13 Best Alternatives to Adobe Illustrator | Mac & Windows (2023)

Designing plays a major role in the industry that can represent something beautifully. In the past, people did the designs by using a drawing from their hand. But after the development of technology, now there are thousands of tools for designing. The most popular and easiest way is Adobe Illustrator. Then I found many best and other alternatives to Adobe Illustrator. 


What Can I Use Instead of Adobe Illustrator?


1) Canva

Canva is one of the best and most popular alternatives to Adobe Illustrator, which you can use as a graphic design platform. It helps to make your designs easy by providing templates for your designs. Not only templates.

They offer lots of tools and a wide variety of graphic options. In Canva, it allows getting the output of your design as a PDF, infographics, flyers, invoices, websites, etc. There are three plans for Canva users. They are Free, Pro and Enterprise. 

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2) PicsArt Photo Editor

Suppose you are searching for a photo and video editing platform with a creating social community. In that case, PicsArt Photo Editor is the most popular and best place, like Adobe Illustrator. It allows users to take photos, edit pictures and videos, draw with layers and share photos and videos on PicsArt and other social networks.

These four mobile apps in PicsArt are called PicsArt Photo & Video Editor, PicsArt Animator, PicsArt Color, and PicsArt GIF and Sticker Maker. Besides, these mobile apps like adobe illustrator are available on iOS, Android, and Windows mobile devices. PicsArt is a free platform for you. But there are some purchasable stickers, fonts, frames, and clipart sets that cost 99 cents or $1.

Photo remixing options are also one of the interesting features in this Photo Editor that you can merge two photos. And sometimes there are photo editing competitions for its users. It is more enjoyable for PicsArt users. The cons I found in this app are that it sometimes crashes, slows the user’s commands, and cannot share the contents with some sites. 

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3) Adobe Photoshop Express

Adobe Photoshop Express is a photo editing and collage-making app for you that is available on iOS, Android, and Windows phones and tablets, an alternative for Adobe Illustrator. It is a free app that has lots of features for enhancing photos. It provides you with easy, powerful, and fast editing facilities.

You can get a better result by using slide bar adjustments or automatic one-touch fixes. By adding the Looks Pack and Noise Reduction Pack, you can get more creativity for your final output. Adobe Photoshop Express is completely free for Windows. But if you go for mobile applications, you can buy premium versions of them.

You can find a hair mask brush in this application. For retouching and manipulations, Adobe Photoshop Express is the best place. The only con I see in this is, there is no smaller version of Adobe Photoshop Express for the users to do only small things like cropping and colour changing.  

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4) Photo Editor Pro

Photo Editor Pro is used for Raster Graphics Edits, Image edits, picture edits, etc. It offers the users all the opportunities which you need to edit a picture. Photo Editor Pro allows you to share your artwork by posting directly on Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp.

You can find 60+ filters such as Warm, Cocoa, Dew, Dark, PINK, Lomo, natural and Vintage, etc. Brightness, Contrast, Saturation, Hue, and warmth are also can adjust in Photo Editor Pro. Lots of young crowds try to get the DSLR blur effect. You have this feature here.

The mixing and blending ability of two images is another advantage of this application. If you need a perfect figure, this allows you to edit it. Lots of tattoos, hairstyles, and muscles are also available in Photo Editor Pro. 

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5) Adobe Lightroom

This application is another creation of Adobe Inc. Officially, it is called Adobe Photoshop Lightroom. Adobe Lightroom is image organization and image manipulation software. It is available on macOS, Windows, iOS, Android, etc. Viewing, Exporting, Editing, organizing, tagging, and sharing are the main works you can do n Adobe Lightroom.

Except for these main activities, it includes white balance, colour grading, tone curve, HSL, lens correction, detail, preserve, tone, calibration manipulations, graduated filters, spot removal, red-eye correction, adjustment brushing, transformation, etc.

I can introduce Adobe Lightroom as the easiest way to learn to edit than Photoshop. In this application, we cannot find layers or blend modes. And there are no more graphic design elements, and there are limited editing options. These are the cons that I found in Adobe Lightroom.

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6) VivaCut – Pro Video Editor

VivaCut – Pro Video Editor is a platform for full-screen video creation. It includes all the features that you need to edit a video. And this is an entirely free professional video editing application. It provides Keyframe Animation, Audio Extraction, Mask, Music Marker, etc. Multi-layer timeline, Text, Video adjustments, Video transition, Music, filters, and Glitch Effects are the other features provided by VivaCut.

Why can we introduce VivaCut as a Professional platform?

It allows users to cut and trim the videos, split videos, combine video clips, and control speed. In VivaCut, we can save the videos in custom resolutions such as 720p, 1080p, and 4K. And you can share your videos on Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, TikTok, etc.

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7) Autodesk SketchBook Pro

When we are talking about raster graphics, Autodesk sketchbook Pro is the most popular software. This application is entirely free for users. It includes all the drawing and sketching tools such as symmetry tools, perspective guides, and steady strokes on desktop and mobile platforms.

You can scan your Sketch with mobile by using Autodesk SketchBook Pro. And it provides Copic Color Library with matching brushes. In this application, you can create small animations up to 4 layers.

The ability to distort your illustration easily to fix perspective and proportions is another advantage of Autodesk SketchBook Pro. These three pricing plans are on this platform for you. They are Free Trial, Individual Subscription, and enterprise Subscription. It costs $29.99 per year and $85 per year for individual and enterprise subscriptions

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8) CorelDraw

When I searched for a vector graphic editor, CorelDraw is one of the best Alternatives to Adobe Illustrator I found. CorelDraw is popular as an alternative for Adobe illustrator and the best application for designing and editing two-dimensional images such as posters and logos.

