VectorCraft

VectorCraft is a free Adobe Illustrator alternative: an open source vector graphics editor for Mac, Windows and Linux with Illustrator's layout, tools, panels and shortcuts, the Pen and Direct Selection tools, Pathfinder and Shape Builder, gradients, appearance and transparency, type with styles, and files that go both ways: SVG, PDF and PDF-compatible .ai, EPS, DXF and the raster formats. It is a native app written in Rust, it runs offline, and it never asks for a subscription, an account or a card.

VectorCraft is a clean-room reimplementation of Illustrator, so the Pen, Direct Selection, Pathfinder, Smart Guides, Appearance, Swatches and Layers panels sit where you expect and the shortcuts carry over. Curve booleans are exact, so Pathfinder never answers "cannot perform operation", undo is unlimited, and 20,000 shapes render in about 27 milliseconds at full retina resolution while the interface stays at 120 frames per second. Type supports styles, threading and Hebrew and Arabic bidirectional layout, and the interface speaks English, Japanese, Chinese, Spanish and Italian.

The project tracks its own numbers honestly: roughly 69 to 75 percent of Illustrator's features exist and work, and 40 to 55 percent on the stricter test of whether a power user can tell the difference. Everyday vector illustration is close to usable; what is still missing is 3D and Materials, the Photoshop-style raster effects, vertical CJK composition, Variables and scripting, and a fidelity pass over every tool's modifiers.

SVG is first class. PDF and PDF-compatible .ai files, with PDF/X, import and export, as do EPS, DXF, EMF and WMF, and PSD, PNG, JPEG, WebP, GIF, TIFF and BMP open. Export for Screens writes the asset sets a web or app project needs, Print and Package are there, and the native format is readable JSON that diffs cleanly in version control.

Native builds for every desktop: a universal macOS app, Windows installers for x64, x86 and ARM64 with no emulation, Linux AppImage, deb, rpm and Flatpak packages, and FreeBSD. There is also a browser build you can host yourself. Rendering is multithreaded and off the UI thread, and on machines with two graphics processors you choose which one draws.

VectorCraft is MIT or Apache 2.0 licensed, built by the ArtCraft Team with more than 5,200 stargazers behind it, and free for good: no monthly fee, no trial that expires, no features behind a paywall. Every menu item, tool gesture, panel and dialog can be driven over a JSON control channel and an MCP server, so Claude or another agent can draw, edit and export the way a person does; every artwork in the project's own gallery was built that way.

The complete source of release 0.8.0 as published by the ArtCraft Team, with the project's own MIT and Apache 2.0 notices inside, plus an install guide written for this listing that covers the prebuilt installers for each platform, the browser build and building from source, and a Claude prompt that walks you through setup.