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The end of software as a service

There was a time when creating good, reliable computer software was hard; and expensive.

Thanks to AI and the advent of "vibe coding" however, things have changed.

If you believe the hype, now anyone with a good idea and a few dollars can sit down and knock up a program to achieve almost anything their minds can imagine -- even if they've never previously cut a single line of code.

Simple itterative refinement using an AI agent has allowed total non-programmers to come up with bespoke software that addresses their own specific needs in a way that no off the shelf package could hope to.

This must surely bee a huge worry to traditional software development houses.

Perhaps a fantastic demonstration of the power of vibe coding and sheer determination is the situation with Adobe, one of the world's most recognised software developers.

Adobe is behind some of the world's most infamous software such as their oft-exploited PDF reader and the once notorious Flash browser plug-in.

These days however, most of their attention is focused on their "creator suite" which is only sold in a "software as a service" (SAAS) configuration, requiring a hefty monthly or annual fee rather than a one-time purchase.

This shift to SAAS has angered a lot of users, especially when they realise that there are very significant early-termination fees that come into play if they decide to cancel their subscription before it's due to run out. Even the "free trial" has caught out many folk who didn't realise that although the trial was free, cancelling it came at a cost.

One enterprising individual, having been stung by these cancelation fees, has decided that enough is enough and simply vibe-coded an entire suite of look-alike programs that he's released under an open source license on multiple OSes.

Brandon Thomas has done the hard yards (if that's possible with vibe-coding) and rolled out functional clones of Adobe's creative suite with slightly different names but a very similar user-interface and functionality. Those programs are:

• PhotoCraft (Photoshop alternative) — Image editing and manipulation
• LightCraft (Lightroom alternative) — Raw photo organization and grading
• FilmCraft (Premiere Pro alternative) — Video editing
• VectorCraft (Illustrator alternative) — Vector graphics and illustration
• PrintCraft (Acrobat Pro alternative) — PDF creation and management
• EffectCraft (After Effects alternative) — Motion graphics and visual effects
• DesignCraft (InDesign alternative) — Page layout and publishin

That's a lot of software!

When I first heard about this I figured that the vibed code would be little more than a fancy looking user-interface that looked the part but lacked any substantive back end to implement all those menu options.

While this is true to some extent, I've been surprised at just how much of the core functionality of the Adobe packages has actually been included. After a quick perusal, I'd say that these programs are about 85% complete and certainly quite practical for every-day use, so long as you accept some of their limitations.

For example, the equivalent of Adobe Premiere (FilmCraft) doesn't seem to be able to use a system's GPU for video encoding and decoding. This imposes some quite significant performance penalties when dealing with 4K footage on an average desktop computer. Even if you could afford an RTX5090, it would be sitting their idle while your computer's CPU melted under the strain.

Thomas has promised to continue development of these programs so we can expect to see at least some of that missing 15% added over time -- unless Adobe's lawyers get involved, which they almost certainly will.

There are many legal issues associated with this "clean room" implementation of these software equivalents. For example, he could fall foul of the EULA that he agreed to when he subscribed to Adobe's Creative Cloud service because hidden in that document is an undertaking not to reverse engineer any of the applications. That agreement even spells out that you can't produce a package that does the same processing on inputs to produce outputs -- a very broad brush indeed.

To be honest, it doesn't really matter what Adobe's lawyers do, Thomas has proven the practicality of simply vibe coding software instead of buying it. See a program you'd like but it's too expensive or only available on subscription? Fear not... a few hours with Claude and you'll have your very own functionally equivalent version that you own and the whole process will cost less than a year's subscription.

This could end the growth of SAAS from those companies who are being excessively greedy and that's a good thing.

I can't wait to see how this changes the face of the software industry. Exciting and litigious times ahead me thinks.

Carpe Diem folks!

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