figma is not free software, and neither is davinci resolve. use penpot and kdenlive.
this post was submitted on 04 Aug 2026
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Free as in beer, not as in speech, and DaVinci Resolve at least has a $295 upgrade for additional features, although last time I looked that upgrade is included with certain hardware purchases from Blackmagic.
Yea it's not free but it's a once off, keep for ever price.
I'm happy with that
I still like the traditional model for paid software where you pay once, and then future major upgrades can be purchased for a discount; it seems like a fair way for the developer to support continued development while allowing the customer to decide if they prefer to stay on an older version.
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I’ve been pretty happy with kdenlive myself.
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Idk about the rest of the software on this list, but presenting gimp as an "alternative" to photoshop seems disingenuous to me.
Gimp is an alternative to photoshop in the same way that a 56K modem is an alternative to a 1 gig fiber line. Yes, they technically do the same job. But to suggest that your experience is going to be comparable to photoshop is a stretch.
I'd suggest Krita before Gimp, and even Affinity (although I'm sure there's a gotcha coming with that one)
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GIMP is also a massive pain in the ass. Paint.net is the one piece of software I still miss after moving to Linux.
Da Vinci Resolve is great though. Crazy that it's free and Linux compatible.
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Photopea is pretty good for casual use
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Figma? No, I won't fall for that again!
Gimp is apparently great if you start with it, but it is not a substitute for Photoshop.
Krita had been great for most of my work.
Photopea. It's not open-source but it's "freemium". It's like a web Photoshop.
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Surely there's something better than Gimp.
Krita, definitely, though it's still not as complete in capability it's a much better analogue
Seconded. Krita is significantly easier to use then GIMP.
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Whenever I open GIMP I always feel like an 18th century taxonomist's first time seeing a platypus and assuming it's an elaborate hoax cooked up by someone with far too much time on their hands. Surely this isn't software made by humans to do useful things!? This must be a joke!
Pretty sure neither Figma or Resolve are free software.
Davinci Resolve has a free version that is missing some features. They are important features, mind. But it definitely allows you to edit videos and get a good feel for the software to see if you want to purchase it or you can just keep using the free version even.
So it's free*.
And the paid version is buy once and get a perpetual license. Very non-scummy for a full professional video editing tool.
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You couldn't pay me to use Gimp. The interface offends me.
You couldn't pay me to use Adobe. The predatory pricing, required internet, Linux incompatability, file scanning, Adobe Bridge, bad privacy policy, bloated install, useless launcher, DRM, and use of AI offends me.
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You can theme it to change icons and sizes and such, which helps a little. But I agree, the interface is a nightmare. Ever since v3 came out, my layers window has disappeared and I can't find it. That's a kind of important panel to hide away :(
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Don't forget about FreeCad!
They had an update earlier this year that really closed the gap on a lot of features and tools they were missing compared to other more established cad packages.
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It tends to be pretty straightforward about what an alternative can and can't do. The tags work well for searching so you can exclude paid or freemium apps.
Blender is an alternative to 3DS Max in the same way an actual car is an alternative to flintstoning a burnt out wreck. Even in college a lot of our very basic rendering exercises with Max got the whole grade just on demonstrating correct setup because the software is so prone to crashing or taking 20h to do what most alternatives (paid or free) can do in 20 minutes.
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Figma is NOT free software. It is proprietary, and hosted.
Please... Let Gimp die already.. Krita is actually made by humans for humans
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Important one:
Adobe acrobat: fork to the eyes. (Jokes aside, I'm using Stirling pdf viewer right now, it's nice)
People who promote gimp likely never actually tried to use that piece of shit. Try Krita instead, holy fuck is it so much better as a useable piece of art software.
Krita is not a replacement for Photoshop though. There is a difference between a software to draw and a software for image manipulation.
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I need a Lightroom alternative, on linux.
Edit: Looks like rawtherapee is a good one. Funky name though...
Darktable is what you are looking for.
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OpenShot is also a remarkably capable and easy-to-use video editor - https://www.openshot.org/ . I use it almost daily for editing screen capture videos.
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