Updated: May 18, 2019 Home » Freeware and Software Reviews » Photoshop & Image Editing

1. Free Vector Editor For Mac
2. Free Offline Vector Editor For Mac Os
3. Free Vector Drawing Software For Mac Os X

8 Impressive Vector Drawing Applications on the Mac App Store. The Mac App Store is full of useful little gems for designers, and one area where the marketplace isn’t lacking is in pretty, lightweight alternatives to the Adobe Creative Suite. Vectr — Free Vector Graphics Software — Now @ Mac App Store. Hey there, Thank you for agreeing to spread the word about Vectr! Vectr is completely free, cross-platform and easy to use. Inkscape is a free and open source vector-based image editor that offers an alternative to Adobe Illustrator for those users on a budget. The Free Vector-Based Graphics Editor Free Image Editor Is Perfect for Designers on a Budget. Share Pin Email. Free Open Source Image Editors for Windows, Mac, and Linux. Let’s start with the best cross-platform vector editor – Inkscape.This is a free open-source program with an amazing set of features.Inkscape is used by many professional designers and is a full-fledged desktop vector editor available for Linux, Windows, and Mac OS. There are plenty of vector editing applications on a Mac and EPS is a very common file format. Adobe Illustrator is the software of choice for many design professionals. I am a creative professional with 15 years of experience in art direction, web design and vector illustration.

How to get Adobe Illustrator for free? There are many open source vector graphics editor with capabilities similar to Adobe Illustrator and CorelDraw, why pay for a commercial software when the free open source alternatives are as good as the paid version?

Alternative Article ➤ 7 Free Online Photoshop Alternative Photo Editor

A number of vector graphics editors exist for various platforms. Potential users of these editors will make a decision based on factors such as the availability for the user’s platform. Below is a complete list of the best Adobe Illustrator alternatives. If you are a poor student, a small business owner or a print shop owner, just give these free illustrator alternatives a try and avoid pirated software from torrent.

↓ 01 – Inkscape | Open Source | macOS | Windows | Linux

Inkscape is a professional vector graphics editor for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. It’s free and open source. It is an open-source vector graphics editor similar to Adobe Illustrator, Corel Draw, Freehand, or Xara X. What sets Inkscape apart is its use of Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG), an open XML-based W3C standard, as the native format.

Inkscape supports many advanced SVG features (markers, clones, alpha blending, etc.) and great care is taken in designing a streamlined interface. It is very easy to edit nodes, perform complex path operations, trace bitmaps and much more. We also aim to maintain a thriving user and developer community by using open, community-oriented development. Works great on Microsoft’s Windows 10 and Apple’s macOS.

• Fully anti-aliased display
• Alpha transparency support for display and PNG export
• Complete “as you drag” rendering of objects during interactive transformations
• Live watching and editing the document tree in the XML editor
• PNG and PostScript export
• Command line options for export and conversions
• Perfectly compliant SVG format file generation and editing

↓ 02 – Krita | Open Source | macOS | Windows | Linux

Krita is a professionalm free and open source cross-platform application that offers an end-to-end solution for creating digital art files from scratch. Krita is optimized for frequent, prolonged and focused use. Explicitly supported fields of painting are illustrations, concept art, matte painting, textures, comics and animations. Developed together with users, Krita is an application that supports their actual needs and workflow. Krita supports open standards and interoperates with other applications.

It is made by artists that want to see affordable art tools for everyone. Krita is a complete creative sketching and painting application with advanced, commercial quality features. Krita has been in development for over 10 years and has had an explosion in growth recently. It offers many common and innovative features to help the amateur and professional alike.

