A curated list of design tools (many free) that can replace your paid software
2 days ago, I asked IH to share their favorite free alternatives for paid design software and made a response list. Thanks to all indie hackers who participated and shared their favorite stacks. Some of them are not free but said to be affordable and well worth the money.
Read the original post - click here
Let's go!
- Design/Prototype tools: Origami, Adobe XD, Figma, Akira
- Photoshop -> Photopea, Canva, Affinity Designer
- Illustrator -> Gimp, Affinity Designer, Presentator, Inkscape
- Indesign -> Affinity Publisher, Scribus, Lucidpress, Inkscape
- Lightroom desktop -> Affinity Photo, Lightroom mobile, Pixlr, Colorcinch
- Camtasia -> OBS Studio, Audacity
- Bandicam -> ShareX
- Premiere Pro -> Davinci Resolve, Story Creator cc @storycreator
- Wireframing tools: MarvelApp, Whimsical, Octopus Do
- Icon Jar -> Norde Source cc @gilli
- UX Research tools: UXtweak
Other tools:
- Watermark photos: Waterink cc @prakis
- Image Compressor: [Tealpod] (https://www.tealpod.com/compressor/index.html) cc @prakis
- Free illustrations: Open Doodles, ManyPixels, Blush Illustrations + Figma Plugin, Feather Icons, unDraw, Open Peeps, Scale cc @karthik_2206
- Presentation tools: Google Slide
- Web design feedback tools: Pagereview cc @JonathanL
Feel free to add your favorite alternatives below and I'll update to this post.
If you know the founders/teams behind these amazing tools, please shout out their names.
Trending on Indie Hackers
Perhaps I would like to add a whole new category - UX research tools or something like the Design Feedback category. For those, my favorite is UXtweak (www.uxtweak.com). It has a very usable Free Plan and their Professional is affordable too.
Nice one, thanks for the addition, @UXNYCer. I just updated your suggestion to the list above.
Hey Musa,
I am building Scale. I add a new high-quality illustration each day - free for commercial use with no attribution needed :). I have already added about 60 illustrations.
Hi Karthik,
Scale looks awesome! Thanks for sharing. Would love to add Scale to the directory for UX/UI/graphic designers I'm building at Doesign.
If you are interested, please complete this Product Form for founders and Scale will be automatically added to the database.
Thanks for the kind words Musa. I'll fill this right away!
Great, thank you! I'll notify you when I launch :)
Super!
Filled the form :)
Received it! Thanks again, Karthik.
Bookmarked. Thank you 😁🙌 Not a designer here, but I used Snapseed for a while for retouching pictures. It's free and I loved it.
Yesss me too. I've been using Snapseed since 2015 (I think) for Instagram photos. You should check out Lightroom Mobile. It's powerful, easy to use, and free!
Thanks, I'll give it a try.
Hi Musa,
Fine collection of tools you have featured here. Might I suggest our new free tool 3D Bay as an addition to your list? It is a collection of high-quality 3D stock images that are totally free to use. Check it out at: https://clouddevs.com/3dbay/
Let us know what you think! :)
Hello nelushaw,
I checked out your site and saw you have a great collection of 3D stock images there. Please complete this Product Form [https://airtable.com/shrbCjDPiTszRfUI5] to be added to Doesign's directory.
Thanks,
Musa
Hi Musa,
If you’re working on web designs with your team or client and always found sharing feedback a pain, I think you’ll love Pagereview. The free plan is ideal for those making small changes between the two of you.
Hi Jonathan,
Thanks for sharing. Although I'm not a web designer, I'm sure Pagereview will be a great help for other web designers who needs collaboration out there.
I'm building Doesign, a database directory for UX/UI/graphic designers. If you are interested, please complete this Product Form. Pagereview will be added to the database and available to the public when I launch.