We can all be lulled into a false understanding that we have to pay for the best software when often very good software is available at a cheaper price than we expect or even free with the Open Source community. In this blog post we take a look at a selection of software that are great alternatives to the more established players. Educating ourselves as to what is available can make us better informed as to how to be more procuctive and cost effective.
I would recommend looking at the areas that are of interest to you instead of reading the entire blog article. This list is by no means exhaustive, there are plenty of good software out there and a little bit of research often reveals the ones that are worth a look at. I’m also an advocate of workflow and choosing the sets of software that can make you most productive for your given task. Especially in the design industry, the Adobe apps are considered the standard, however using some of these other apps in conjunction with the Adobe ones may open up possibilities that you didn’t know were available.
Open Source
Open Source software are applications that have been released under a licence that allows you to use them without paying. The source code is made available and if you desired you could edit and compile a unique version for yourself. Some of the larger Open Source projects have some significant funding behind them and are more actively developed than others.
Productivity - Microsoft Office Alternatives
SHOWHIDEiWork (free) Available in the App Store
Apple’s own iWork software is completely free and available on every Mac, iPhone and iPad. They comprise of Pages (word processing and page layout), Numbers (spreadsheet) and Keynote (presentation). All are easy to use and allow you to convert to and from more common formats such as .doc.
Open Office (free)
Open Office is a collection of office Applications that are maintained by Apache. In terms of visual style they are reminiscent of the ’97 era Microsoft Office apps, but are a very functional and complete suite of tools for tasks such as word processing, presentation, spreadsheets and database creation. It has the benefit of being able to work in some of the Microsoft Office formats without needing a conversion.
Neo Office (free)
Neo Office is a version of Open Office that has been adapted with specific Mac features such as Dark Mode, Native Accent support and Versions. Its direct development for the Mac platform probably makes it a better choice than the standard version of Open Office but operates in a similar manner.
Image Manipulation - Photoshop Alternatives
SHOWHIDEAlthough Photoshop is the longstanding industry standard when it comes to photo manipulation, many of us dislike the subscription model Adobe uses. There has also been a lot of innovation in this space and many things can now be done quicker or better in an alternative application.
Affinity Photo (£47.99)
Affinity Photo is a very capable photo editor and has a real focus on usability. Using modern programming techniques it leverages the hardware in your Mac to provide real-time feedback to the adjustments and filters that are applied to the image. It’s very similar to Photoshop and makes for a very good alternative at a low one off cost.
Pixlemator Pro (£34.99)
Pixlemator Pro is the grown up version of the Pixlemator app and is designed to have a complete set of image editing tools and features whilst being very simple to use. It leverages many new technologies to support this aim such as machine learning and the Metal and Core Image graphics APIs.
GIMP (free)
The GNU Image Manipulation Program or GIMP is a complete open source image editor that is surprisingly fully featured. Its interface takes a bit of getting used to but the tools are exactly what you would expect from an image editing program and the fact that it can replicate much of what Photoshop can without costing a penny is a good incentive for learning how to use it.
DAM/RAW Development - Lightroom Alternative
SHOWHIDEDigital Asset Management / Raw Development applications are a highly important part of the workflow of any photographer; allowing for shot cataloging, review and rating, image correction and processing and much more. For many they are the one-stop shop for all of their imaging needs and the most well known example is Adobe’s Lightroom.
Darktable (free)
One of the most comprehensive offerings in the Open Source space for this type of app is Darktable, a virtual light table and darkroom for photographers. All of its adjustments are non-destructive and its tool set is powerful and complex. This complexity makes it the perfect fit for anyone wanting complete control of their image processing pipeline but means the learning curve can be quite steep.
RawTherapee (free)
RawTherapee is another favourite replacement for Lightroom in the Raw Development arena. Again it uses a non-destructive toolset to allow you to retain image fidelity throughout your pipeline but aims to be a simpler to use application than Darktable. Simplicity in use doesn’t mean it’s not a capable performer; all of the usual tasks can be completed with its competent toolset.
On1 Photo RAW (£104.04)
On1’s Photo RAW is a very feature rich application that excels at its core function of being a one-stop shop for organising and editing RAW images. It has a suite of AI based tools that help you to go beyond the capabilities of toolsets that are not content aware. They also have an aggressive development strategy that means they are constantly improving and adding new features at a surprising pace.
