 90% the Adobe counterparts. Is £159 for 3 programs for life vs a year subscription you would pay over £792 for one year for just few AI features that are not far for being well implemented if Affinity too. I understand using Adobe for a business or a studio that needs constant file sharing and adjustment but for single professionals and amateurs is just amazing in my opinion
I have also done presentations to other artists on how to go completely open source for the whole visual artist lifecycle. I only use Open source for everything everyday. Darktable for me as a Photographer and Artist, Definitely an "A" tier! Krita is an "S" tier, it's colour handling, its used a lot in concept art, it makes use of 32Bit colour, can work with RAW files directly. Despite crashes you've experience which seems more stable on Linux, Inkscape is "A" tier for me, but otherwise i think you got most right and GIMP and Inkscape are definitely getting the improvements you mentioned so they will upgrade over this coming year, AI tools i really don't care about. Also i can attest to Blenders breaking the hold of the industry definitely in a league of it's own and will continue to be as someone who uses it, it is awesome, 2D, 2.5D, 3D and all in one swiss army knife for creative tool definitely replacing the need for all the big name software in the 3D content industry.
completely agree, scribus is awesome, of course it could benefit from more dev and support, but as is, it is more than capable, especially when used in conjunction with inkscape and gimp.
I agree that Scribus is pretty powerful, stable, has superb production-ready PDF creation tools and, I dare to say, almost feature complete as it is and the UI, while slightly dated, is on par with what one would expect from DTP software from about a decade ago or so so I definitely don't agree with it being knocked down to the bottom of that list. As a former Pagemaker user, I am very happy with it! The one thing that I find bad about Scribus though is the atrocious way how it handles tables which is essentially no support at all and one has to hack its way out of combining square shapes on the design. If they fix that minor problem, I'd have no complaints AT ALL.
No, adobe does not have better background removal and subject selection. Affinity does better in both cases than Photoshop and it does it faster and lighter. Affinity is a no brainier replacement for Photoshop. Not having Affinity as "S" tier but Canva as "S" tier makes me wonder about your expertise in this matter.
Yeah I have been using Photoshop for 20+ years and recently tried Affinity because of.. I was amazed how light and powerful affinity is. I was sold instantly. It easy S tier
Personally, i think Affinty should be S tier. It pretty much gives you everything you want at a tiny fraction of the cost of Adobe. Well worth the price.
A really interresting video that introduced a few new items to me. Of the ones I know I agree with all your placements. A couple of extra points: - The Affinity Studio feature works in all the tools not just Publisher and the file format is shared by all so you can open a Publisher file in Photo or Designer for example, then save it and it will still open in Publisher later. - Lightworks is a direct competitor to DaVinci Resolve and is probably an "A" product for its commercial version and a "B" for its freeware version (due to its slightly yucky licensing model and limited export options). Also Lightworks needs a beefy machine to run it well.
usually i hate this "Tier ranking" videos, because most are clickbait made by people who know nothing about an subject and are just giving their personal opinions. but you are an expert artist so your opinion is quite valid, of course you arent expert at everything, but its a much better input than from any random person on the internet.
I recently left Adobe products because of their unethical ai business practices, there is no alternative for my wacom table workflow in Illustrator. Inkscape is surprisingly good, I think you're a bit harsh with the C rating here. It's is very crashy with the tablet, otherwise it's quite stable. To replace my illustrator workflow, which was fairly unique, I need to use Inkscape and CS Paint.
I use CS paint, not for the animation or 3D reference abilities, but for it's vector drawing capabilities when using a wacom pro tablet workflow. Inkscape is a great open source app, and I use it all the time, but it's entirely unsuitable and unstable for detailed tablet drawing. Illustrator has and insanely powerful tablet drawing workflow, even though most people don't use it that way. CS paint is the only thing that comes close. So for me making adjustments(smoothing) etc without having to leave the pen or brush tool is very important to keep the flow going, only illustrator and CS Paint have these capabilities in vector. This is largely based on the style of drawing that I do so if you don't need vector line workflow then probably krita would be fine.
As another graphics professional, I agree with your rankings. I use all the open source design tools you mentioned here, but on Linux. Inkscape does seem to crash more often now, I would imagine even more on Windows. Scribus is an excellent alternative to InDesign, but they really don't update much, and their user interface is holding back adoption. However, when I need to create extensive multi-page layouts, Scribus is it.
@@SO-dl2pv Of course, I know. I use it every day on a good spec laptop using PopOS! Linux, but 1.3 release still crashes a lot and some times it won't open artwork you just did a few minutes ago. So I keep a 1.3 Beta, and a 1.2 version just in case.
Good video! I think you got the Affinity placement wrong. It should be S tier because the trinity pretty much does what Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign does. Sure, there are a few components missing, but they are coming - especially now that Canva has bought Serif / Affinity.
I've used most of these programs especially as a big supporter of FOSS. I agree with most of your rankings however I dont agree with Inkscape being C tier. 2 major versions maybe. With the latest update I would have called it A tier, but with the crashing I'd call it B. It does have autosave though, so I've found when it does crash it's not terrible and you dont lose a lot of work. I havent used adobe in quite a few years, but Adobe suite programs used to crash a lot, and they didnt have auto save back then. I have heard premiere still crashes a lot (I dont know about photoshop/illustrator). Of these programs the ones I use on the regular is Krita, Inkscape & Blender.
Inkscape is in fact a bit less stable in 1.3 than it was in 1.2, however if you haven't done that yet, consider resetting it's settings. It sometimes helps a lot on stability.
@@DaviesMediaDesign This is a somewhat similar scenario to moving from 1.2.1 to 1.2.2. I went back to 1.2.1 version for some time until it turned out that the settings file was to blame. And then it turned out that everything worked after resetting the settings.
