I've been sharing this list of other creative programs for like 5 years. I actually use a handful of them and have never needed to pay to create things. Fuck AI and fuck Adobe and their wallet gouging.
I would like to repeat I am so glad I cancled Adobe after my schooling
Fuck everything about this organization and if anything this piece of fuck needs to be split apart by anti trust.
I've been using Audacity since I first tried my hand at podcasting. I still use it to this day for all my recording needs, from YouTube to training courses for work. Clean, simple, and powerful.
thumbs up for all the Affinity Apps; I've been using them all since release. The version 1 licenses I bought, for ~$70 each, lasted about 5 years, until the v2 was released, and I got a legacy upgrade license for all three at a discount.
They deal well with Adobe files.
Also, for painting: Rebelle
I wish so very badly that affinity publisher measured up to InDesign. I'd be kneecapping myself professionally by switching to it, but am tempted anyways.
As someone who uses Paint Shop Pro, I hesitate to recommend it because of how buggy and unstable it's gotten ever since Corel bought it. The only reason I continue to suffer with it is because I've used it for so long I've learned to deal with most of the issues.
I have a legitimate question, and I'm hoping for a solid answer. I've been using the Adobe Creative Cloud since I went back to school in 2014. This means that I have a LOT of projects in the Adobe file formats. How good are these alts at reading & working with those formats?