Vector Graphics/Design - Illustrator Alternative
SHOWHIDEAffinity Designer (£47.99)
The infinite scalability and precision afforded by vector graphics meets a fast and intuitive interface in this Illustrator alternative. Its full feature set makes it great for creating concept art, print projects, logos, icons, UI designs and mock-ups and also allows for the final raster based tweak by offering a suite of tools specific to those adjustments. Of course being an Affinity app, the focus is on real-time feedback as you create.
Affinity for iPad
Both Affinity Photo and Designer have iPad versions of the software which are fully featured and give you the ability to use the Apple Pencil which is a game changer in terms of natural interaction with your artwork, allowing artists to be more efficient and produce better work. They are very good value for money and this alone would be a good reason to seriously look at these apps if you run a design studio of any kind.
Inkscape (free)
Inkscape is a powerful Open Source vector graphics app that has flexible drawing tools, broad support for file formats, powerful text tools and Bezier and Spiro curves. Its a perfectly compliant SVG generator and so can aid one greatly when preparing vector graphics for use on the web. It’s interface is very reminiscent of 90’s software design but the toolset is both capable and easy to understand.
In Browser Software
Increasingly developers are offering software that works completely in your web browser. This affords a truly platform independent software model that is accessible from any machine with an internet connection. However what they make up for in accessibility they lose out in when it comes to fully leveraging your system's power. This makes them ideal for simple work however more complex projects are best served by a modern desktop application.
Desktop Publishing (DTP) - InDesign Alternative
SHOWHIDEAffinity Publisher (£47.99)
There are not many true contenders out there as a replacement for the intrenched InDesign, however, Affinity Publisher is a very good one that does so with the now expected real-time interaction Affinity has become known for. However the real gem of this application is the ability to directly access the toolset of Photo or Designer without having to leave the Publisher interface using the StudioLink feature.
Pages (free)
Apple’s Pages actually is a surprisingly good page layout application. It’s not as robust for large scale publications but on the smaller side of things you can achieve a high level of design and precision. It supports styles, text wrap, text flow and more.
Scribus (free)
Scribus is the Open Source offering in the DTP camp. Its feature set and layout is very similar to InDesign, however its interface is very ‘Linux’ in its styling which can undermine the power of the application if you are not used to it. That power is there though with a good set of typesetting and layout tools that will help you to achieve complex and large projects. Oh and did we mention it’s free!
Non Linear Editor (NLE)/Video - Avid/Final Cut/Premier Alternative
SHOWHIDEDaVinci Resolve (free version)
When it comes to the NLE/Colour Grading/Compositing/Audio field there is no application that stands out as much as DaVinci Resolve. Originally a professional tool purely for Colour Correction costing thousands that ran purely on specialised hardware it took on a whole new life when Blackmagic Design bought it in 2009. Doing away with the hardware constraints and adding feature after feature it’s quickly taken its place as a power house all-in-one finishing app for your video projects. The fact that they offer a free version that has few limitations compared to the paid for Studio version means access to a comprehensive feature set is available to all, making them unrivalled for value for money!
Handbrake (free)
Handbrake is an Open Source video transcoder making it perfect for converting your final videos into the formats required for web and other distribution methods. It has plenty of options for the supported formats, however these formats are somewhat narrow making it the perfect choice for final deliverables but not for converting into mezzanine codecs.
FF.Works (22€)
Like Handbrake, FF.Works is a GUI frontend for the very powerful ffmpeg command line tool. However where Handbrake concentrates on transcoding for final delivery, ff.Works allows you access to the full range of codecs and tools available in ffmpeg. It’s a very intuitive interface and affords some very precise results with batch processing.
3D Graphics/Animation - Maya/3D Studio Max/Cinema 4D Alternative
SHOWHIDEBlender (free)
The epitome of Open Source, Blender is probably the most famous example of free software that stands shoulder to shoulder with its paid for peers. Blender’s tools make possible entire pipelines for VFX, Animation and Games to name a few. It has a very good physically based renderer in Cycles as well as a great new real-time renderer in EVEE. It also has a video sequencer and compositor built in! Apple recently funded the development for the support of the Metal graphics library, meaning that it has at last gained real performance on modern Macs.
Sketchup (free tier)
Sketchup has become well known as a CAD application which is great for architectural visualisation and product design and more recently has become a browser based application for its free tier. It has a great feature set for accomplishing design work with access to a large user-generated and manufacturer-produced model library and cloud storage enabling easy collaboration on projects.
Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) - Logic/Pro Tools Alternative
SHOWHIDEAudacity (free)
Audacity is an Open Source multi track audio editor and recorder. It can be used to record audio from multiple inputs, supports 16, 24 and 32 bit sampling, has support for a range of plug-ins and effects and allows you to export to a variety of formats. The interface feels very ‘Open Source’ but everything is where you would expect it to be and results in a very capable audio manipulation platform.
