Someone is cloning the entire Adobe suite with AI and releasing it for free. That’s not a hypothetical — it’s happening right now, and the Photoshop clone is already usable enough to be worth a look.
What’s Actually Being Built
A developer has used AI-assisted coding to reproduce Adobe’s core applications as open-source alternatives. The lineup already includes a Photoshop clone and a Premiere-like video editor, with productivity tools also in the works. The project is publicly available and free to download.
The technical approach the developer is claiming is a clean room implementation — meaning the code was written from scratch without copying Adobe’s source, only replicating the behavior and interface. That’s the same legal strategy that made projects like Wine (which runs Windows apps on Linux) defensible for decades. Whether Adobe’s legal team sees it the same way is a separate question.
How the Photoshop Clone Performs
Startup time is genuinely fast — we’re talking under two seconds on a mid-range machine, which is a jarring contrast to waiting for Creative Cloud to decide it’s ready.
What works reasonably well:
- Basic photo adjustments (exposure, contrast, color balance)
- Layer management for straightforward compositing
- The healing brush for removing small distractions from a photo — a coffee cup on a desk, a date stamp, a stray hair
Where it falls short:
- Automatic subject or background removal is noticeably weaker than Photoshop’s AI-powered tools
- PSD file compatibility is inconsistent — complex files with smart objects, adjustment layers, or embedded assets can open incorrectly or not at all
- Any workflow that depends on plugins or actions will hit a wall immediately
The honest assessment: if your task is cropping, basic retouching, or exporting a JPEG for a blog post, this tool can handle it. If you’re doing product photography, compositing, or anything that needs to go back into a professional pipeline as a PSD, you’ll run into friction fast.
The CLI Angle Is Genuinely Interesting
Beyond the GUI app, the project includes a command-line interface that lets you control the editor with AI prompts. Think of it like running a terminal command that says “remove the background from every image in this folder and export at 1200px wide” — and it just does it.
For anyone who processes batches of images repeatedly, that’s actually the more compelling feature. Repetitive resizing, format conversion, or basic cleanup across dozens of files is exactly where a scriptable, AI-controllable tool earns its place in a workflow, even if the GUI isn’t production-ready.
Should You Be Worried About Using It?
The clean room argument has legal precedent, but it hasn’t been tested against Adobe specifically. Adobe also has a long history of aggressive IP enforcement. For individual users casually trying the tool, the practical risk is low. For a business considering building it into a production workflow, it’s worth waiting to see how this plays out legally before committing.
The open-source nature of the project means the code can be inspected, forked, and continued by others even if the original developer hits a takedown. That gives it more staying power than a typical clone app.
What This Means for Adobe
Adobe has spent the last two years aggressively pushing its own AI features — Generative Fill, background removal, Firefly integration — while simultaneously raising subscription prices. A free, open-source alternative that launches instantly and handles simple tasks is a direct answer to the most common complaint: paying $55/month when you only need to resize images and clean up a few photos.
The clone isn’t replacing Photoshop for professionals today. But it doesn’t need to. It only needs to be good enough for the large chunk of subscribers who are paying for a tiny fraction of the app’s capability. That’s where Adobe should be paying attention.
The Practical Takeaway
Download the Photoshop clone and use it as a lightweight editor for quick tasks — the kind you’d otherwise boot up Photoshop for and feel vaguely guilty about given the subscription cost. Keep your Adobe subscription for anything that needs PSD round-tripping, advanced masking, or plugin support. And if you process batches of images regularly, the CLI feature alone is worth experimenting with. It’s rough around the edges, but the underlying idea — AI-controllable image editing via the command line — is one that’s going to matter a lot more six months from now.
