9 Free Software Alternatives for Designers on a Budget

Cost Friendly Design Tools

Design software is expensive.

Aspiring creatives looking to get their feet wet in design often get sticker shock when researching industry standard programs. For someone new to the field the cost of these tools can be difficult to swallow.

Adobe’s monthly subscription model alleviates some of the upfront cost and provides a generous discount for students, but for those not in school a subscription for all the apps adds up to about $600/year.

For those looking to avoid a price tag altogether, open source software is the solution. According to Opensource.com,

“Open source software is software whose source code is available for modification or enhancement by anyone.”

In other words, open source software is non-proprietary and can be developed, modified and distributed freely. Most open source projects do not have the level of finesse that paid programs do, but they can get the job done.

Below are listed nine open source counterparts to industry standard programs, including software for graphic design, photography, web development and 3D modeling. If there are other apps that you think should be on this list be sure to mention them in the comments!

Platform specific alternatives are not included in this list of free software. I prefer to design on a Mac, but I did not want to ignore the roughly 75% of people who use Windows [w3schools.com].

Scribus is a page layout program packed with valuable features and runs on a variety of operating systems. Similar to InDesign’s feature set, it has vector drawing tools, import/export options, grids and detailed type adjustment to name a few. Scribus also supports CMYK and spot colors and provides easy PDF creation. Unlike Indesign, Scribus files are XML-based, making damaged files much easier to recover.

Inkscape is one of the better known alternatives to Illustrator. Available for Windows, Mac and Linux, this software has all the vector tools you need. Common controls like fill/stroke and text on a path are included along with transformation options and boolean operations on shapes. Patterns can be created via the Clones tool, making linked copies of objects, and a wide range of file types are available for export, both raster and vector.

Gimp, the free Photoshop alternative, is currently celebrating its 20 year anniversary. Over that time it has amassed functionality that supports photo editing, digital painting and even UI component design. GIMP offers layer masks, custom brushes, algorithmic scripting and customization through third party plug-ins. The GIMP website even features Scribus and Inkscape as companion programs for a proper desktop publishing workflow.

OpenShot is a powerful video editor with features similar to Premiere or Final Cut Pro. It is easy to import video, images and sound files to make a movie ready for output to multiple formats. OpenShot even offers 3D animation options for title sequences besides other audio and video effects.

FontForge, like other type design programs, has a steep learning curve, but is perfect for creating your first font. The vector drawing tools make it easy to start designing letters right in the app and there are options for defining kerning and ligature pairs and other minutia. There is a lot involved in designing a font, but the online FontForge documentation is a helpful guide.

AMPPS is a software stack of Apache, MySQL, PHP, Perl, Python and Softaculous that makes it simple to setup a local server. Anyone who has ever broken a website by making direct edits through FTP understands the value of having a local installation to test changes before deploying to a live site. AMPPS makes it easy to manage website databases and install web apps like WordPress locally.

Koala is a good substitute for Codekit, albeit with fewer features, but it does run on Windows. This small application runs in the background while you write Less, Sass or CoffeeScript and compiles it for you on each file save. Compilation options include normal, nested, compressed and minified code. For newcomers to CSS preprocessors, this is the app to use.

Sketchup is an intuitive 3D modeling tool that is easy to get the hang of quickly. The robust set of building tools facilitates the creation of objects by drawing, extruding and transforming surfaces with limitless customization options. There is also 3D Warehouse, a library of models and objects available to import into your own creations.

And last, but certainly not least…

Blender is one of the most powerful open source programs in the wild. More than just a 3D modeling tool, it offers an elaborate animation toolset with character rigging, UV unwrapping for easy mesh painting, a full featured compositor, video editing, camera tracking and even video game creation. Blender is capable of photorealistic rendering thanks to its Cycles render engine and comes with superb modeling and sculpting tools. All these features are free, but the learning curve is more of a vertical climb. Blender is well documented and there are many step-by-step tutorials, but it requires a significant investment of time and effort to achieve results.

Whether you are looking to enter the design field or are in search of good tools on a tight budget, I hope this list has helped point you in the right direction. I have used most of these tools in the past (some of them I still do!) and appreciate the value of having access to specialized software thanks to open source developers.

Dropping a bundle of cash on expensive software can be daunting, but many paid programs offer a demo or trial period to test drive the product. After trying out the advanced features only available with premium software, one might resolve to find a little more wiggle room in the budget.