Hey Davis, I agree with most of the rankings but I don't agree with Inkscape ranking. Nick has compared Illustrator and Inkscape recently and they stand neck to neck ( Offcourse it's a Free software and development team is small)
We can't expect higher ranking if it's crashing a lot. I might have fixed many many crashing bugs for 1.3, but if you as an artist happen to use the features that haven't been touched in a while by a developer, then you're way more likely to see crashes. The variability in Inkscape's reputation is actually fascinating, some people proclaiming how stable it is compared to illustrator and others telling us was a terrible buggy mess it is. My only hope is that folk report their crashes. They can't be fixed if they're not reported. Collab plz. 😉
I wouldn’t be surprised if the instability was a Windows issue. So far commenters are touting Inkscape’s stability on Linux. I do need to report the crashes when they happen - always say I will, then get busy with something else.
@@doctormo So generous of you Martin. I know how much of the hardwork goes behind the curtain to make Inkscape what it is. I think we can start a campaign to actively make Inkscape community report bugs. And make the reporting process simple, 1-2 click.
Great list! Though its unfortunate that Inkscape is so unstable that you have to put it in C. In my case, Inkscape works smoothly, and with 1.3 update, its worthy of a S tier in my book. Also, sad that you don't mention kdenlive. An A tier software in feature, but due to instability, I sadly have to knock it down to B.
@@clevermissfox Premiere Pro. While it doesn't compete with Resolve or Premiere in the professional space. It's great for hobbyist and "semi professional".
Totally agree re inkspace! also Kdenlive, Shotwell, Openshot, Shotcut, olive and many others are all usuable. add in audacity and handbrake, not much you can't do
Rawtherapee might be added to the list as an alternative to Lightroom and Darktable. Masking and radial filters seem more robust in Lightroom. I would put it to A.
Rawtherapee is extremely slow and doesn't have hardware acceleration. It's a great software with a batch processing (very useful) and 2 monitors support, but sadly its development stopped or is extremely slow. On the other hand Darktable is actively maintained and worked on.
Gimp is good for a desktop/laptop app but for a browser version I would use Photopea or Canva (apps for Windows/Android and other platforms available for Canva).
Inkscape is awesome but I do have to agree, it crashes way too much. Scribus is pretty solid, yes the interface is absolutely outdated but actually it’s pretty intuitive.
Sorry, for me Inkscape is very stable. If it crash on your system, maybe you should look why it crash? I personnally useInkscape under Windows and Linux and each version I used over the years have been stable. With one exception with a dev version. It should be at best for minum B tier and should be a A tier.
I have been looking at Krita for photo editing and I think it is more competent in this area than it's being given credit. Probably because of awareness and it's seen as a painting application. I don;t think Gimp is the best for photos I would put Darktable ahead of it. I currently decided on a combination of Darktable and Krita for my photo processing needs.
Mostly. Interesting tier list. Can't say much about wordpress, drupal, penpot or canva. Personally, I'd place Inkscape in the A category because of how good and complete it is. For the most part Inkscape has been stable for me. Agree with Scribus lagging behind (but still a workable DTP alternative and their latest version has improved somewhat). The GIMP project, Inkscape, Krita and Scribus should work together to come to a more compatible suite and a true alternative for the Adobe DTP family. The Scribus team, if I'm not mistaken, only consists of two people. Krita, Blender and resolve are mindblowing. Krita has replaced Clip Studio paint in my illustration and comic book workflow. When it comes to DTP I've mostly been living in Affinity land ever since the (very buggy) Beta for Publisher was released (in 2018)... Keep up the good work.
@@DaviesMediaDesign oh! ok. I just recently have seen you posting plenty of inkscape videos on your channel and haven't seen very many gimp videos other than the new updates. I understand now. Thankyou
Based on personal experience, I would also rank GIMP as B-tier. I've sometimes participated in mailing-list discussions and can attest for a fact that various minor things faulted by new users are officially regarded as "won't fix" for one entrenched reason or another.
Considering professional grade video editing software, Lightworks would be an alternative too. Not as popular but very powerful. Only drawback, you're basically forced to buy the pro version, because the free one can render videos in 720p max.
The Affinity Suit is a no-brainer, and should be in the S category. This is an absolutly awesome suit for evert graphic designer, DTP artist or photographer. Yes, is misses some functions compared to Adobe,- but also has some great features, that Adobe still misses.... so I dont agree with you on this.
There's a earthquake regarding Inkscape... But at the end, I agree... I personally report crashes almost immediately as a way to help. If I can't, I save the problematic file and try to remember the instructions to replicate it. However, Inkscape is quickly evolving. We need to stay up with it.
I agree - Inkscape is very much on the right track and has lots of activity. And I think they take criticism/feedback well so I anticipate them working on the stability issue in the near future.
I use Inkscape on Linux as a replacement for Silhouette Studio and find it pretty stable. It does crash every so often but that's when I have huge files or stop the Inkscape to Silhouette extension mid cut on my cameo 4. I do have to say it crashes way less than it used to. I don't really have much use for CMYK. So that's not really a drawback for me. Thank you for the software comparison.
I feel hard to understand. I have see you have showed us a lot of softwares and show us something like SABCD. can you tell us what do they do? Recently, I am looking for a software or online based software for graphic design works. Which one can do that?
