Stop Paying for Adobe, Notion and Figma: 5 Free Open Source Tools

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Adobe Acrobat, Notion and Figma each bill you every month for work a free tool can do.

These five free, open source tools cover the same jobs. Stirling-PDF edits, merges and signs your PDFs. AFFiNE gives you Notion-style docs with whiteboards built in. Penpot works like Figma. Immich backs up your phone's photos like Google Photos. Excalidraw replaces Miro for quick diagrams.

Penpot and Excalidraw both run free in your browser, so you can try them in a minute. Immich is the one that takes setup, because you host it yourself. The links are above. What each tool replaces is below.

What does each free alternative replace?

Stirling-PDF: an Adobe Acrobat alternative for your PDFs

Stirling-PDF has over 93,000 stars on GitHub. It edits, merges, splits and signs your PDFs, and it can run OCR on scanned pages, so you can drop the Acrobat subscription.

AFFiNE: a Notion alternative with whiteboards built in

AFFiNE is basically Notion with whiteboards built in, and it has over 73,000 stars. Your docs, databases and diagrams all live in one workspace, so it stands in for Notion and Miro at once.

Penpot: a free Figma alternative in your browser

Penpot is an open source design tool that works like Figma, with over 60,000 stars. There's a free version you can use straight in your browser, so there's nothing to install.

Immich: your own Google Photos

Immich has over 115,000 stars. It backs up every photo off your phone, like Google Photos or iCloud, but onto storage you own. You host it yourself, so it takes some setup before you can cancel that storage plan.

Excalidraw: a Miro alternative for quick diagrams

Excalidraw has over 133,000 stars. Open it in your browser and start sketching whiteboards and hand-drawn-style diagrams, with no Miro subscription.

Cutting subscriptions is the quick win. To find where AI would save your team real hours, take the free AI bottleneck test, or read our insights on AI implementation.