Alternatives to Adobe Illustrator logo

Alternatives to Adobe Illustrator

Adobe InDesign, Adobe Photoshop, Inkscape, Sketch, and Affinity Designer are the most popular alternatives and competitors to Adobe Illustrator.
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What is Adobe Illustrator and what are its top alternatives?

The industry-standard vector graphics app lets you create logos, icons, sketches, typography, and complex illustrations for print, web, interactive, video, and mobile.
Adobe Illustrator is a tool in the Graphic Design category of a tech stack.

Top Alternatives to Adobe Illustrator

  • Adobe InDesign
    Adobe InDesign

    The industry's leading page layout and design software enables you to create, proof and publish documents for print and digital media. Ir has everything to create posters, books, digital magazines, eBooks, interactive PDFs and more. ...

  • Adobe Photoshop
    Adobe Photoshop

    It is the best in the world of graphic design and image processing software that will realize any of your ideas. Create and enhance photos, illustrations and 3D graphic objects. ...

  • Inkscape
    Inkscape

    It is professional quality vector graphics software which runs on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. This software can be used to create or edit vector graphics such as illustrations, diagrams, line arts, charts, logos and complex paintings. ...

  • Sketch
    Sketch

    Easily create complex shapes with our state-of-the-art vector boolean operations and take advantage of our extensive layer styles. ...

  • Affinity Designer
    Affinity Designer

    No bloat, no gimmicks, just all the tools you need, implemented how you always dreamed. It is a stripped back, pro-end workhorse that will always get your job done. It was created to thrive on the electric pace of the latest computing hardware. Live, responsive and incredibly fluid, it’s simply a joy to use. ...

  • Google Fonts
    Google Fonts

    A library of 915 free licensed fonts, an interactive web directory for browsing the library, and APIs for conveniently using the fonts via CSS and Android. ...

  • Font Awesome
    Font Awesome

    You can get vector icons and social logos on your website with it. It is a font that's made up of symbols, icons, or pictograms that you can use in a webpage, just like a font. ...

  • InVision
    InVision

    InVision lets you create stunningly realistic interactive wireframes and prototypes without compromising your creative vision. ...

Adobe Illustrator alternatives & related posts

Adobe InDesign logo

Adobe InDesign

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The next step in layouts design
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PROS OF ADOBE INDESIGN
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      Adobe Photoshop logo

      Adobe Photoshop

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      The industry standard in design, photography, video editing & more
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      PROS OF ADOBE PHOTOSHOP
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        Photo editing
      • 14
        Powerful
      • 11
        Layers
      • 7
        You can use it for anything related to graphics
      • 4
        Magic wand
      • 2
        Pen Tool
      • 2
        Easy to crack
      • 2
        Raster-based Image Editing Software
      CONS OF ADOBE PHOTOSHOP
      • 4
        Heavyweight
      • 3
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      • 2
        Steep learning curve

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      Inkscape logo

      Inkscape

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      An open source vector graphics editor
      115
      12
      PROS OF INKSCAPE
      • 3
        Free
      • 2
        Simple design
      • 2
        Easy to use
      • 2
        Vector Creation
      • 2
        Linux compatible
      • 1
        Powerful
      CONS OF INKSCAPE
      • 1
        Crashes sometimes

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      Sketch logo

      Sketch

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      Professional Digital Design for Mac
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      • 23
        Lightweight alternative to Photoshop
      • 11
        Mirror designs on mobile devices
      • 9
        Reusable elements/components
      • 7
        Vector
      • 5
        Plugins for everything
      • 2
        Real-time design preview on iOS devices
      • 1
        Constant updates
      • 1
        Thought for UI design
      CONS OF SKETCH
      • 4
        Not for Windows
      • 3
        Horrible for slide presentations

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      Priit Kaasik
      CTO at Katana Cloud Inventory · | 8 upvotes · 581.2K views

      How we ended up choosing Confluence as our internal web / wiki / documentation platform at Katana.