Free Vector Editor For Mac

• Full Color Management – Krita supports full color management through LCMS for ICC and OpenColor IO for EXR, allowing you to incorporate Krita into your existing color management pipeline. Or let it be the start of one: Krita comes with a wide variety of icc working space profiles for every need, with a color space browser to visualise and explore them.
• OpenGL Enhanced – Krita takes advantages of OpenGL for some of its operations. With OpenGL enabled, you will see increased canvas rotation and zooming speed. The canvas will also look better when zoomed out.
• PSD Support – Open PSD files that even Photoshop cannot open. Load and save to PSD when you need to take your artwork across different programs.
• HDR Support – Krita is the only dedicated painting application that lets you open, save, edit and author HDR and scene-referred images. Furthermore, with OCIO and OpenEXR support, you can manipulate the view to examine HDR images, and use it in the most cutting edge workflows from the film and visual effects industries.

↓ 03 – Microsoft Expression Design | Free | Windows

Although discontinued, Microsoft Expression Design is a really good professional illustration vector and raster graphic design tool for web images based on Creature House Expression, which was acquired by Microsoft. Expression Design is a tool for creative professionals and developers who want to build graphics for application user interfaces, the web, or any other medium.

The convenience and ease of editing vector graphics in Expression Design can be a cornerstone of your Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), Microsoft Silverlight, and web images. Whether you’re a veteran professional illustrator, a designer building a dazzling website, or a budding artist eagerly experimenting with various styles and techniques, you will find Expression Design an indispensable tool for your creative tasks.

• Drawing: pencil tool (freehand drawing with simple paths), pen tool (creating Bezier curves and straight lines), calligraphy tool (freehand drawing using filled paths representing calligraphic strokes)
• Shape tools: rectangles (may have rounded corners), ellipses (includes circles, arcs, segments), stars/polygons (can be rounded and/or randomized), spirals
• Text tool (multiline text, full on-canvas editing)
• Embedded bitmaps (with a command to create and embed bitmaps of selected objects)
• Clones (“live” linked copies of objects), including a tool to create patterns and arrangements of clones

↓ 04 – Vectr | Free | macOS | Windows | Linux

Vectr is a free graphics editor that you can use to create vector graphics – graphics that are scalable without the loss of resolution – easily and intuitively. Instead of using pixels, vector graphics use mathematical equations to draw your design. Of course, Vectr performs the math behind-the-scenes, so the only thing you need to focus on is what you’re creating.

Vectr is available online and on your desktop across multiple platforms, allowing for live collaboration and synchronization anytime, anywhere, and with anyone. With Vectr’s easy-to-use interface, anyone can unleash their creativity as an illustrator or graphic designer – we’ll show you how in no time.

• Node editing: moving nodes and Bezier handles, node alignment and distribution, etc.
• Converting to path (for text objects or shapes), including converting stroke to path
• Boolean operations
• Path simplification, with variable threshold
• Path insetting and outsetting, including dynamic and linked offset objects
• Bitmap tracing (both color and b/w)

↓ 05 – Boxy SVG | Free [ Limited] | macOS | All Chrome Browser

Boxy SVG is a Scalable Vector Graphics Editor. Vector graphics editor simillar to Adobe Illustrator®, Sketch™ and Inkscape™. Made with and for the modern Web Platform. Can do illustrations, icons, banners, mockups, charts, buttons and more. Works on Chrome OS, OS X, Linux, Windows and even inside the web browser.

• Affine transformations (moving, scaling, rotating, skewing), both interactively and by specifying exact numeric values
• Z-order operations
• Grouping objects, with a way to “select in group” without ungrouping, or “enter the group” making it a temporary layer
• Layers, with a way to lock and/or hide individual layers, rearrange them, etc; layers can form a hierarchical tree
• Copying and pasting objects
• Alignment and distribution commands

↓ 06 – Gravit | Free | macOS | Windows | Linux

UPDATE: Gravit is not free anymore. Meet Gravit – the cutting-edge design app that will take your creativity to new heights. Gravit offers the creative possibilities of a full-scale design suite – but in a snug app-sized package. Powerful yet easy-to-handle, Gravit has been custom designed from the ground up with an emphasis on versatility, fluidity and elegance – complex design tasks are made simple through its robust suite of tools and highly responsive smart work environment. Express yourself in a new way with Gravit – the new must-have tool for today’s pioneering design professionals! The Most Complete Design Platform. Create and share beautiful designs with the power, flexibility and speed of a free, lightweight and easy-to-use tool, right in your browser.

