Free Alternatives to Photoshop and Word via AI

American developer Brandon Thomas has launched twelve free alternatives to popular software such as Photoshop, Word, and Excel in just one week. These programs, under the name ArtCraft, are largely built with the AI model Claude Opus 5.5 from Anthropic. Although the apps are open source, they are still in development and do not yet offer the functionality that professional users are accustomed to.

ArtCraft was presented on October 5, 2026, on Hacker News, where it quickly attracted the attention of tech media such as PetaPixel, Ars Technica, and TechSpot. The code for these applications is available on GitHub, and the first app, PhotoCraft, has already received over 50,000 stars. The project includes twelve different applications, including FilmCraft for video editing and GridCraft for spreadsheet management, and is accessible on macOS, Windows, and Linux. Most applications are also available through the browser.

The user interface of the apps is designed to feel familiar to users of Adobe and Microsoft. For instance, PhotoCraft can open and save real PSD files, while WordCraft can read and write .docx files with features like comments and a table of contents. From the copyright, it can be inferred that Thomas and his team have closely collaborated with the AI model to develop the content of the apps.

While the creation of these applications is promising, the developers are honest about the limitations. User data should not be sent back, and currently, there is not enough functionality for professional use. Users have reported that the software is slow and that some essential features are missing. Additionally, for Dutch users, it is a downside that the spell check in WordCraft is only available in English and Polish. Therefore, existing programs such as LibreOffice may still be considered safer alternatives for now. However, this project offers an interesting glimpse into the possibilities that a developer can realize with AI in the future.

Read the full article from AI Insider.