      It happened because we chose Bitbucket over GitHub . We had Katana's first hackaton to assemble and test product engineering platform. It turned out that at that time you could have Bitbucket's private repositories and a team of five people for free - Done!

      This decision led us to using Bitbucket pipelines for CI, Jira for Kanban, and finally, Confluence. We also use Microsoft Office 365 and started with using OneNote, but SharePoint is still a nightmare product to use to collaborate, so OneNote had to go.

      Now, when thinking of the key value of Confluence to Katana then it is Product Requirements Management. We use Page Properties macros, integrations (with Slack , InVision, Sketch etc.) to manage Product Roadmap, flash out Epic and User Stories.

      We ended up with using Confluence because it is the best fit for our current engineering ecosystem.

      See more
      Affinity Designer logo

      Affinity Designer

      160
      11
      A vector graphics editor developed for macOS, iOS, and Microsoft Windows
      160
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      PROS OF AFFINITY DESIGNER
      • 3
        Easy of use
      • 2
        No subscription
      • 2
        Feels like Illustrator
      • 2
        Love the UI
      • 1
        Export options
      • 1
        Customizable layouts
      • 0
        Feels like Photoshop
      CONS OF AFFINITY DESIGNER
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        Google Fonts logo

        Google Fonts

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        Making the web more beautiful, fast, and open through great typography
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        PROS OF GOOGLE FONTS
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          Restrict character set
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          Free
        CONS OF GOOGLE FONTS
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          Simon Reymann
          Senior Fullstack Developer at QUANTUSflow Software GmbH · | 24 upvotes · 4.9M views

          Our whole Vue.js frontend stack (incl. SSR) consists of the following tools:

          • Nuxt.js consisting of Vue CLI, Vue Router, vuex, Webpack and Sass (Bundler for HTML5, CSS 3), Babel (Transpiler for JavaScript),
          • Vue Styleguidist as our style guide and pool of developed Vue.js components
          • Vuetify as Material Component Framework (for fast app development)
          • TypeScript as programming language
          • Apollo / GraphQL (incl. GraphiQL) for data access layer (https://apollo.vuejs.org/)
          • ESLint, TSLint and Prettier for coding style and code analyzes
          • Jest as testing framework
          • Google Fonts and Font Awesome for typography and icon toolkit
          • NativeScript-Vue for mobile development

          The main reason we have chosen Vue.js over React and AngularJS is related to the following artifacts:

          • Empowered HTML. Vue.js has many similar approaches with Angular. This helps to optimize HTML blocks handling with the use of different components.
          • Detailed documentation. Vue.js has very good documentation which can fasten learning curve for developers.
          • Adaptability. It provides a rapid switching period from other frameworks. It has similarities with Angular and React in terms of design and architecture.
          • Awesome integration. Vue.js can be used for both building single-page applications and more difficult web interfaces of apps. Smaller interactive parts can be easily integrated into the existing infrastructure with no negative effect on the entire system.
          • Large scaling. Vue.js can help to develop pretty large reusable templates.
          • Tiny size. Vue.js weights around 20KB keeping its speed and flexibility. It allows reaching much better performance in comparison to other frameworks.
          See more
          Font Awesome logo

          Font Awesome

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          The internet's most popular icon toolkit
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          PROS OF FONT AWESOME
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            CDN
          • 7
            CSS Styling
          • 6
            Open source
          • 0
            Easy Upgrades
          • 0
            Auto-accessibility (A11y)
          • 0
            API
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            Jonathan Pugh
            Software Engineer / Project Manager / Technical Architect · | 25 upvotes · 3M views

            I needed to choose a full stack of tools for cross platform mobile application design & development. After much research and trying different tools, these are what I came up with that work for me today:

            For the client coding I chose Framework7 because of its performance, easy learning curve, and very well designed, beautiful UI widgets. I think it's perfect for solo development or small teams. I didn't like React Native. It felt heavy to me and rigid. Framework7 allows the use of #CSS3, which I think is the best technology to come out of the #WWW movement. No other tech has been able to allow designers and developers to develop such flexible, high performance, customisable user interface elements that are highly responsive and hardware accelerated before. Now #CSS3 includes variables and flexboxes it is truly a powerful language and there is no longer a need for preprocessors such as #SCSS / #Sass / #less. React Native contains a very limited interpretation of #CSS3 which I found very frustrating after using #CSS3 for some years already and knowing its powerful features. The other very nice feature of Framework7 is that you can even build for the browser if you want your app to be available for desktop web browsers. The latest release also includes the ability to build for #Electron so you can have MacOS, Windows and Linux desktop apps. This is not possible with React Native yet.