Healing Clone Tools, Copy Curve Segments, Multi-monitor, Gaussian Blur Feature, Multi-monitor, Powerful Stylus enhancements, Font Filtering and search, Corel Font Manager, Custom Node Shapes, Import Legacy workspaces, and Live Sketch Tools are the main features of CorelDraw.

CorelDraw provides all these features through three plans. They are Free Trial, Annual Enterprise Pricing Plan, and a Full Version. For the Full version, they charge $635. And $16.5 per month for the Annual Enterprise Pricing Plan. 

Which version of CorelDraw is best?

I think that CorelDraw Graphics Suites 2020 is the best version which was released in March 2020.

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9) Adobe Capture: Pattern, Vector, Color Creator

Adobe capture is one of the best and most popular applications that we cannot miss when talking about alternatives to Adobe Illustrator. You can turn images into smooth, scalable vectors and detailed. And Adobe Capture gives you the chance to select the perfect font for you.

Designers like to create new colour themes. This platform allows users to create colour themes and gradients. When you were doing a painting, didn’t you find the most suitable brush for your paintings?

Are you suffering from this issue? Nothing to think much more about. Just try with Adobe capture. It allows you to build digital brushes and gives you the chance to generate 3D textures too. Adobe Captures provide all these features completely free.

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10) Affinity Designer

Affinity Designer is another app for vector graphics edits like Adobe Illustrator. It is available on macOS, iPad, and Windows. This software is an entirely free application that provides you with all the functionalities you need to do your designs and artworks, such as creating illustrations, printing projects, icons, branding, UX/UI designs, typography, etc.

Affinity Designer provides real-time performance, precise vector tools, raster or vector you decide, sophisticated typography, Built for your workflow and Perfect colour and output, etc.

Affinity Designer has a simple user interface than Adobe Illustrator. But when we are considering unique tools and artboard management, Adobe Illustrator is better than affinity designer. In Pricing, Affinity Designer is cheaper than Adobe Illustrator. 

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11) Sketch

I like to introduce Sketch to you as an alternative software for Adobe Illustrator for macOS. The sketch is used primarily for designing the user interfaces of websites and mobile apps. But there is no print design option. PNG, JPG, PDF, SVG, TIFF, and WebP are the formats that can save the designs in Sketch.

Sketch is the best application for beginners in the designing field because Sketch is easy to learn and use. There are lots of tutorials available on this platform for newcomers. And you can create reusable global components for web design. And you can use Sketch to create mockups quickly. This is very slow on updates, and it doesn’t have any collaborative way of working. 

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12) Gimp

Gimp is another platform like Adobe Illustrator, which is available for macOS, Linux, and Windows. This is a free and open-source application for you. It is used for image manipulation or retouching, free-form drawing, transcoding between different file formats, image editing, and a raster graphics editor.

In Gimp, there are several colours of selecting colours, including palettes. And you can use an eyedropper palette to choose a colour on the canvas. There are more tools in Gimp, such as pencil, paintbrush, eraser, ink tools, etc. Here you can edit the images in many layers. All the functions of Gimp are beautiful and more useful. But I think the user interface of Gimp should be improved than now.

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13) Inkscape

As an alternative for Adobe Illustrator and as a free, open-source vector graphics editor, Inkscape takes a great place. Inkscape is based on Vector Objects. Inscape provides you with flexible drawing tools, Powerful text tools, broad file format compatibility, etc.

In Object manipulation, Inkscape provides transformations, layers, grouping objects, Z-order operations, alignment and distribution commands, etc. And also, you can find colour selectors like HSL, RGB, colour wheel, and CMS.

Inkscape is compatible with different types of file formats. I also love this facility. And the online community of Inscape is wonderful. They help us when we are in trouble always. When we are working with some large files, it may crash. It is a disadvantage of Inkscape.

Is Inkscape as Good as Adobe Illustrator?

I recommend Adobe Illustrator as the best one, according to my experience. But you have to pay $19.99 for illustrator, and Inkscape is entirely free. 

Is Inkscape Better than Gimp?

Inkscape is the better one than Gimp when we are considering the two results of both platforms. 

Is Corel Draw Better than Inkscape?

According to the reviews and feedback, we can find the better one is Inkscape. My choice is also Inkscape from these two applications. 

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What is the Best Free Graphic Design Software?


There are lots of free best graphic design software. Among them, I think Inkscape can do a good one. 


What is the Best Alternative to Adobe Illustrator for Linux?


Inkscape won the top place from this one also. It is one of the best alternatives to Adobe Illustrator, which is available on Linux. 


Summary

When I was an undergraduate, I tried Fiverr. There I found that graphic designs, vector arts, and other designing categories have a good marketplace. Then I deeply studied this industry and the tools and software to do the editing and designing.

Adobe Illustrator is a free vector graphics editor that you can use to draw diagrams, charts, illustrations, cartoons, logos, etc. In this software, they use mathematical equations to draw the shapes. The most important thing is, you can make vector graphics scalable.

But it doesn’t destroy the resolution. And the files that they create are manageable. I also started searching for other software like Adobe Illustrator in the COVID-19 period because we had to stay at home more and wanted to do something in my leisure time.

Then I studied one by one what are the Best Alternatives to Adobe Illustrator, how can I use them, their pricing plans, what are the new and unique tools, benefits, cons, and much more. At the end of my research, I found the best and cheapest application suitable for my needs. You can find all the details above about each platform to find the best one for you.


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