Adobe Illustrator, now in it's 21st version with CC 2017, is the daddy when it comes to the creating and editing of Scalable Vector Graphics. First shipping for the Apple Macintosh way back in the January of 1987, Adobe Illustrator is as mature and feature packed as they come.

In the May of 2012 Adobe's monthly and yearly subscriptions went live as Adobe Creative Cloud, sold alongside Creative Suite 6, allowing choice amongst designers between a one-time expense or a cheaper, subscription-based model that allowed them to stretch out their finances better in the short term.

However a year later, Adobe announced that they were going subscription only across their entire portfolio of graphic design products. CS was dead, leaving Creative Cloud as the only option for a graphic design software for graphic designers to stick to their much-loved Adobe products and use their old file formats. Of course, they can go and subscribe to Illustrator CC at any time but maybe they want to save the money and switch to another vector graphics editor instead.

But all was not bad, Adobe has recently announced that they have smashed their sales and subscriptions projections more than a quarter earlier than expected and the customers are happy too, getting the same great Adobe software with a more constant stream of updates and added features, albeit at a larger cost long term.

However, we here at VectorGuru became very interested in the potential Illustrator alternatives, programs that could compete with Illustrator in both features and price and have decided to create this list of the Top Adobe Illustrator Alternatives some of them free and open source some of them are paid.

You will find a range of programs to suit any need you may have, covering whatever operating system that you are on, be it macOS, Windows or Linux, there is something here for everybody. Ranging from free alternative and from No Cost upwards, there is also something for the budget conscious or those just curious to see what else is out there.

Lets start with our list of software and services as an alternative to Illustrator.

Gravit

Gravit is a web alternative for Illustrator that runs directly in your browser and which offers all of the main features you would expect from a vector editor. You can export your art in JPG, PNG or SVG. Additionally all of your raw files are backed up by Gravit into their Gravit-Cloud – its a really awesome tool.

The user interface is extremely easy to use with an easy learning curve for those who already have some experience in Vector Editing, however, it shouldn’t take long for the newcomer to master Gravit.

Gravit can also be added as an extension to the Chrome browser.

• Website: Gravit
• Price: Free
• Compatibility: Web App for all platforms

Vecteezy Editor

Vecteezy Editor is a fully featured yet easy to use browser-based Vector Editing tool. Pre-loaded with over 800 fonts and over 25,000 design elements, Vecteezy editor has an almost infinite about of customization options.

Built directly into their website, Vecteezy Editor allows you to not only customise Vectors you choose from Vecteezy themselves, but to also upload and edit your own before downloading in SVG, PNG or JPG formats. Its a great image editing tool and works on Windows Mac and everything running a Webbrowser.

Built with ease of use in mind, Vecteezy Editor is as simple as point and click for beginners but has more than sufficient tools to be used by any graphic professional looking for a free and easy way to modify their Vectors.

• Website: Vecteezy Editor
• Price: Free
• Compatibility: Web App for All Platforms

Gravit Designer 3.1

Gravit Designer finally has native apps with Gravit Designer 3.1. Available on multiple platforms including macOS, Windows 10 and Linux.

As a native app, Gravit Designer is is able to get around some of the limitations of the web app version, such as managing multiple pages in one document and accessing System Fonts. The user interface has also had a makeover, making it much more detailed and mature in comparison to the original Gravit and with both Light and Dark mode, working at night is no longer hard on your eyes and with new Gravit Cloud integration you can now use your files across all platforms and online!

Check out our standalone Gravit Designer 3.1 Review and find out all about this latest update!

• Website: Gravit Designer 3.1
• Price: Free
• Compatibility: macOS, Windows 10, Linux, Chrome OS. Web App for all Platforms

Vectr – good Online Illustrator Alternative

Vectr is in the same calibre as Gravit Designer, coming as a native app on Windows, macOS, Linux and as a web app and the functionality is equal to that of Gravit Designer. Its actually one of the best web based illustrator alternative.

