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Privacy-focused design tools alternatives

Browse privacy-focused design tools alternatives curated from awesome-privacy, with editorial guidance for choosing tools that respect your data.

Privacy Risk

Why people switch

Adobe's dominance in design tools restricts designers' choices and compromises their privacy. Its lack of Linux support, confines designers to Windows or macOS. Plus, Adobe's data collection via Creative Cloud and trackers further amplifies privacy concerns. They also may be using users' work to train their AIs, potentially causing intellectual property problems. For these reasons, designers can consider using open-source, privacy-respecting alternatives, bypassing most of these issues.

Subtopics Covered

What this category includes

  • InDesign
  • Photoshop / Illustrator
  • Figma
Popular Apps To Replace

Default choices that deserve a second look

Editorial Shortlist

Privacy-focused options worth evaluating

These are not every option in the source list. They are the clearest starting points for people who want better privacy, portability, and control.

InDesign

Scribus

a free and open-source desktop publishing (DTP) software available for most desktop operating systems. It is designed for layout, typesetting, and preparation of files for professional-quality image-setting equipment. Scribus can also create animated and interactive PDF presentations and forms.

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Photoshop / Illustrator

GIMP

A free and open-source raster graphics editor used for image manipulation (retouching) and image editing, free-form drawing, transcoding between different image file formats, and more specialized tasks. It is not designed to be used for drawing, though some artists and creators have used it in this way.

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Photoshop / Illustrator

Inkscape

A free and open-source vector graphics editor for GNU/Linux, Windows and macOS. It offers a rich set of features and is widely used for both artistic and technical illustrations such as cartoons, clip art, logos, typography, diagramming and flowcharting.

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Photoshop / Illustrator

Krita

A free and open-source raster graphics editor designed primarily for digital art and 2D animation.

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Photoshop / Illustrator

Excalidraw

Virtual whiteboard for sketching hand-drawn like diagrams.

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Figma

Penpot

Penpot is an Open Source design and prototyping platform for product teams.

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Evaluation Criteria

What to look for

  • Prefer products with clear data ownership, export options, and transparent retention policies.
  • Look for local-first, end-to-end encrypted, or self-hosted options when the workflow handles sensitive material.
  • Check whether the product depends on trackers, mandatory accounts, or hidden cloud processing before rolling it out broadly.
Where Basil Fits

Keep the meeting layer private too

This category is broader than Basil AI, but the same principle applies: the less sensitive work you ship to third-party clouds, the lower your privacy exposure. For meetings, interviews, and voice notes, Basil keeps that processing on-device.

Explore Basil's private transcription approach →

Keep Your Meetings Private with Basil AI

100% on-device processing. No cloud. No data mining. No privacy risks.

Download on the App Store

Free to try • 3-day trial for Pro features