I mostly agree with you, except maybe that darktable is A tier. It's very complicated software (raw developer and sorter) and the only one that did it right and stands from the crowd in the free software world. However, I do agree with you that they should de-clutter or de-something the interface to make it more desirable and easy to use. Still, I think it deserves to be in A. But I was surprised to see you not working in Linux. The only reason I'm still on Windows is Adobe. If I had PS and LR alternative for professional photography, I'd be in Linux entirely. But in your case, you're the guy that did other way around - I wish I could do that, lol! I still cannot substitute PS for GIMP due to so many reasons (Actions, special shortcuts, speed, Content aware fill, GPU support). But Darktable is next to LR in results, though still not quite there in usability/speed/presets.
Viva Designer best alternative for InDesign. Windows, macOS, Linux... It is quite cheap and one of the best features of VivaDesigner is the possibility to import Indesign .indd and .idml files. VivaDesigner also exports the .idml file. Scribus also has the plugin to import the .idml, but not to export it.
I don't get it. And where is Xara? It's been on the market since the 90s. You can do everything there - from complex vector graphics with effects or clip art and web landings to full-fledged dynamic websites. I have never seen a program with such a user-friendly interface and the ability to quickly and easily perform various manipulations. And those (commercial I mean) are the only ones you could pick up? Funny. As if you started to be interested in this only yesterday. But judging by your channel, you are a professional in your field.
Thank you so much Michael for this amazing and objective review, but I would correct an information you mentioned. Adobe didn't acquire figma till now . Adobe announced its intention to acquire Figma on September 15, 2022, for approximately $20 billion in cash and stock. However, the acquisition was called off on December 18, 2023, due to regulatory challenges.
I think with a stable Inkscape 1.4 release it will easily be B tier, if not A tier depending on how stable it can be (on Windows). I believe it is already pretty stable on other operating systems.
I would not have ranked Canva so high, a B. It does a lot of things well, but not excellently. Also no love for Corel Draw huh? It's okay, although I don't pay per year for it, I have the last stand alone version. I guess that's why you didn't mention it, because of its same subscription model
Canva is just too big a disruptor in my eyes to place it anywhere else. It basically invented its own category. I don't hear enough about Corel to put their software in the mix - I totally forgot about it to be honest.
@@DaviesMediaDesign yeah I guess. I think affinity is great stuff. A once off payment for it is the way to go, instead of subscription based. If my Corel Draw breaks I'll buy affinity, as I need CMYK output at present
@@DaviesMediaDesign Maybe it's a regional thing with Corel. About half of my European clients use some version of of this program. As for Canva, me being on the receiving end, I assure you that the files made with it are absolute garbage and definitelly not fit for printing, contrary to what they claim on their website.
Gimp should be on B tier it is still the best alternative for PhotoShop for the layman. Davinci Resolve has a huge learning curve, Gimp is easier to learn and grasp its user face and functions.
Awesome video! I hope someone creates an alternative to Inkscape for Linux. I don't like its layout and functionality. That's why I haven't switched from Adobe Illustrator.
Wordpress is annoying since they tried to simplify the UI. The thing that seems to plague UX in the pass 10 years is the idea that simplification means removal or hard-obfuscation of functionality.
Very helpful overview. Thanks. For Linux based photography editing and organising there only seems to be Darktable and Gimp. Wish there'd be more FOSS activity in this segment
RawTherapee is a great Raw editor and much easier to use than DarkTable (although arguable less powerful). Corel Aftershot is also a good commercial raw editor and theLinux version is not too expensive(compared to the other commercial options on Windows/MacOS) But frankly none of the open source tools really compete with the best commercial editors for photo editing, neither in ease of use nor in AI features. For video, Resolve and Lightworks are both viable options.
Rawtherapee as well as Darktable, both leading edge software, i used Darktable 100% of the time as photgrapher and GIMP & inkscape for everything else, But Krita also handles RAW and they are not the only open source alternatives.
I'm shocked u didn't have kdenlive S tier Imo i don't even bother with davanci or Vegas anymore, krita is so much better than gimp I agree 👍 and you can even have vector layers and raster it's very nice
This is a great video. I found your channel years ago when figuring out gimp. I was hoping to find an alternative for illustrator but that’s a bummer that the only other option is at a B or C tier.
Inkscape is definitely an alternative to Illustrator and can use the files output by Illustrator with some limits but generally its better than is really being put here epsecially on Linux
Might want to look at alternative for sure now, that Adobe has release it's new agreement, they can use all of your material and are tracking information. They don't need permission to do so with the new agreement.
While I use Canva everyday, its hardly on par with any Adobe program and is not a replacement for any of them. Also to use CMYK you must be on a paid plan and its only supported in the Brand tools which makes no sense.
Same. I think that the vast majority of the people experiencing crashes are on Windows and I suspect that GTK is to blame. GTK (formerly the GIMP Tool Kit but largely taken over by GNOME these days) is the GUI toolkit used to create the user interface of Inkscape and GTK has quite the track record of being unstable on non-UNIX platforms. Many GTK-based applications including Inkscape and GIMP itself are notoriously finicky on Windows which is why many developers prefer to resort to Qt when doing cross platform GUI apps. I find Inkscape to be rock solid on Linux and I have to go out of my way to make it crash (like when I go crazy with the clone tool or do something stupid to make the vertex count go way up).
i did not know that Adobe brought figma in 2022, and i keep wondering what is this new developer shit mode in figma, me as a developer , figma was easier to use before, now the ui is looking more like adobe xd, which i've never understood.
Davinci Resolve isn't just an alternative to Premiere, it absolutely crushes it in almost every aspect. Insane that it actually comes free as well, with about 90% of its full features.
resolve is pretty much PP + AE for free and no Adobe BS
@@jacobmars1902 I don't do video but was looking at blender to replace AE, Blender now does both. I'll check out resolve.
I'll have to try it again, because it ran REALLY slow back then, and the features were severly lacking.