            Framework7 runs on top of Apache Cordova. Cordova and webviews have been slated as being slow in the past. Having a game developer background I found the tweeks to make it run as smooth as silk. One of those tweeks is to use WKWebView. Another important one was using srcset on images.

            I use #Template7 for the for the templating system which is a no-nonsense mobile-centric #HandleBars style extensible templating system. It's easy to write custom helpers for, is fast and has a small footprint. I'm not forced into a new paradigm or learning some new syntax. It operates with standard JavaScript, HTML5 and CSS 3. It's written by the developer of Framework7 and so dovetails with it as expected.

            I configured TypeScript to work with the latest version of Framework7. I consider TypeScript to be one of the best creations to come out of Microsoft in some time. They must have an amazing team working on it. It's very powerful and flexible. It helps you catch a lot of bugs and also provides code completion in supporting IDEs. So for my IDE I use Visual Studio Code which is a blazingly fast and silky smooth editor that integrates seamlessly with TypeScript for the ultimate type checking setup (both products are produced by Microsoft).

            I use Webpack and Babel to compile the JavaScript. TypeScript can compile to JavaScript directly but Babel offers a few more options and polyfills so you can use the latest (and even prerelease) JavaScript features today and compile to be backwards compatible with virtually any browser. My favorite recent addition is "optional chaining" which greatly simplifies and increases readability of a number of sections of my code dealing with getting and setting data in nested objects.

            I use some Ruby scripts to process images with ImageMagick and pngquant to optimise for size and even auto insert responsive image code into the HTML5. Ruby is the ultimate cross platform scripting language. Even as your scripts become large, Ruby allows you to refactor your code easily and make it Object Oriented if necessary. I find it the quickest and easiest way to maintain certain aspects of my build process.

            For the user interface design and prototyping I use Figma. Figma has an almost identical user interface to #Sketch but has the added advantage of being cross platform (MacOS and Windows). Its real-time collaboration features are outstanding and I use them a often as I work mostly on remote projects. Clients can collaborate in real-time and see changes I make as I make them. The clickable prototyping features in Figma are also very well designed and mean I can send clickable prototypes to clients to try user interface updates as they are made and get immediate feedback. I'm currently also evaluating the latest version of #AdobeXD as an alternative to Figma as it has the very cool auto-animate feature. It doesn't have real-time collaboration yet, but I heard it is proposed for 2019.

            For the UI icons I use Font Awesome Pro. They have the largest selection and best looking icons you can find on the internet with several variations in styles so you can find most of the icons you want for standard projects.

            For the backend I was using the #GraphCool Framework. As I later found out, #GraphQL still has some way to go in order to provide the full power of a mature graph query language so later in my project I ripped out #GraphCool and replaced it with CouchDB and Pouchdb. Primarily so I could provide good offline app support. CouchDB with Pouchdb is very flexible and efficient combination and overcomes some of the restrictions I found in #GraphQL and hence #GraphCool also. The most impressive and important feature of CouchDB is its replication. You can configure it in various ways for backups, fault tolerance, caching or conditional merging of databases. CouchDB and Pouchdb even supports storing, retrieving and serving binary or image data or other mime types. This removes a level of complexity usually present in database implementations where binary or image data is usually referenced through an #HTML5 link. With CouchDB and Pouchdb apps can operate offline and sync later, very efficiently, when the network connection is good.

            I use PhoneGap when testing the app. It auto-reloads your app when its code is changed and you can also install it on Android phones to preview your app instantly. iOS is a bit more tricky cause of Apple's policies so it's not available on the App Store, but you can build it and install it yourself to your device.

