These Three Free Alternatives to Adobe Creative Cloud Apps are Great for Small Businesses in PH
For a small business owner operating out of the Philippines, its easy to grow envious. Online you see all these influencers, streamers, and business owners have so many wonderful toys to play with. Software like Photoshop or Premiere seem like necessities to a business operating in the modern age these days. Social Media marketing is nothing without graphic design and can be hard to do effectively without the use of tools like Illustrator for instance.
Tools like those indeed are considered indispensable for so many businesses big and small and its hard not to be impressed by what they’ve done with them. There’s every reason to add these software to your toolbox, right? That’s easy for me to say. These software, as useful as they are and as essential as they may be to small businesses, often demand a significant upfront payment to use them.
For a smaller self-run business in the Philippines, the entry expense of 59 USD per month for access to all the Adobe Creative Cloud Apps not only seems but is extravagant; its tempting to even think excessive. Its unsustainable for small businesses in their first few years of growth. Piracy is not only and unsavory, but illegal solution to what is ultimately a solved problem. Software capable of replacing paid offerings not only exists but is being given out for free online for those who dare check.
Lament no more because here are our picks for useful software for small businesses:
GIMP
Alternative to: Adobe Photoshop
Used For: Touching up Instagram Photos, Creating useful Infographics, Performing Basic and Complex Photo-Editing Operations, Digital Art
GIMP – the GNU Image Manipulation Program – It’s a software tool used for photo editing and even image creation. Its a long-time competitor to Photoshop for users not interested in paying the upfront cost. Its free like everything on this list and offers a parity in terms of functionality with most major Photoshop features. Its interface is nothing new if you’re used to photoshop and is easy to learn to get into thanks to extensive documentation and a supportive community of users and enthusiasts.
Inkscape
Alternative to: Adobe Illustrator
Used For: Creating Vector images for Print Ads, Scalable Online Ads, Logo Design, Font Creation
Inkscape is a vector graphics editor used and valued for its rich featureset. Its capabilities are already on par with much of what Illustrator is capable of and is more than ready for designing your next killer logo, ad, or social media post. Vector art is great because it can be scaled up and down without deformation to the image and is used marketing for abstract graphics from small pamphlet to huge billboards.
Kdenlive
Alternative to: Adobe Premiere
Used For: Editing Video
Kdenlive, KDE Non-Linear Video Editor, is the most popular open-source alternative to Adobe Premiere out there and is ready for all common video editing tasks. Its good for everything from cropping, exporting to different formats and aspect ratios (like for your TikToks or Instagram Reels), and works right out of the box on all pc platforms like all these software.
The mentioned tools are only scraping the iceberg, friends. A small business owner does not need to fork over what providers like Adobe are charging during their business’ formative years. Small Business Owners who think smart and keep up to date with developing technologies can stay ahead of the curve without breaking the bank.