@@CarloNassarI feel like a lot of the open source apps are just arriving at a professional level in the last year or so.
One thing I hate about Resolve is putting all your projects in this centralized database. I want my projects to be saved where I want them...
But I would have switched already if I weren't so dependent on After Effects.
I would have Inkscape above S level! I use it for everything. I find it reasonably stable and use it for document creation (I don't need Word any more), book production, basic image editing and cropping and of course graphic design. My favourite piece of software by far.
are you on linux? because i find it stable too now compared to pre 1.0. I agree its higher, the PDF abilities as well and upcoming CMYK etc will be even better
@@GaryParris I'm using Windows 11. I get an occaisional crash, but not many. Is CYMK coming?!
it's great! but as an Illustrator alternative, it pales in comparison feature-wise
It is kind of crashy though. Not fun to lose a lot of work if you don't save every three steps or so when using some of the live path effects or things like mesh gradients. If they can work out the stability bugs it would go up quite a bit. Some things like distortion effects are definitely improving, but still short of being on-par with Illustrator. (Either the workflow is awkward, or they still can't pull off the same things despite naming conventions that suggest they should.)
@@GaryParrisIt has definitely improved with some of the more recent stable release versions. Still crashes a lot for me for simple tasks, though.
Inkscape is rock solid on Pop_OS/Linux for me. I haven't experienced a crash since 1.3
You and Ton Roosendaal (Founder of Blender) caused a lot of trouble for the money-loving Adobe company. You are really great
I pretty sure Blender is not a substitute for after effects, it does have a compositor but is pretty far behind. The true replacement for Adobe After Effects and all the video and audio software from Adobe is definitely Davinci Resolve. It has Fusion and Fairlight for compositing and audio editor. Besides the editing and color tools. Very powerfull and the studio version is really worth it for the price. Single payment vs subscription bleeding. Ahh and also runs in Linux. Pretty well if you ask me.
it's not as accessible as in all the instant replacement for AE in the same way, but Blender can be used as such if you don't want to pay for it, and add Natron and any of the open source video editors to the mix and you have everything you need, but while Fusion is free then of course that with Blender is more than capable of producing anything.
Blender has good 2d ani capabilities now, exports to SVG, which is the workflow I'm going for.
Pair Blender with Resolve + Fusion and you have pretty much the replacement for the Adobe video side of things. And it would cost you less than a yearly subscription. 👌
Unfortunately, none of these replace After Effects :( When I work on feature films, music videos... Nothing is as practical as Premiere/After Effects. But I do wish I could escape it.
@@lukastemberger That is correct in my case too. Since I deal with 2D motion design work, I have yet to implement a reliable workflow with Blender and Fusion for it.
Personally, I think I would have placed the Affinity Suite in the S level, as it can do 95% of things its Adobe counterparts can do. I'm not heavy into AI Creation, so not having that feature is fine for my usage.
Also, IIRC Affinity still allows access to the Pantone books/swatches, so if that's a thing for you, Affinity wil have you covered.
"95%" is an overestimate.
Affinity Photo still lacks such obvious important features as Auto Trace and automatic background removal. And Affinity Photo has absolutely no AI functions, which Adobe has added to Photoshop. The lack of AI-based object removal is a real limitation of Affinity Photo.
Nowadays, nobody who has seen Photoshop's AI object remover is going to use Affinity Photo to remove a background by tracing around and around and around with the Pen tool.
@@stevenlitvintchouk3131 And those people can use an online method to remove a background, if they need to.
I'm not one for AI to begin with, so those who don't want/need AI will be fine with Affinity Photo.
Canva is B tier IMO...mainly for the fact that it's tricked people into thinking they are "designers" when they really don't know anything about design. Source? I used to own a small, boutique marketing agency and have recently moved back into the sign/pop/print side of marketing (where I started) and the amount of people doing their own "design" in Canva and then sending completely unusable "artwork" to be printed at scale is mind boggling. And then they get mad *at us* when we tell them their "beautiful design" can't be printed on a billboard when they sent us a postage-stamp-sized thumbnail. Canva has literally made design *worse* for actual designers and other industry pros.
This is why I now use Krita. I feel like I’m using a powerful software that can take advantage of my Nvidia Quadro GPU. Canva can be used on a poony Chromebook probably because it have less capabilities than a Krita. I would look so stupid to buy a Mobile Workstation just to use a poony Canva
Totally agree, that was probably the only program (that I know of from this list) that didn't deserve to be rated that high
Cava is for people who don't know how to design and want something quick and easy. No professional in their right mind would use canva. Even canva themselves say its not for professional use. affinity on the other hand is S teir. It's really close to photoshop and illustrator, in same ways even better than adobe. Also blender is 3d software not alternative to after effect. Its an alternative to Maya and 3ds max
That's one reason that Affinity Suite users have been concerned that Canva acquired Affinity Suite. (The other reason being subscription models)
Every digital painter and illustrator I talk to, and every forum I look at, when they discuss programs for digital painting besides photoshop, they say "Krita". I've dabbled in it, and it's hard to see how there would be anything better. Definitely S tier.
Affinity... yeah, that's S tier.
Yes, Krita is fantastic.
I would put Affinity in S tier, after using Photoshop and Lightroom for many years i can say that it's like 90% the Adobe counterparts. Is £159 for 3 programs for life vs a year subscription you would pay over £792 for one year for just few AI features that are not far for being well implemented if Affinity too. I understand using Adobe for a business or a studio that needs constant file sharing and adjustment but for single professionals and amateurs is just amazing in my opinion
I have also done presentations to other artists on how to go completely open source for the whole visual artist lifecycle. I only use Open source for everything everyday.
