Developers use AI to reverse-engineer Adobe apps, create free clones
Brandon Thomas and others are using Claude to recreate Photoshop and Creative Cloud tools as open-source alternatives, sparking legal and ethical debate.
What to know
- Brandon Thomas launched Artcraft in early October—free, open-source clones of Adobe's Photoshop, Lightroom, and other Creative Cloud apps generated using AI reverse engineering and rewritten in Rust.
- The clones work for basic tasks but remain buggy (deleting images, merging layers randomly) and cannot open native PSD files, limiting use for existing Adobe users and power users.
- REA (Reverse Engineer Anything), an automated AI tool for deconstructing and recreating software, has amassed 346,000 GitHub stars, lowering the barrier for others to clone commercial apps.
- The trend has sparked debate over whether AI-powered reverse engineering constitutes piracy or justified pushback against predatory subscription models; legal frameworks around copyright and patents remain unclear.
The dispute Whether reverse-engineered clones pose a genuine threat to software vendors or are impractical niche projects given the availability of free alternatives and the difficulty of replicating complex commercial applications. · positions read across 5 posts and comments
These clones remain too immature and buggy to rival commercial software; power users will quickly hit limitations.
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“It should be noted that these applications are still very alpha and should be treated as such. Any power user for any of these products will find the shortcomings extremely fast.”
relevant__comment · Reddit ↗
Most users don't actually need Photoshop and already have viable free alternatives like paint.net and photopea available.
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“Almost no home user needs Photoshop, yet people are obsessed with pirating it despite having no need for it that couldn't be served by paint.net or photopea.”
BrokenZX81 · Reddit ↗
Creating a true clone of complex software like Photoshop via AI is extremely difficult and labor-intensive work.
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“Because AI is good at many things, but it's a lot of fucking work to make a clone of something like Photoshop.”
InadequateUsername · Reddit ↗
“Software is over... AI lets us take back tech and set the clock back to the pre-sh***y era.”
Brandon Thomas, Artcraft founder · Engadget ↗
Brandon Thomas Artcraft founder and software developerAdobe Target software company
How it unfolded 1 development · click the chart to see its coverage articlespostscomments
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Engadget tests Photocraft, documents critical bugs and limitations
Tech journalist testing Photocraft found the Photoshop clone functional for basic tasks like resizing and color adjustments, with an intuitive interface similar to the original. However, users have reported critical bugs including image deletion, layer merging glitches, and inability to open native PSD files. The clone lacks AI features and advanced capabilities.
“Though it lacks AI and other advanced features, Photocraft can do almost everything I need, like resizing, masking and color adjustments.”
— Steve Dent, Engadget -
first by Engadget, 10d ago
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Have you used them? And as a follow up, have you used them recently? It was a little rough when it first "launched", but the GitHub repo has over 8,000 commits at this point (with 500 contributors) and it's absolutely solid. Every time I look over there are new updates to pull, filmcraft too. I'm by no means remotely close to a professional (just…
2 more of the top 3 · 5 posts in this stretch
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Without reading the article. It should be noted that these applications are still very alpha and should be treated as such. Any power user for any of these products will find the shortcomings extremely fast.
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All this is going to do it make the oligarchy crack down. They already are forcing people to update their ps5s and blocking the use of their AI models from performing this kind of reverse engineering.
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background
Trend raises unresolved legal questions around copyright and patents — The AI-powered reverse engineering of commercial software has sparked intense debate over whether cloning constitutes piracy or justified resistance to predatory subscription models. Legal experts note the speed of AI's spread is creating new copyright and patent ramifications that remain unexplored.
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background
REA (Reverse Engineer Anything) tool gains 346,000 stars on GitHub — REA, an automated reverse-engineering tool that uses AI to deconstruct and recreate software, has gone viral with 87,000 forks and 346,000 stars as of mid-October. The tool democratizes the ability to clone apps without needing deep expertise.
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background
Thomas motivated by Adobe's cancellation fees and subscription model — Thomas decided to reverse engineer Adobe's apps after repeatedly encountering what he describes as a dark pattern cancellation fee. He framed the project as reclaiming technology from corporate control.
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background
Brandon Thomas launches Artcraft, free AI-generated Adobe clones — Software developer Brandon Thomas and his team released Artcraft, open-source clones of Adobe's Photoshop, Lightroom, and other Creative Cloud apps. Created using Claude Opus 5.5 to reverse-engineer the original apps into clean-room Rust implementations, the clones aim to offer a one-to-one user interface match without subscription fees.
What people are saying 2 voices from 1 site · best of 5 · verbatim
- Nov 1
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Exactly. Almost no home user needs Photoshop, yet people are obsessed with pirating it despite having no need for it that couldn’t be served by paint.net or photopea.
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Because AI is good at many things, but it's a lot of fucking work to make a clone of something like Photoshop.