However, Vectr does have an ace up its sleeve, it's plan, to be the google docs of vector editing, allowing teams to share the same instance and edit things together!

The Vectr web app is currently only running fully in the Chrome browser, however it has a plug in available that allows for offline functionality.
Each graphic in Vectr is given its own unique URL and these can then be embedded in existing designs that will then change according to any changes made to the source file. Vectr also supports multiple pages and works directly with the SVG format. It also let you do vector drawing and gives you the option to edit scalable vector files.

The user interface of Vectr has a very Adobe feel to it, making it a fairly smooth transition and they also offer a plug in that allows for direct editing of a vector in WordPress. You will also find that the creators of Vectr feel that documentation is of the highest importance and you will find video tutorials that explain most things, making it as easy for new comers to learn as it is for those coming from Adobe or one it's other competitors.

• Website: Vectr
• Price: Free
• Compatibility: macOS, Windows and Linux. Web App for all platforms

Inkscape – Best Free Illustrator Alternative

After over 2 years of development, Inkscape has recently released version 0.92 of its Vector Editor. But with the amount of innovation, the 2 years of development time is completely understandable.

Inkscape have made it a priority to be standard compliant and in order to stay within the rules of the CSS standard, the resolution has been changed from 90 to 96 dpi and the software itself provides multiple options for converting older Inkscape files to work with the newer standard. Mainly the developers have been focusing on displaying as many as SVG2 and CSS3 properties as possible, however not all of these properties can be changed via the user interface. Also, complex grid trajectories do not require any kind of tricks, plug ins or special settings, they work perfectly as a standard function.

As open source software, Inkscape is available free of charge across all the platforms its created for, including macOS, Windows and Linux.

Inkscape is the oldest piece of software on our list and its user interface reflects this, being more complex than others, however it plays in the front of the pack when it comes to features. We did not include the free graphic software Gimp here, because it is not very well working with vector file formats such as SVG or EPS.

• Website: Inkscape
• Price: Free
• Compatibility: macOS, Windows and Linux

Xara Photo & Graphic Design 365

Xara Photo and Design is an easy to use, quick to learn software similar to CorelDRAW and Inkscape in regards to its interface and with full compliance to industry standards, Xara is quite a capable tool for all the graphic designers out there.

With many great features including non-destructive photo handling, intelligent scaling and a built in bit map tracer, all built in to one easy to use package, Xara is definitely worth checking out.

• Website: Xara Photo & Graphics Designer
• Price: $69.99 with one year of updates.
• Compatibility: Windows

Let's Check Out Some More Known and Unknown Alternatives to Adobe Illustrator

BoxySVG

BoxySVG is a free solution for the fast processing of SVG files. Visually the app follows a gamers approach, which gives it great ease of use however limits the features set.

Coming as a native app for macOS and as a Chrome Extension, you can also visit the website to get an overview of the functionality and learn the basics with tutorials, editable demo's with prefabricated SVG files for you to practice with.

In addition to SVG and SVGZ formats, which you can import and export with BoxySVG and the app also supports JPG and PNG formats too. Working purely on its value as an SVG editor, BoxySVG is definitely one to give a try!

• Website: BoxySVG
• Price: Free
• Compatibility: macOS, Web App for all Platforms

SVG-Edit

SVG-Edit is a web app based on HTML, CSS and JavaScript and is mainly targeted towards people who want to edit their SVG files on the web.

With no server side functionality, SVG-Edit requires you to download the tool from Github, however it will run locally in any semi-modern web browser. It's recommended that you have at least some basic knowledge of web development before tackling SVG-Edit.

• Website: Demo – Github
• Price: Free
• Compatibility: Web App for All Platforms

Affinity Designer

Affinity Designer is a commercial alternative to Adobe Illustrator. Created by Serif, Affinity Designer started out as a macOS only app, however since November 2016 Affinity Designer has been cross platform, working on both macOS and Windows with exactly the same functionality.