Darktable for me as a Photographer and Artist, Definitely an "A" tier! Krita is an "S" tier, it's colour handling, its used a lot in concept art, it makes use of 32Bit colour, can work with RAW files directly. Despite crashes you've experience which seems more stable on Linux, Inkscape is "A" tier for me, but otherwise i think you got most right and GIMP and Inkscape are definitely getting the improvements you mentioned so they will upgrade over this coming year, AI tools i really don't care about.
Also i can attest to Blenders breaking the hold of the industry definitely in a league of it's own and will continue to be as someone who uses it, it is awesome, 2D, 2.5D, 3D and all in one swiss army knife for creative tool definitely replacing the need for all the big name software in the 3D content industry.
Definitely an exciting time for Free and Open Source Software!
Agree with most of the rating in the video. except Inkscape. It deserves A IMO.
Scribus 1.5.8 _never_ crashes, and is closer to Indesign as you would think :)
completely agree, scribus is awesome, of course it could benefit from more dev and support, but as is, it is more than capable, especially when used in conjunction with inkscape and gimp.
Yup same here. Interface may be outdated, but weirdly enough I found it more intuitive than Indesign.
I agree that Scribus is pretty powerful, stable, has superb production-ready PDF creation tools and, I dare to say, almost feature complete as it is and the UI, while slightly dated, is on par with what one would expect from DTP software from about a decade ago or so so I definitely don't agree with it being knocked down to the bottom of that list. As a former Pagemaker user, I am very happy with it! The one thing that I find bad about Scribus though is the atrocious way how it handles tables which is essentially no support at all and one has to hack its way out of combining square shapes on the design. If they fix that minor problem, I'd have no complaints AT ALL.
No, adobe does not have better background removal and subject selection. Affinity does better in both cases than Photoshop and it does it faster and lighter. Affinity is a no brainier replacement for Photoshop. Not having Affinity as "S" tier but Canva as "S" tier makes me wonder about your expertise in this matter.
Yeah I have been using Photoshop for 20+ years and recently tried Affinity because of.. I was amazed how light and powerful affinity is. I was sold instantly. It easy S tier
Photoshop has a lot of AI features for generative fill and object removal, none of which are in Affinity Photo
I go to Canva to remove backgrounds perfectly in a second
Blender is also a 3D GIS (Geoinformation System) with a plugin. We use it at the university in geoinformatics
Which university?
What do you use that for, practically?
Personally, i think Affinty should be S tier. It pretty much gives you everything you want at a tiny fraction of the cost of Adobe. Well worth the price.
A really interresting video that introduced a few new items to me. Of the ones I know I agree with all your placements. A couple of extra points:
- The Affinity Studio feature works in all the tools not just Publisher and the file format is shared by all so you can open a Publisher file in Photo or Designer for example, then save it and it will still open in Publisher later.
- Lightworks is a direct competitor to DaVinci Resolve and is probably an "A" product for its commercial version and a "B" for its freeware version (due to its slightly yucky licensing model and limited export options). Also Lightworks needs a beefy machine to run it well.
You mentioned nothing about the great capabilities Krita has to create 2d animation. It's my go-to program replacing Moho or ToonBoom.
do you know about OpenToonz? it's a FOSS alternative to ToonBoom
usually i hate this "Tier ranking" videos, because most are clickbait made by people who know nothing about an subject and are just giving their personal opinions.
but you are an expert artist so your opinion is quite valid, of course you arent expert at everything, but its a much better input than from any random person on the internet.
When you said "AI" was that "Artificial Intelligence" or "Adobe Illustrator"?
I recently left Adobe products because of their unethical ai business practices, there is no alternative for my wacom table workflow in Illustrator. Inkscape is surprisingly good, I think you're a bit harsh with the C rating here. It's is very crashy with the tablet, otherwise it's quite stable. To replace my illustrator workflow, which was fairly unique, I need to use Inkscape and CS Paint.
Did you choose CS Paint over Krita for some animation features or something else?
I use CS paint, not for the animation or 3D reference abilities, but for it's vector drawing capabilities when using a wacom pro tablet workflow. Inkscape is a great open source app, and I use it all the time, but it's entirely unsuitable and unstable for detailed tablet drawing. Illustrator has and insanely powerful tablet drawing workflow, even though most people don't use it that way. CS paint is the only thing that comes close. So for me making adjustments(smoothing) etc without having to leave the pen or brush tool is very important to keep the flow going, only illustrator and CS Paint have these capabilities in vector. This is largely based on the style of drawing that I do so if you don't need vector line workflow then probably krita would be fine.
As another graphics professional, I agree with your rankings.
I use all the open source design tools you mentioned here, but on Linux. Inkscape does seem to crash more often now, I would imagine even more on Windows.
Scribus is an excellent alternative to InDesign, but they really don't update much, and their user interface is holding back adoption. However, when I need to create extensive multi-page layouts, Scribus is it.
i only use linux and inkscape is more stable than it was for me. interesting.
@@GaryParris I agree. All open source software is more stable on Linux.
@@SO-dl2pv Of course, I know. I use it every day on a good spec laptop using PopOS! Linux, but 1.3 release still crashes a lot and some times it won't open artwork you just did a few minutes ago. So I keep a 1.3 Beta, and a 1.2 version just in case.
@@csmemarketing I use de flat package wich it's better
Good video! I think you got the Affinity placement wrong. It should be S tier because the trinity pretty much does what Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign does. Sure, there are a few components missing, but they are coming - especially now that Canva has bought Serif / Affinity.
