A free offline Photoshop alternative that funds itself through donations and later lifetime licenses.
- Designers
- Students
Creative users are stuck paying Adobe subscriptions for image editing they want to run free and offline.
A free offline Photoshop alternative that funds itself through donations and later lifetime licenses.
The source
over 25k users now use it, and give me constant feedback on EVERY version that comes out.
View on RedditWhat's out there
Photon Studio is a free offline Photoshop alternative with over 25k users, and the post drew 310 upvotes and 112 comments on r/SaaS. Donations cover less than a tenth of the token costs, so the revenue model is unproven.
How to build
The opening is real because 25k people adopted a free editor, yet the author admits donations cannot pay the bills. Build a similar editor, or a sibling tool for the Lightroom, Illustrator or After Effects gap, and charge a one time lifetime license instead of relying on donations. The author already hints that lifetime licenses may come for future products. Find the first buyers in the communities where Photon Studio gained traction, such as r/vibecoding and r/SaaS, and among people who dislike Adobe subscriptions.