DaVinci Resolve (free version)
Built into resolve is the Fairlight DAW. Its features are tailored towards video production, however its tool set is extensive and there is no reason why you couldn’t use it for regular audio only work. The only thing to be aware of is that it doesn’t have a midi editor so its usefulness for full music production is limited, however for every other kind of audio project it’s a viable choice.
Text Editing / Coding
SHOWHIDESublime Text (free)
Sublime Text is a great tool for text editing especially if you are a coder of some kind. It has built in syntax support for the various programming languages that make it easy to see all aspects of your code at a glance. It has some great features for efficiency such as context aware auto complete, tabs and multiple selections. It also has many tools that can be added to aid you as you code so you can really customise the environment exactly to your liking.
Brackets (free)
The interesting thing about Brackets is that it is designed to give you real-time visual feedback as you write your code. Its primary role is in web development and frontend design. It has support for preprocessors to aid with workflow and an inline editor allowing you to code in place instead of jumping between tabs.
Web Browser - Safari Alternative
SHOWHIDEFirefox (free)
Firefox is built on Mozilla’s Gecko rendering engine and has many of the features you would expect of a modern browser including balanced memory, ad tracker blocking, password manager and language translation. It’s a robust browser that has been around for a long time and is quite security conscious.
Chrome (free)
Chrome is a very well known browser made by Google. Its strengths lie in its integration with other google products as well as supporting multiple users. However, it’s well known (and admitted to by Google themselves) as being very process intensive, using lots of RAM for each tab that you have open. If you are someone who consistently has lots of open tabs then you may be interested in switching to a different browser as your overall system efficiency may be improved.
Opera (free)
Opera is another browser that has been around for a very long time however more recently it’s really uped its game and now boasts features that are not available in other browsers such as a free VPN, integrated messengers and a crypto wallet. It’s also the first browser to support the emerging Web 3.
Brave (free)
Brave is a web browser whose main intention is to be the most secure web browser available, complete with their own truly independent search engine. By default it blocks all adds and trackers which results in faster page loads purely because there is less extraneous content to download with each page request. It also has an optional rewards system for choosing to view adds from their first party add service - privacy protected of course.
E-Mail Client - Apple Mail/Outlook Alternative
SHOWHIDEThunderbird (free)
Looking for an alternative to Apple Mail or Outlook? Thunderbird may be the app for you. It’s packed full of lots of features like attachment reminders, tabbed email, smart folders and more. It’s very customisable and will have you up and running in very little time with its broad support for services and its setup wizard.
Mailspring (free tier)
In its mission to be the best mail client available, Mailspring is offering lots of innovative features such as a truly useful and easy to create signatures engine, translation, auto language spell check and themes. Mailspring's Pro features, available for a small monthly subscription, include read receipts, send later, templates, timely follow up and more. It’s worth noting that it doesn’t support the older POP mail protocol believing it to be outdated (which it is) so it’s crucial that you are using the IMAP protocol in order to use Mailspring.
Content Management System (CMS) - Wordpress Alternative
SHOWHIDEMODX CMS (free)
If you want the complete freedom to code your website your way using whichever framework, preprocessor, theme or markup that you want then the Open Source MODX is for you. Version 3 has just been released and it brings with it a more refined interface to get you up and running swiftly, a security first mindset and complete customisation. If you can think it, MODX will help you create it.
ConcreteCMS (free)
Most CMSs require you to make all of your content edits on the backend, which has a distinct disconnect from the rendered page. Concrete CMS puts the edit where the content is with its in-context editor - if you need to edit a portion of your site, head to that page and change the text directly where you find it. Concrete has also grown into a very competent platform with a host of extensions and themes to extend functionality. We particularly like the Express section which allows you to easily build custom data objects and associate them with pages so that you can access and filter content without having to code.
Instant Messaging - Apple Messages/WhatsApp Alternative
SHOWHIDEDatabase/Project Management
SHOWHIDEAirtable (free tier)
Airtable is an interesting blend of database with a spreadsheet style interface which allows you to create complex and custom systems for project management, CRM, asset management and many more with collaboration built into its core. I myself use it to manage all aspects of the repairs and upgrades that come into Airiam as well as calculate the company accounts so that I can plug values directly into a TAX return. The free tier is very feature rich but the tiers above that progressively add features that are very useful such as extensions which enable new ways to process the data that is in your ‘base’.