I've used most of these programs especially as a big supporter of FOSS. I agree with most of your rankings however I dont agree with Inkscape being C tier. 2 major versions maybe. With the latest update I would have called it A tier, but with the crashing I'd call it B. It does have autosave though, so I've found when it does crash it's not terrible and you dont lose a lot of work. I havent used adobe in quite a few years, but Adobe suite programs used to crash a lot, and they didnt have auto save back then. I have heard premiere still crashes a lot (I dont know about photoshop/illustrator). Of these programs the ones I use on the regular is Krita, Inkscape & Blender.
Inkscape is in fact a bit less stable in 1.3 than it was in 1.2, however if you haven't done that yet, consider resetting it's settings. It sometimes helps a lot on stability.
Interesting! Would love to know if this works for anyone.
@@DaviesMediaDesign This is a somewhat similar scenario to moving from 1.2.1 to 1.2.2. I went back to 1.2.1 version for some time until it turned out that the settings file was to blame. And then it turned out that everything worked after resetting the settings.
@@DaviesMediaDesign I'm not saying it helps for all the problem, but sometimes it can be a game changer.
I belive Inkscape should be on A tier. I am using it regularly and never face any stability issues.
What about photopea and vectorpea?
Hey Davis, I agree with most of the rankings but I don't agree with Inkscape ranking. Nick has compared Illustrator and Inkscape recently and they stand neck to neck ( Offcourse it's a Free software and development team is small)
We can't expect higher ranking if it's crashing a lot. I might have fixed many many crashing bugs for 1.3, but if you as an artist happen to use the features that haven't been touched in a while by a developer, then you're way more likely to see crashes. The variability in Inkscape's reputation is actually fascinating, some people proclaiming how stable it is compared to illustrator and others telling us was a terrible buggy mess it is.
My only hope is that folk report their crashes. They can't be fixed if they're not reported. Collab plz. 😉
I wouldn’t be surprised if the instability was a Windows issue. So far commenters are touting Inkscape’s stability on Linux. I do need to report the crashes when they happen - always say I will, then get busy with something else.
@@doctormo So generous of you Martin. I know how much of the hardwork goes behind the curtain to make Inkscape what it is.
I think we can start a campaign to actively make Inkscape community report bugs. And make the reporting process simple, 1-2 click.
@@doctormo i look forward to Inkscape becoming even better as time goes on with new versions, but it's stable for me on Linux and i love it!
@@DaviesMediaDesign definitely a windows issue, Linux seem stable since Inkscape 1.1
Great list! Though its unfortunate that Inkscape is so unstable that you have to put it in C. In my case, Inkscape works smoothly, and with 1.3 update, its worthy of a S tier in my book.
Also, sad that you don't mention kdenlive. An A tier software in feature, but due to instability, I sadly have to knock it down to B.
What program is kdenlive most like?
@@clevermissfox Premiere Pro. While it doesn't compete with Resolve or Premiere in the professional space. It's great for hobbyist and "semi professional".
Totally agree re inkspace! also Kdenlive, Shotwell, Openshot, Shotcut, olive and many others are all usuable. add in audacity and handbrake, not much you can't do
It's definitely a project that continues to fly under the radar.
Rawtherapee might be added to the list as an alternative to Lightroom and Darktable. Masking and radial filters seem more robust in Lightroom. I would put it to A.
true it should be in there for its power although i prefer Darktable and think both are "A" tier
@@GaryParris I have not used Darktable, but I’ve seen it used on editing videos. What is it about Darktable you prefer over Rawtherapee? Thank you.
Rawtherapee is extremely slow and doesn't have hardware acceleration. It's a great software with a batch processing (very useful) and 2 monitors support, but sadly its development stopped or is extremely slow. On the other hand Darktable is actively maintained and worked on.
It photopea a good alternative too?
Great video - what recommendations do you have for replacing Adobe Acrobat?
Gimp is good for a desktop/laptop app but for a browser version I would use Photopea or Canva (apps for Windows/Android and other platforms available for Canva).
I have to say, I have the new inkscape on my macbook Pro, and i don't have any crashes on my daily use, in my macbook pro is working flawless
Inkscape works well on Mac and Linux from what I've heard
Thanks.for all good work for us
Great job summarizing these programs, thanks for sharing!
Inkscape is awesome but I do have to agree, it crashes way too much. Scribus is pretty solid, yes the interface is absolutely outdated but actually it’s pretty intuitive.
Do you agree or disagree with these ratings? 👇
Sorry, for me Inkscape is very stable. If it crash on your system, maybe you should look why it crash? I personnally useInkscape under Windows and Linux and each version I used over the years have been stable. With one exception with a dev version. It should be at best for minum B tier and should be a A tier.
I have been looking at Krita for photo editing and I think it is more competent in this area than it's being given credit. Probably because of awareness and it's seen as a painting application. I don;t think Gimp is the best for photos I would put Darktable ahead of it. I currently decided on a combination of Darktable and Krita for my photo processing needs.
Mostly. Interesting tier list. Can't say much about wordpress, drupal, penpot or canva. Personally, I'd place Inkscape in the A category because of how good and complete it is. For the most part Inkscape has been stable for me. Agree with Scribus lagging behind (but still a workable DTP alternative and their latest version has improved somewhat). The GIMP project, Inkscape, Krita and Scribus should work together to come to a more compatible suite and a true alternative for the Adobe DTP family. The Scribus team, if I'm not mistaken, only consists of two people. Krita, Blender and resolve are mindblowing. Krita has replaced Clip Studio paint in my illustration and comic book workflow. When it comes to DTP I've mostly been living in Affinity land ever since the (very buggy) Beta for Publisher was released (in 2018)... Keep up the good work.
Inkscape could be in B, but Canva should be in B. As an professional I can't use it for any real work.
