Moving away from Adobe’s Creative Suite is like changing from iOS to Android: expensive, slow, and cumbersome.

It’s not surprising that Apple, Google, and Microsoft try to make their platforms very “sticky.” Windows is probably the least-sticky unless you rely on some very niche app to run your business, or, you like gaming. But otherwise, you could run to the Apple Store, buy a Mac, and be up and running with virtually all the same apps in no time.

With the exception of games, most designers would be hard-pressed to find an app on Windows that doesn’t have a Mac version or another app that’s vastly superior (like Sip to find colors on the screen instead of the Windows PowerTools’ color eyedropper).

But Adobe isn’t a platform, so it shouldn’t be so hard to leave. And no matter what you think of their billing, use of AI, or other shenanigans lately, a lot of people might be surprised how hard it is to quit Adobe.

Canceling contracts is expensive, but you need time anyway

Getting out of Adobe’s contracts is so hard that the DOJ is investigating them for how suspiciously challenging it is. The gist is: you can buy monthly, or you can buy a year. But if you buy monthly, you buy it monthly every month for that year. Either way, you’re in it for 12 months and it always auto-renews. Just like a home warranty!

But if you want to switch away from Adobe to something else, you need the time to transition anyway. All the files you have likely need to get opened from time to time.

Treat moving away from Adobe to something like Affinity or other iPad apps as a business would: something that’s deliberate, slow, and transitioned. Not, “Welp, I’m done with that.” If you’re really using the Creative Suite, you need a transition time because you’re too invested.

Keep these 4 things in mind when you move away from Adobe apps:

1. No other app or service comes close to Adobe Fonts.
2. No other app or service is half as good or even tries to do some of the genuinely handy AI features built into Adobe apps.
3. There are many apps that can try to open .PSD and .AI files. Almost nothing opens any other Adobe-specific file, like .INDD. And even among those that can open a .PSD or .AI, it’s sometimes not great.
4. Other apps, like Affinity Photo or Affinity Designer, sometimes emulate the keyboard shortcuts. But not all. Embrace a learning curve.

Your best option for most production work is Affinity’s Photo, Designer, and Publisher suite

For better or worse, Canva bought the Affinity apps. And they’re not really any better of a company morally or functionally than Adobe. In fact, I think I’d prefer Adobe. Adobe seems to have a culture helping real creative pros who have made their careers out of their digital work. Canva is the thing that makes Betty in Accounting feel like she’s a designer and now she should do a newsletter, signs, and more. Suddenly everyone’s wearing Betty’s t-shirts at the company picnic.

But if you produce stuff for clients and not for, say, yourself or a series of Instagram posts for fun, Affinity’s suite is about all there is. It’s cheaper (for now), a one-time purchase (for now), and available on Windows, Mac, and iPad. Fun thing, the iPad versions of all are quite good. But they run into frustrating Apple limitations: installing fonts is a per-app basis, you can’t mail merge in Affinity Publisher, and none of these apps do a great job of importing native Adobe files. Publisher, for instance, can’t import or open .INDD files at all. Just .INDML files. Which is why you need a transition period to sometimes dip in and export the old files to something else.

In many cases, you may have to embrace just recreating things. I’ve tried opening InDesign files, exporting to INDML, and importing into Publisher only to find it’s awful and would just be easier to recreate. Your mileage may vary, but I’ve never found it any good even on relatively simple document layouts. Plus, all those great Adobe Fonts are just MIA.

Students should ask instructors about using alternative apps in class

I teach a Photoshop class and offer up the ability for students to submit Affinity Photo files. I do this for a few reasons:

1. It gives students some autonomy, and many frequently know by their Senior year whether they think they might want or need to use Affinity Photo over Photoshop in an early freelance career.
2. Students frequently use iPads, and those iPads are often the best devices they own. The laptops are hand-me-downs and the iPads are new. Affinity’s apps work pretty well on iPad and have near-100% parity with their desktop cousins unlike Photoshop for iPad, which is something else entirely. So this gives students the ability to work from the best device they have.
3. Some students have experience in Photoshop or other apps already, often from as early as high school. Using a new app, even if I’m not explicitly demoing Affinity’s apps, gives some students the challenge of learning a new tool more independently. Which is useful.

The trick is you probably have to ask your instructor. So long as they have the apps themselves to be able to see your work, they’ll probably be cool with it. Just ask, and have a good argument for it.

Other apps and Gimp

There are other apps in the creative space. Procreate comes to mind on the iPad. It’s good! And I think it’s certainly hard to argue against people doing some things in Procreate as anything other than pro-level work. But I’m not sure it’s sustainable for people who do the traditional bitmap/vector/layout design work. It’s just a small piece of those larger work components.

There are also lots of good options for sound and video work on Windows, Mac, and iPad, like Final Cut or DaVinci Resolve. Logic and Ferrite also come to mind. I wouldn’t shy away from cobbling together several different solutions.

I know a lot of people turn to solutions like Gimp as their Photoshop replacement. This is fine, and I’m glad that app exists. But pros spend money on their tools because it makes them better professionals. Gimp is the thing sporadic users and students use.

Photographers have a lot of great options

Photographers have the best options for leaving Adobe behind. Darktable is, like Gimp, open-source but seems to be a near-feature-complete replacement for Lightroom Classic, sans AI features.

Frankly, the iPad is the best photo editing device and I firmly believe that. I’ve never cared for Lightroom anyway, so I never got invested in its toolset. There are apps on the iPad like Darkroom that are excellent. Photomator is also superb, with AI-powered removal, cropping, and touch-up features that are just great. My workflow:

1. Import all my photos into the Apple Photos library directly to the iPad.
2. Use Darkroom to quickly mark the keep/reject flags. Then delete all the rejects.
3. Use Photomator to edit the remainder.

Darkroom has a suitable editor built in, but I just really like and trust the Photomator tools in a way I don’t with Darkroom. It just matches my style more. This is truly one place where the iPad Pro is just fun. I don’t relish editing photos on my Mac, but I really have fun on my iPad. It’s the one workflow where I think, “I could switch to a Surface as my only device…but man, I really would miss editing photos on my iPad.” There’s nothing like them at all on Windows. On Windows, I’d probably just gravitate to Lightroom Cloud. Bummer.

It’s my trials with the Surface Pro lately that have made me realize I’m beholden to somebody somewhere. Who is the lesser of all evils? Microsoft or Apple? And what’s the best tool for me? Sometimes I think the Surface. Sometimes I think my iPad. Sometimes, I think my Mac is because of the app ecosystem. And Adobe’s on all of them (except some part of the iPad). Similarly, what am I trying to solve?

For some people it’s the money. They balk at Adobe’s pricing. And while their contract shenanigans is regretable, I don’t find the cost of the Suite to be offensive. In fact, I think it’s probably better because it makes for a more sustainable Adobe. But it also makes them larger, and large feels inherently untrustworthy. And I don’t trust Canva much, either, to not do stuff like train AI models on my work or require I sell my soul or raise prices or switch to a subscription.

For now, this might just be a scenario where the best advice is: use what you can afford, like the best, and fits your work style. For me that’s the Adobe suite. But I recognize it’s also because I’ve been using it for 20+ years. But it fits.