What is it?

PhotoCraft is meant to be the Photoshop replacement whose tools and shortcuts you already know. It edits and saves layered PSD and PSB files (official copy: 134 of 135 real-world test files round-trip byte for byte), supports 16 adjustment layers, 70-plus live-preview filters, smart objects and layer styles, and 8/16/32-bit documents in RGB, CMYK, Lab and Grayscale with ICC color management. UI, CLI, JSON control channel and MCP server all run the same registry of 500-plus commands, so anything clickable can be driven by a script or an AI agent.

What can it do?

• Layers, masks, layer styles, smart objects and adjustment layers
• Real PSD and PSB round-trip on layered documents
• 500-plus commands drivable via CLI, JSON channel and MCP
• Native GPU canvas on Metal, Vulkan, DirectX 12 and WebGPU
• Whole engine and UI also compile to WebAssembly

Who is it for?

Photoshop users who want the same workflow without the subscription, fully offline

Pros

• Apache-2.0 open source, no subscription
• macOS, Windows and Linux native plus FreeBSD and web builds
• ~69.7k stars
• Large internal test suite includes PSD round trips

Cautions

• Officially labeled Early alpha — still young software
• No third-party Photoshop plugin (.8bf) ecosystem
• Not installed or run during this review

Choosing PhotoCraft

PhotoCraft sits in the Craft category at Easy difficulty. install and run take a few commands, so the first-use barrier is the lowest. runs on Browser · Personal PC. This page records 5 features, 4 pros and 3 cautions, so trade-offs can be reviewed in one place before adoption.

Other tools in this category

The Craft category also lists AgentCAD, doop, OpenDesign, Open CoDesign, video-use, OpenPencil, slides-grab, SolidCraft, OpenCut, Compositor, ArtCraft, VectorCraft, FilmCraft, LightCraft, PdfCraft, EffectCraft, DesignCraft, FigCraft, WordCraft, SoundCraft, DeckCraft, CADCraft, GridCraft. AgentCAD is Medium difficulty while PhotoCraft is Easy difficulty. Within a category the deciding factors are difficulty and runtime environment; each item below links to its own detail page.

• AgentCAD — A CAD tool that runs CAD scripts written by coding agents and exports STEP and mesh files (Medium)
• doop — An open-source multiplayer design canvas that replaces Paper.design, edited by people and AI agents together (Medium)
• OpenDesign — An open-source design workspace that takes a brief to a prototype together with coding agents (Medium)
• Open CoDesign — A desktop app that makes prototypes, slides and PDFs locally from prompts, as an open-source Claude Design alternative (Easy)
• video-use — An open-source video editing workflow that handles cuts, subtitles and color from a clip folder and a Claude Code chat (Hard)
• OpenPencil — An open-source design editor that opens Figma files and edits them through AI chat, CLI and MCP (Medium)
• slides-grab — A slide workflow that lets you drag a region on AI-generated HTML slides and ask an agent to edit it (Medium)
• SolidCraft — Open-source parametric 3D CAD in pure Rust — desktop, web, and MCP automation (Medium)
• OpenCut — Open-source video editor aimed at CapCut and Premiere workflows — web, desktop, mobile (Easy)
• Compositor — Open-source Photoshop alternative for macOS — layers, masks, Camera Raw (Medium)
• ArtCraft — Open-source AI image and video studio for artists — world compositing, 3D blocking and character posing (Medium)
• VectorCraft — Adobe Illustrator workflow reimagined in pure Rust — fast vector illustration with live-editable effects (Medium)
• FilmCraft — Adobe Premiere-class editor rebuilt from scratch in pure Rust, down to its own codecs (Medium)
• LightCraft — Adobe Lightroom-class photo library and raw developer in open source — no account, no cloud, no telemetry (Easy)
• PdfCraft — Open-source PDF workbench — read, organize, combine, split and secure without Acrobat subscription (Easy)
• EffectCraft — After Effects-class motion graphics and VFX, rebuilt in pure Rust — 259 effects, expressions and 3D cameras (Medium)
• DesignCraft — InDesign-class page layout rebuilt in pure Rust with a Knuth–Plass paragraph composer (Medium)
• FigCraft — Figma-class interface design and prototyping rebuilt in pure Rust — auto layout, variants, variables and Dev Mode (Medium)
• WordCraft — Microsoft Word-class word processor built in pure Rust, reading and writing .docx (Easy)
• SoundCraft — Pro Tools/Audition-class DAW built in pure Rust — Edit/Mix windows, automation and 9.1.6 surround (Medium)
• DeckCraft — PowerPoint-class presentations rebuilt in pure Rust with .pptx compatibility and slide masters (Easy)
• CADCraft — AutoCAD-class 2D drafting in pure Rust — command line, snaps, layouts and associative dimensioning (Medium)
• GridCraft — Excel-class spreadsheets rebuilt in pure Rust — 500-plus functions, dynamic arrays and PivotTables on .xlsx (Easy)

Tags

Hands-on Testing

Repository, website, and license checked (2026-10-21). GitHub 69,699 stars, Apache-2.0, last push 2026-10-21. Version 0.10.0 site, release page. Not installed or run.