            So that's my latest mobile stack. What tools do you use? Have you tried these ones?

            See more
            Simon Reymann
            Senior Fullstack Developer at QUANTUSflow Software GmbH · | 24 upvotes · 4.9M views

            Our whole Vue.js frontend stack (incl. SSR) consists of the following tools:

            • Nuxt.js consisting of Vue CLI, Vue Router, vuex, Webpack and Sass (Bundler for HTML5, CSS 3), Babel (Transpiler for JavaScript),
            • Vue Styleguidist as our style guide and pool of developed Vue.js components
            • Vuetify as Material Component Framework (for fast app development)
            • TypeScript as programming language
            • Apollo / GraphQL (incl. GraphiQL) for data access layer (https://apollo.vuejs.org/)
            • ESLint, TSLint and Prettier for coding style and code analyzes
            • Jest as testing framework
            • Google Fonts and Font Awesome for typography and icon toolkit
            • NativeScript-Vue for mobile development

            The main reason we have chosen Vue.js over React and AngularJS is related to the following artifacts:

            • Empowered HTML. Vue.js has many similar approaches with Angular. This helps to optimize HTML blocks handling with the use of different components.
            • Detailed documentation. Vue.js has very good documentation which can fasten learning curve for developers.
            • Adaptability. It provides a rapid switching period from other frameworks. It has similarities with Angular and React in terms of design and architecture.
            • Awesome integration. Vue.js can be used for both building single-page applications and more difficult web interfaces of apps. Smaller interactive parts can be easily integrated into the existing infrastructure with no negative effect on the entire system.
            • Large scaling. Vue.js can help to develop pretty large reusable templates.
            • Tiny size. Vue.js weights around 20KB keeping its speed and flexibility. It allows reaching much better performance in comparison to other frameworks.
            See more
            InVision logo

            InVision

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            Prototyping & Collaboration For Design Teams
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              Works with lots of devices
            • 33
              Free
            • 29
              Cool for remote team prototyping
            • 17
              It revolutionized the way I share work with clients
            • 10
              Legendary customer support
            • 8
              Dropbox Integration
            • 3
              Easy
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              Collaboration
            • 2
              Rapid Prototyping
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              LiveShare
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              Annotation
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              They are always improving the product suite
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              Beautiful UI
            • 1
              Brings mockups to life
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              Allows for a comprehensive workflow
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              Priit Kaasik
              CTO at Katana Cloud Inventory · | 8 upvotes · 581.2K views

              How we ended up choosing Confluence as our internal web / wiki / documentation platform at Katana.

              It happened because we chose Bitbucket over GitHub . We had Katana's first hackaton to assemble and test product engineering platform. It turned out that at that time you could have Bitbucket's private repositories and a team of five people for free - Done!

              This decision led us to using Bitbucket pipelines for CI, Jira for Kanban, and finally, Confluence. We also use Microsoft Office 365 and started with using OneNote, but SharePoint is still a nightmare product to use to collaborate, so OneNote had to go.

              Now, when thinking of the key value of Confluence to Katana then it is Product Requirements Management. We use Page Properties macros, integrations (with Slack , InVision, Sketch etc.) to manage Product Roadmap, flash out Epic and User Stories.

              We ended up with using Confluence because it is the best fit for our current engineering ecosystem.

              See more
              Nadia Matveyeva
              UI Designer at freelancer · | 5 upvotes · 160.3K views
              Shared insights
              on
              InVisionInVisionAdobe XDAdobe XD

              I am working on a project for a client, I need to provide them with ideas and prototypes. They all have Adobe XD, but not InVision - I am the only one who will have that if purchased. I am trying to decide what would be the best tool to hand off the work to a developer who in terms will be working in PySide (Qt related) or Tkinter. Is there any benefits to me or the developer to work in Adobe XD or InVision. I am just trying to use the best tool to get the job done between the two.

              Thank you in advance! Nadia

              See more