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Creator of free Adobe clones unveils open-source Microsoft Office Excel, PowerPoint, and Word replications — Autodesk tools and other subscription-based services may come next It's a protest now. Brandon Thomas, developer of ArtCraft, a suite of open-source creative tools meant to replicate Adobe applications for free, has now announced apps to replace Microsoft Office tools such as Excel, PowerPoint, and Word, respectively, named GridCraft, DeckCraft, and WordCraft, that are created with Claude. Thomas has shared his new clones to ArtCraft GitHub, making them free for all to download. After our previous story covering ArtCraft, we have since discovered that u/ai_art_is_art is Brandon Thomas, a highly talented software engineer with 15 years of experience under his belt. After his ArtCraft project became popular, many criticisms followed about vibecoded software and AI slop, to which Brandon responded on his X account, saying that he does know how to code. One of the biggest pain points for these software programs is OS compatibility, while Adobe runs on MacOS and Windows, Linux requires additional compatibility layers and Windows emulation to work. One of ArtCraft’s biggest selling points is being able to run all the software across all three platforms while still giving an identical user experience regardless of OS — this is also part of the parity that ArtCraft wants to achieve. While Google provides these tools for free with Google Sheets, Docs, and Slides available on all platforms through a browser, the online-only model takes away the ownership aspect of the software, fearing that one day the tools would suddenly require a subscription and users would not have any say in it. Microsoft sits among the most criticized companies for its business practices, similar to Adobe. What was once a one-time purchase now comes as a subscription package with various tools that many don’t need; many even have overlapping features and uses, essentially wasting some of the subscription value. It seems that Brandon Thomas is not only creating open-source alternatives, but is also creating a targeted protest against these practices. ArtCraft’s Discord community is also growing very quickly, with constant recommendations of other software they would like to see, with CADcraft being commonly discussed among 3D printing and engineering enthusiasts who don’t like Autodesk, similar to Microsoft and Adobe. As many free alternatives as there were before the rampant vibecoding, it seems that this growing collection of tools is not only functional, but a message to the large companies as well. Most of these apps are still far from what they intend to replace, however, so we'll have to see how deep this message cuts. Follow Tom's Hardware on Google News, or add us as a preferred source, to get our latest news, analysis, & reviews in your feeds. Get Tom's Hardware's best news and in-depth reviews, straight to your inbox. Jhet Borja is a serial hobbyist who was taking apart toys from childhood and sketching inventions. He now loves doing DIY projects ranging from designing custom 3D-printed parts, building PCs and keyboards, all the way to woodworking. If he's not getting his hands dirty, he's probably brainstorming his next project. - erazog These apps are not credible for any kind of professional company, things like support actually matter. Useful to one man shops but thats about it. Reply - vargavision erazog said:These apps are not credible for any kind of professional company, things like support actually matter. Useful to one man shops but thats about it.That's how they all started. The only thing that will stop this person for making a fully blown pro level program will be law suits from patent trolls. Perhaps that person will stop at personal use and optimize it. Either way a lot of software companies are on notice - open source is the way to go. Reply - rluker5 How does it compare to Open Office? Is its compatibility with MS Office better? There are a lot of home and student users out there. Although there is that free MS Office online thing. That has good basic functionality, 100% compatibility within its limits, and does read your Office offline files. Tough to beat free with free knockoff. Reply - rgd1101 vargavision said:That's how they all started. The only thing that will stop this person for making a fully blown pro level program will be law suits from patent trolls. Perhaps that person will stop at personal use and optimize it. Either way a lot of software companies are on notice - open source is the way to go.if the ai create the program. wonder who going to win Reply - adamXpeter vargavision said:That's how they all started. The only thing that will stop this person for making a fully blown pro level program will be law suits from patent trolls. Perhaps that person will stop at personal use and optimize it. Either way a lot of software companies are on notice - open source is the way to go.No, the "mainframe" is the way to go. This is the end of local computing. Reply - edgarmilvus Very interesting, especially because they can be used with AI agents, and without a user interface you can have them carry out tasks and automatically create complex documents. I'm preparing an ebook on this that will be out in a few days.Reply - USAFRet edgarmilvus said:Very interesting, especially because they can be used with AI agents, and without a user interface you can have them carry out tasks and automatically create complex documents. I'm preparing an ebook on this that will be out in a few days.You don't need "AI" to create an ebook. Write your book. Proofread it. Have others proofread it. Then, there are any number of easy tools to convert it from whatever format you wrote it in, to whatever format your ebook publisher needs. Unless of course, you're letting the AI write the thing for you. In which case, why do we need you? Unless, of course, you're just writing a book about AI in publishing....;) Reply - adbatista USAFRet said:You don't need "AI" to create an ebook. Write your book. Proofread it. Have others proofread it. Then, there are any number of easy tools to convert it from whatever format you wrote it in, to whatever format your ebook publisher needs. Unless of course, you're letting the AI write the thing for you. In which case, why do we need you?He said he is preparing an ebook on this (using agents), not that he is going to use AI to write it... Reply - USAFRet adbatista said:He said he is preparing an ebook on this (using agents), not that he is going to use AI to write it...And I thought of exactly that, after I posted. Reply - ezst036 erazog said:These apps are not credible for any kind of professional company, things like support actually matter. Useful to one man shops but thats about it.A comment like this entirely misses the point. Microsoft and Adobe and other companies could fairly easily port their applications over to Linux or other platforms. They simply choose not to. And the tired old argument of "yeah but then we have to support it" doesn't work when millions of people are trying to get off of old platforms and would get off of old platforms but for this one singular blocker - it's all an exercise in nonsense. These are paying customers who would continue on paying, but be much happier making their own choices and guiding their own futures. So those support costs would, yes, be covered. The companies, again, simply do not want to. These companies have a vested interest in preserving the old ways of doing things in the larger context, much moreso than the singular product they are associated with. These companies will one day have to be dragged by the scruff kicking and screaming into accepting what we the customers desire, instead of we the customers constantly having to be limited by what they the lazy corporations desire. Reply
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