Seems pretty fair to me, but then again I've only used Affinity, Blender, DVR, & Krita from this list.
Question. Why did you rate Inkscape below Gimp when you switched from using Gimp to Inkscape
I use both - I didn't switch
@@DaviesMediaDesign oh! ok. I just recently have seen you posting plenty of inkscape videos on your channel and haven't seen very many gimp videos other than the new updates. I understand now. Thankyou
I use Lightroom primarily for its database features that allow organizing, tagging, and managing a large photo collection. What else can do this?
A great and totally free alternative to Premiere Pro would be Kdenlive, you missed it. How would you rate it?
i do wish it were more stable on linux but it's impressive alternative
Based on personal experience, I would also rank GIMP as B-tier. I've sometimes participated in mailing-list discussions and can attest for a fact that various minor things faulted by new users are officially regarded as "won't fix" for one entrenched reason or another.
Considering professional grade video editing software, Lightworks would be an alternative too. Not as popular but very powerful. Only drawback, you're basically forced to buy the pro version, because the free one can render videos in 720p max.
Awesome, I hope Gimp will catch up!
I think GIMP needs more attention from industry, like Blender has
I am hoping for 2 years...
it will it is in dev
Hello, did you look into Raw Therapee? (Photoshop alternative)
what software did you use to do the tier list?
Inkscape
Krita deserves s tier. I prefer it for 2d animation more than blender
Question: Is there a more modern kind to create websites compared to Wordpress? This content management system feels outdated to me D:
Yeah. Concrete CMS is way better, especially if you designed your website visually, and it was the first CMS to have On page editing.
Is there a free open source media management software like Adobe Bridge?!
Digikam is very good
Thanks for this! Will have a play with the Affinity programs soon!
Hm, isn't it a bit rough to situate InkScape as an C-tier app, using exactly InkScape for creating this very diagram? :)
It needs a tad more consistency and stability. Overall a great program, and certainly on the cusp of being a higher-tier software.
The Affinity Suit is a no-brainer, and should be in the S category. This is an absolutly awesome suit for evert graphic designer, DTP artist or photographer. Yes, is misses some functions compared to Adobe,- but also has some great features, that Adobe still misses.... so I dont agree with you on this.
There's a earthquake regarding Inkscape... But at the end, I agree...
I personally report crashes almost immediately as a way to help.
If I can't, I save the problematic file and try to remember the instructions to replicate it.
However, Inkscape is quickly evolving.
We need to stay up with it.
I agree - Inkscape is very much on the right track and has lots of activity. And I think they take criticism/feedback well so I anticipate them working on the stability issue in the near future.
I use Inkscape on Linux as a replacement for Silhouette Studio and find it pretty stable. It does crash every so often but that's when I have huge files or stop the Inkscape to Silhouette extension mid cut on my cameo 4. I do have to say it crashes way less than it used to. I don't really have much use for CMYK. So that's not really a drawback for me. Thank you for the software comparison.
Krita now has the AI Image creator plugin that leverages ComfyUI
there is any other painting tool that support HDR besides krita?
HDR is unique to Krita and can handle RAW photos too. it is "S" tier
Affinity Designer y Photo admiten HDR y lo manejan muy bien.
I always find the s tier so hard to understand since when is the color red the best? It has to be green yellow green blue in thsth order
I feel hard to understand. I have see you have showed us a lot of softwares and show us something like SABCD. can you tell us what do they do? Recently, I am looking for a software or online based software for graphic design works. Which one can do that?
which software you are using?right now
I love Blender, but it's definitely at most an A tier software, though that depends what we're comparing. Overall, A is a better fit imo.
No Blender is bleading edge and more capable than an "A" tier.
9:00 Corel Draw ?
great idea for a video! I hope this goes viral
Thanks! You never know 🤞
I mostly agree with you, except maybe that darktable is A tier. It's very complicated software (raw developer and sorter) and the only one that did it right and stands from the crowd in the free software world. However, I do agree with you that they should de-clutter or de-something the interface to make it more desirable and easy to use. Still, I think it deserves to be in A.
But I was surprised to see you not working in Linux. The only reason I'm still on Windows is Adobe. If I had PS and LR alternative for professional photography, I'd be in Linux entirely. But in your case, you're the guy that did other way around - I wish I could do that, lol! I still cannot substitute PS for GIMP due to so many reasons (Actions, special shortcuts, speed, Content aware fill, GPU support). But Darktable is next to LR in results, though still not quite there in usability/speed/presets.
Viva Designer best alternative for InDesign. Windows, macOS, Linux... It is quite cheap and one of the best features of VivaDesigner is the possibility to import Indesign .indd and .idml files. VivaDesigner also exports the .idml file. Scribus also has the plugin to import the .idml, but not to export it.
literally stopped when you put WP into S tier lol
I don't get it. And where is Xara? It's been on the market since the 90s. You can do everything there - from complex vector graphics with effects or clip art and web landings to full-fledged dynamic websites. I have never seen a program with such a user-friendly interface and the ability to quickly and easily perform various manipulations. And those (commercial I mean) are the only ones you could pick up? Funny. As if you started to be interested in this only yesterday. But judging by your channel, you are a professional in your field.
I just had a look at Xara and to compare that with AE for motion design is laughable my man
Thank you so much Michael for this amazing and objective review, but I would correct an information you mentioned. Adobe didn't acquire figma till now . Adobe announced its intention to acquire Figma on September 15, 2022, for approximately $20 billion in cash and stock. However, the acquisition was called off on December 18, 2023, due to regulatory challenges.
Nicely done, fair assessment. We know you have been a foremost Gimp advocate over the years, so such comments should motivate some progress.
