ArtCraft Apps – open-source Adobe compatible suite written in Rust
An experimental Rust-based suite aiming to recreate Adobe’s Creative Cloud apps as open-source, MIT/Apache-licensed tools has drawn both excitement and skepticism. Commenters praise the ambition and potential to undercut subscription-only incumbents, but early testers report the apps are barely functional, raising doubts about “vibe coding” with AI and the huge QA effort needed to reach real feature parity. The thread also surfaces broader concerns about legal exposure, ethical use of AI-trained on existing software, and whether cloning established workflows advances the state of creative tools.
Project scope & goals
- Suite of open-source, Rust-based “clean-room” clones of Adobe apps plus plans for Microsoft Office, AutoCAD, Solidworks, etc.
- Aim: high compatibility / near feature parity with Adobe tools, cross‑platform desktop and web, no telemetry, MIT/Apache licensing for the core apps.
- Ambition to “de-enshittify” creative tooling and help end SaaS/subscription dependence.
Current state & quality
- Repos are very new (weeks old). Many commenters who tried the apps report they are extremely buggy or barely usable: laggy UI, broken text and selection, shortcuts not working, layout glitches.
- Several people describe the marketing claims (“one-shotted Photoshop”, “100% parity within a month”) as wildly overstated or deceptive relative to current reality.
- Others note this is labeled pre‑beta / early alpha, and say it’s too early to judge long-term potential.
AI and “vibe coding” debate
- Strong debate over whether this is “vibe-coded” AI slop vs a serious use of AI-assisted engineering.
- Critics argue: large token spend doesn’t replace testing, domain expertise, or QA; multi‑app parity is unrealistic without years of work.
- Supporters respond that large teams at major vendors also rely on AI now, and see this as a meaningful test of “agentic coding” claims.
Relationship to existing tools
- Sharp disagreement over dismissing GIMP, Krita, Inkscape, Kdenlive, etc.; many defend these as mature, principled projects built by experts.
- Some say cloning Adobe’s workflows risks freezing dated designs instead of moving things forward, unlike Krita/Inkscape’s more original directions.
- Others want exactly an open-source “drop-in” Photoshop/Illustrator/InDesign/Lightroom equivalent and are dissatisfied with current FOSS.
Licensing, legal, business model
- Apps themselves are described as MIT/Apache, but the umbrella project references a “fair source” style license elsewhere, drawing criticism as “have your cake and eat it too” source-available.
- Questions raised about whether AI-generated code can truly be “clean room,” given models are trained on copyleft code.
- Some warn of potential legal and even personal risk in systematically cloning major proprietary suites, especially if monetized.
User experience & adoption concerns
- Complaints about current UI (including the website) and missing polish; others like the unified vision and cross‑platform story.
- Concerns over training, ecosystem, and network effects: Adobe’s strength is standards, tutorials, plugins, and team familiarity.
- Some excitement that if such projects mature, they could undercut Adobe/Affinity and accelerate a shift toward free apps + paid AI tokens.