In version 1.5, Affinity Designer expanded its target group to include interface and web designers. The software itself providing complete symbol and asset management, and features such as snapping or forcing defined alignments, making it that much easier for web designers to work with and with a user interface similar to Illustrator, Affinity Designer is very easy for those with previous knowledge to pick up and has it's own handy approaches to help you with whatever your task for the day is.

Affinity Designer works with what they call personas, such as the export persona, with which you can control the export of your work in a variety of formats and resolutions. Affinity designer will also take care of backing up and creating folders too.

Currently available in 8 languages, English (US and UK localisation), German, French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese (Brazilian), Japanese and Chinese (Simplified), Affinity Designer will select the correct language at start up and you can also change it yourself through the apps preferences page.

• Website: Affinity Designer
• Price: 49.99 Euros
• Compatibility: macOS and Windows

CorelDRAW X8

CorelDRAW was much more widespread in earlier years than it is today, but with is richness in features and development maturity it still has its loyal followers and has allowed CoralDRAW to keep its hard earned place in the market.

Following with Adobe's pricing structure, CorelDRAW allows you to purchase a licence or subscribe to a monthly subscription service. However, CorelDRAW is sold as a suit of programs, including their Photoshop alternative Photo-Paint X8, a Font Manager, PowerTrace for vectorising, Capture to create Screenshots and a Website Creator for putting together websites. Also included is thousands of cliparts, images, fonts, templates, fillings, frames and patterns, making for a great value package.

• Website: CorelDRAW X8
• Price: 699 Euros or 19.95 Euros per month for their subscription package.
• Compatibility: Windows

Sketch

If your designing on your Mac, there are really only 2 main commercial competitors to Adobe and Sketch is one of them.

Sketch works with an open API that allows anybody to develop plug ins. with this in place, Sketch has developed an extremely active community very quickly who share Templates, Tutorials, Plug ins and much more

• Website: Sketch
• Price: 114.84 Euros per year (If you want updates after the 12 months are over)
• Compatibility: macOS

Autodesk Graphic for Mac

Some older Mac users may recognise the name iDraw, a few years ago iDraw was purchased by Autodesk and rebranded to Autodesk Graphic.

Graphic allows for quick modifications of vector graphics in a low priced package, however the Mac version has not ben updated since October 2015 and are unaware of any being in the works.

Autodesk does however take good care of the iOS version, specifically for the iPad Pro, iPad and iPhone with iOS users and with iCloud support, you are able to edit your vectors in the office or on the go with your changes synchronised across all devices.

On the Mac, Graphic supports the importing and exporting of files in SVG, PDF and Photoshops proprietary PSD formats.

• Website: Autodesk Graphic
• Price: macOS 29.99 Euros, iOS 8.99 Euros
• Compatibility: macOS, iOS (Purchased Separately)

Final Thoughts on the Top Adobe Illustrator Alternative

So there you have it, that was our list of The top Adobe Illustrator Alternatives. And now that you've picked up some great software, why not have a look for some cheap, high-quality vector graphics to play with? You need vector graphics to give this babies a try? Our friends over at VectorFresh recently opened their doors and have an Early Bird Discount of 55% on their yearly subscription, here's a quick run down of the benefits:

• One year membership, 1,200 images and no limit on your daily downloads (Up to 100 per month) for $49, that's a huge 55% discount!
• All of the Vector Graphics on offer are in .EPS format and can be completely customised.
• All of the shapes can be easily resized with no loss in quality.
• All of the illustrations on offer can be used for commercial purposes, for yourself or on behalf of a client.
• They can also be used on their own or as part of a larger project.

Free Offline Vector Editor For Mac Os

So go ahead and check out VectorFresh today, or use our handy search bar below to find the perfect vector graphic for you.

Free Vector Drawing Software For Mac Os X

Happy Editing!