Adobe Illustrator
Ranked 2 of 8 vector graphics editors by recommenders
Industry-standard vector editor that people say has no close alternative and works well with other Adobe apps. Main caveats are Adobe's subscription cost and recurring bugs.
Industry-standard vector editor that people say has no close alternative and works well with other Adobe apps. Main caveats are Adobe's subscription cost and recurring bugs.
37 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 17
- criticize it
- 20
- approval share
- 46%
Recommended in 10 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 17 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 0.8 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 10 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Industry standard with no close alternative
“Adobe sucks but no alternative comes even close to Photoshop and Illustrator.”
Comment from 1 Aug 2026 in “Glyphs 4 – the leading Mac font editor” “Photohsop, Illustrator and After Effects are pretty much industry standards.”
Comment from 13 Jan 2026 in “Apple Creator Studio” “Still, After Effect, Illustrator, Indesign are very good.”
Comment from 19 Apr 2026 in “The creative software industry has declared war on Adobe” - Comment from 22 Jan 2026 in “Why does SSH send 100 packets per keystroke?”
- Comment from 19 Nov 2025 in “Blender 5.0”
Works well with other Adobe apps
“designs can be done in illustrator and imported as DXF”
Comment from 26 Jan 2026 in “Running the Stupid Cricut Software on Linux” “At least Adobe file formats are well documented”
Comment from 21 Jul 2026 in “Apple has decided to compete for creativity app users” “it works great with Illustrator”
Comment from 6 May 2026 in “Why Most Product Tours Get Skipped” Strong professional tools for precise drawing
“Adobe Illustrator with the $30 Silhouette plug in on a Silhouette 4 worked close to as well as the dedicated software and hardware I used professionally”
Comment from 29 Nov 2025 in “Building road signs at home using a Cricut Machine” “pro-level manual Photoshop or Illustrator editing for individual elements in an image”
Comment from 10 Jun 2026 in “Rich Sutton on AI creativity and discovery” “its line drawing was pretty good”
Comment from 12 Jan 2026 in “OLED Not for Me” Better than Inkscape
“the foundations seem to be much worse than Illustrator”
Comment from 22 Jan 2026 in “Why does SSH send 100 packets per keystroke?” “Illustrator is still much better than Inkscape.”
Comment from 19 Nov 2025 in “Blender 5.0”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Bugs and performance problems
“Apple Silicon support was really bad for a couple of years (tons of GPU issues in Illustrator) but I will admit it's better now.”
Comment from 13 Jul 2026 in “An Infuriating Goodbye to Photoshop” “Lots of problems in Adobe Creative Cloud on Win 11 (primarily Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator) in recent months too.”
Comment from 15 Jul 2026 in “Ask HN: Is it just me, or is software buggier across the board?” “Adobe Illustrator and InDesign were major pain points on the Windows side”
Comment from 1 Jun 2026 in “Surface Laptop Ultra: Made for World Makers” - Comment from 13 Oct 2026 in “Where is all the new, good software?”
Costly Adobe subscription
“I may loathe Adobe and wish I didn't have to pay them another dime”
Comment from 9 Oct 2026 in “No Man Is an Island” “$264/year each for Illustrator, After Effects, Premiere, InDesign”
Comment from 19 Apr 2026 in “The creative software industry has declared war on Adobe” Missing features compared with Figma
“Something Adobe Illustrator has failed to do (without bending over backwards) for thirtynine years!”
Comment from 26 Oct 2026 in “Show HN: TitleArt – Make text like it's 1997” “IMO working with groups in Figma is much more powerful than illustrator”
Comment from 7 Feb 2026 in “Show HN: I spent 4 years building a UI design tool with only the features I use” “It's unfortunate there's not a real Illustrator equivalent”
Comment from 21 Jul 2026 in “Apple has decided to compete for creativity app users” Dislike of Adobe as a company
“Adobe sucks but no alternative comes even close to Photoshop and Illustrator.”
Comment from 1 Aug 2026 in “Glyphs 4 – the leading Mac font editor” “Illustrator users were much more frustrated with Adobe”
Comment from 5 Oct 2026 in “ArtCraft Apps – open-source Adobe compatible suite written in Rust”
Other vector graphics editors people recommend
The four most recommended other vector graphics editors, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Inkscape | 95 | 24 | 80% | 12 | — | Approved |
| Adobe IllustratorThis page | 17 | 20 | 46% | 10 | — | — |
| Affinity Designer | 14 | 3 | 82% | 9 | — | Approved |
| SVG Path Editor | 8 | 0 | 100% | 2 | — | — |
| VectorNest | 8 | 1 | 89% | 1 | — | — |
What people said
39 of the 43 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“Something Adobe Illustrator has failed to do (without bending over backwards) for thirtynine years!”
“There are still issues with preparing work in Illustrator”
“Illustrator had idiotic bugs that surely costed millions in misprints.”
“I may loathe Adobe and wish I didn't have to pay them another dime”
“Illustrator users were much more frustrated with Adobe”
“focused on allowing professionals to be extremely efficient using their array of powerful keyboard shortcuts”
“Adobe sucks but no alternative comes even close to Photoshop and Illustrator.”
“I have this problem with the Creative Cloud Applications that I only used when I am under distress”
“bloated files from Adobe Illustrator”
“Illustrator is print-centric and awkward for the use case”
“At least Adobe file formats are well documented”
“It's unfortunate there's not a real Illustrator equivalent”
“Lots of problems in Adobe Creative Cloud on Win 11 (primarily Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator) in recent months too.”
“By 2014 everything was an unstable mess.”
“Apple Silicon support was really bad for a couple of years (tons of GPU issues in Illustrator) but I will admit it's better now.”
“they come out of an old time when they were expected to work on machines with a fraction”
“pro-level manual Photoshop or Illustrator editing for individual elements in an image”
“Adobe Illustrator and InDesign were major pain points on the Windows side”
“A compatibility layer like Inkscape does for illustrator”
“50MB SVG's I get from Illustrator experts”
“it works great with Illustrator”
“$264/year each for Illustrator, After Effects, Premiere, InDesign”
“Still, After Effect, Illustrator, Indesign are very good.”
“They keep adding bloat instead of focusing on usability.”
“Want vector editing? $40/mo now.”
“the necessary evil of MS Office/Illustrator”
“why Adobe Illustrator allows that is a separate discussion”
“IMO working with groups in Figma is much more powerful than illustrator”
“Only Illustrator seems to offer group isolation.”
“designs can be done in illustrator and imported as DXF”
“the foundations seem to be much worse than Illustrator”
“Adobe icons are terrible and should not be the standard”
“Photohsop, Illustrator and After Effects are pretty much industry standards.”
“its line drawing was pretty good”
“in Fusion and Illustrator it's not text that's the issue but lines/graphics”
“kerning is usually pretty bad with Serifed fonts”
“Illustrator crashes randomly.”
“Adobe Illustrator with the $30 Silhouette plug in on a Silhouette 4 worked close to as well as the dedicated software and hardware I used professionally”
“Illustrator is still much better than Inkscape.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.