If figma is added, It could be S tier?
Inkscape in my opinion is A tier software, considering its easy and intuitive gui.
I think with a stable Inkscape 1.4 release it will easily be B tier, if not A tier depending on how stable it can be (on Windows). I believe it is already pretty stable on other operating systems.
I would not have ranked Canva so high, a B. It does a lot of things well, but not excellently. Also no love for Corel Draw huh? It's okay, although I don't pay per year for it, I have the last stand alone version. I guess that's why you didn't mention it, because of its same subscription model
Canva is just too big a disruptor in my eyes to place it anywhere else. It basically invented its own category. I don't hear enough about Corel to put their software in the mix - I totally forgot about it to be honest.
@@DaviesMediaDesign yeah I guess. I think affinity is great stuff. A once off payment for it is the way to go, instead of subscription based. If my Corel Draw breaks I'll buy affinity, as I need CMYK output at present
@@DaviesMediaDesign Maybe it's a regional thing with Corel. About half of my European clients use some version of of this program.
As for Canva, me being on the receiving end, I assure you that the files made with it are absolute garbage and definitelly not fit for printing, contrary to what they claim on their website.
sorry, what does penpot do?
Learned a lot here. Thank you Davies media design. Bless the souls of those developers who allow us to use these amazing tools for free ( and paid )!!
Pls I need alternatives for adobe photoshop Fix and Photoshop cut/mix for iOS
Gimp should be on B tier it is still the best alternative for PhotoShop for the layman. Davinci Resolve has a huge learning curve, Gimp is easier to learn and grasp its user face and functions.
5:55 Adobe didn't actually buy Figma!
Yes, I think he should pin your comment to the top, since that deal fell through.
like to know more about the tier ranking you mention in video and if that is an industry standard, thanks
Krita is S tier
Awesome video! I hope someone creates an alternative to Inkscape for Linux. I don't like its layout and functionality. That's why I haven't switched from Adobe Illustrator.
Wordpress is annoying since they tried to simplify the UI. The thing that seems to plague UX in the pass 10 years is the idea that simplification means removal or hard-obfuscation of functionality.
Very helpful overview. Thanks. For Linux based photography editing and organising there only seems to be Darktable and Gimp. Wish there'd be more FOSS activity in this segment
RawTherapee is a great Raw editor and much easier to use than DarkTable (although arguable less powerful). Corel Aftershot is also a good commercial raw editor and theLinux version is not too expensive(compared to the other commercial options on Windows/MacOS)
But frankly none of the open source tools really compete with the best commercial editors for photo editing, neither in ease of use nor in AI features. For video, Resolve and Lightworks are both viable options.
@@alangauld6079 Thanks for that additional information. I will check them out
Rawtherapee as well as Darktable, both leading edge software, i used Darktable 100% of the time as photgrapher and GIMP & inkscape for everything else, But Krita also handles RAW and they are not the only open source alternatives.
@@GaryParris Cool. Thanks for sharing. Will need to do a comparison between Darktable and Rawtherapee.
Krita seems much more capable with photos than it gets credit. Better than gimp in my opinion@@GaryParris
I'm shocked u didn't have kdenlive S tier Imo i don't even bother with davanci or Vegas anymore, krita is so much better than gimp I agree 👍 and you can even have vector layers and raster it's very nice
It's mostly the Windows version of Inkscape that has stability issues.
This is a great video. I found your channel years ago when figuring out gimp. I was hoping to find an alternative for illustrator but that’s a bummer that the only other option is at a B or C tier.
Inkscape is definitely an alternative to Illustrator and can use the files output by Illustrator with some limits but generally its better than is really being put here epsecially on Linux
What about Digikam?
its missing Photopea.
If you're an architect, interior designer, video editor, industrial designer... you really don't need to use Adobe software.
Photopea got left out, that one is above Gimp
I use Canva because of its ease.
A lot of people do.
Canva over Affinity? Interesting 🤨
Inkscape is "not stable"? 🙄 I use Inkscape, Lunacy, Blender, Krita and Rawtherapee
Might want to look at alternative for sure now, that Adobe has release it's new agreement, they can use all of your material and are tracking information. They don't need permission to do so with the new agreement.
While I use Canva everyday, its hardly on par with any Adobe program and is not a replacement for any of them. Also to use CMYK you must be on a paid plan and its only supported in the Brand tools which makes no sense.
Wow, I have never had InkScape crash
Which operating system?
Both Mac and Windows (10)@@DaviesMediaDesign
i did pre v1.1
Same. I think that the vast majority of the people experiencing crashes are on Windows and I suspect that GTK is to blame. GTK (formerly the GIMP Tool Kit but largely taken over by GNOME these days) is the GUI toolkit used to create the user interface of Inkscape and GTK has quite the track record of being unstable on non-UNIX platforms. Many GTK-based applications including Inkscape and GIMP itself are notoriously finicky on Windows which is why many developers prefer to resort to Qt when doing cross platform GUI apps.
I find Inkscape to be rock solid on Linux and I have to go out of my way to make it crash (like when I go crazy with the clone tool or do something stupid to make the vertex count go way up).
Even tho its kinda painful you did a great job.
GIMP and Inkscape are potentially great programs.
The Affinity products are worth every penny. They really solid products, without the slavery of subscription licensing.
Affinity is the best out of all those softwares it is paid but worth it.
Theres two web app Photopea nad Vectorpea alternative to adobe
Outstanding video
Thank you!
i did not know that Adobe brought figma in 2022, and i keep wondering what is this new developer shit mode in figma, me as a developer , figma was easier to use before, now the ui is looking more like adobe xd, which i've never understood.