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VectorCraft

The free alternative toIllustrator

🟢 Beginner⏱️ ~5 min to installYou save €27/mo

VectorCraft is an open source rewrite of Illustrator, built from scratch by the ArtCraft team. You find Illustrator’s layout, tools, menus and shortcuts: the pen, direct selection, Pathfinder and Shape Builder, smart guides, the Appearance and Swatches panels, layers, gradients and type with styles. It opens and exports SVG, PDF and PDF-compatible .ai files, exports to PNG, JPEG and WebP, and even opens Affinity files. MIT or Apache 2.0 license, free on Mac, Windows and Linux, with no account. The catch: it is an alpha released at the end of September 2026, which the team rates 65% ready for a mainstream illustrator. Illustrator’s own .ai files do not come through reliably yet, and it has neither advanced 3D nor generative AI.

Screenshot of VectorCraft, the free open source alternative to Illustrator
GitHub stars10,964
View on GitHub ↗

Versus Illustrator: the match

  • Price

    VectorCraft

    €0, on every platform

    Illustrator

    €27/month, one year commitment

  • Account and sign in

    VectorCraft

    No account, no cloud, everything stays on your machine

    Illustrator

    Adobe account required

  • .ai files

    VectorCraft

    Those saved as PDF compatible; others come through poorly

    Illustrator

    Its native format

Illustrator ↗

How to install it (even from zero)

The simplest path: download VectorCraft from its official page. It installs like any other app and works with no account. The prompt below has Claude pick the right file for your machine and check the download.

  1. 1

    Paste this prompt into Claude (Code or Desktop)

    It detects your system, downloads the right version and checks it has not been tampered with:

    Je veux installer VectorCraft (le logiciel d’illustration vectorielle open source qui reprend Illustrator, dépôt GitHub officiel storytold/vectorcraft, site getartcraft.com/apps/vectorcraft) à la place d’un abonnement Adobe. Guide-moi pas à pas et pose-moi des questions si besoin. Repère d’abord mon système (macOS, Windows ou Linux) et mon processeur (Apple Silicon, Intel, x64 ou ARM). Télécharge ensuite la dernière version publiée dans les releases du dépôt storytold/vectorcraft, ou sur la page officielle getartcraft.com/apps/vectorcraft, en prenant le fichier qui correspond : l’image disque universelle sur Mac, l’installateur .msi sur Windows (x64, ARM64 ou 32 bits), l’AppImage, le paquet .deb, le paquet .rpm ou le Flatpak sur Linux. Vérifie l’empreinte SHA-256 du fichier avec le fichier SHA256SUMS.txt publié avec la même version, et arrête-toi si elle ne correspond pas. Installe l’appli et vérifie qu’elle démarre. Si macOS bloque l’ouverture, explique-moi comment l’autoriser dans Réglages Système, sans désactiver la sécurité de mon Mac. Rappelle-moi que VectorCraft est encore en alpha : je garde mes fichiers d’origine et je travaille sur des copies. Si j’utilise Claude Code, propose-moi aussi d’installer l’outil en ligne de commande vectorcraft-cli de la même version et de brancher son serveur MCP (vectorcraft-cli mcp), pour que tu puisses travailler à ma place. Pour finir, ouvre un de mes fichiers SVG ou PDF, ou un .ai enregistré compatible PDF, et dis-moi ce qui s’affiche bien et ce qui manque.

Review the GitHub repository and check whether it is safe to install given my machine and my infrastructure. Ask me as many questions as possible, using widgets, to clarify my request and be as precise as you can.
  2. 2

    Open one of your real files

    The best test: a logo or an illustration from your own work, as SVG, PDF or a PDF-compatible .ai. You see right away what comes through and what is missing.

  3. 3

    Keep Illustrator for your clients’ .ai files

    Illustrator’s native .ai files do not come through reliably yet, and 3D and generative AI are missing. For your logos, icons and illustrations, try VectorCraft for a week before you renew your subscription.

What you actually do with it

Your vector drawing without a subscription

Pen, Pathfinder, Shape Builder, gradients and type: your everyday logos and illustrations, without the €27 a month.

Your files open

SVG, PDF, EPS, PDF-compatible .ai, and even Affinity documents. You do not start from scratch.

Claude draws for you

Every menu, tool and panel can be driven through its MCP server: your agent draws, edits and exports just like you.

Project health, at a glance

Before installing an open-source tool, one question matters: is the project alive? These scores are computed from public GitHub data. They are not made up.

77/100

Good

Healthy, followed project: a good everyday choice.

Activity
100

Is the code moving? (commits in the last 30 days)

Maintenance
100

How fresh is the latest update? Fresher is better.

Community
84

Stars and contributors: people around means help and fixes.

Maturity
40

Project age. Old enough to be solid, still alive.

Momentum
59

Current pace versus its usual pace: speeding up or dozing off?

The repo in numbers

GitHub stars
11k
Forks
5.3k
Contributors
193
Commits
6.3k
Project age
0.1 yrs
Last commit
today
Size
89.2 MB
License
Apache-2.0

Built with

  • Rust 99.7%

Scores computed automatically from the GitHub API (last-30-days activity, update freshness, community size, project age). Refreshed daily.

Loucash’s take

6/10

And here is the same team’s Illustrator. The pen, Pathfinder, Shape Builder, Appearance, layers: everything is where it is in Illustrator, so you start drawing at once. It exports to SVG, PDF, PNG and WebP, and even opens Affinity files. What may bite: it is an alpha, released at the end of September. The team itself rates it 65% ready for a mainstream illustrator: Illustrator’s own .ai files do not come through reliably yet, and advanced 3D, half of the Photoshop style effects and generative AI are missing. For your logos and visuals, it is worth a try. To exchange .ai files with a client, keep Illustrator for now.

It’s for you if: You draw logos, icons or visuals for your social accounts, you pay for Illustrator mostly for the pen, Pathfinder and type, and you want to stop the subscription. If you exchange .ai files with clients or live on 3D, keep Illustrator for now.

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