Brandon Thomas, the developer behind ArtCraft, has published ten open-source apps written in Rust that recreate Adobe’s main creative tools and Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint, and says he built them with Anthropic’s Claude Opus 5.5. The seven Adobe apps sit in repositories created on September 30 and October 1, 2026; the three Office apps followed on October 7. When we read GitHub at 23:39 UTC on October 11, the ten repositories held 103,214 stars between them. His own description, on Hacker News on October 5: “These are still super early alpha. All MIT/Apache licensed. No telemetry.”
The story went viral twice: first as “AI cloned Adobe” (one relay on X passed 1.2 million views), then again this weekend as he moved on to Office. Here is what is in the repositories, what he says about how he built them, and what nobody has shown yet.
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Brandon Thomas, the developer behind ArtCraft, published seven open-source Rust apps recreating Adobe’s main tools, then three for Microsoft Office, in repositories created between September 30 and October 7, 2026.
The Adobe set is PhotoCraft, VectorCraft, FilmCraft, LightCraft, EffectCraft, DesignCraft and PdfCraft; the Office set is WordCraft, GridCraft and DeckCraft.
The ten repositories held 103,214 GitHub stars at 23:39 UTC on October 11, 46% of them on PhotoCraft alone.
He says he built them with Claude Opus 5.5. The READMEs call them clean-room reimplementations under MIT or Apache-2.0, which is the project’s description, not a legal finding.
He calls them super early alpha and full parity a goal, so none is a working replacement for Creative Cloud or Office yet.
Neither Adobe nor Microsoft had commented publicly as of October 11. CellCog’s AI software engineer runs on the same model, Claude Opus 5.5.
§ 01The ten apps
| App | Recreates | Repository created | Stars | Forks |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| PhotoCraft | Photoshop | September 30 | 47,455 | 7,570 |
| LightCraft | Lightroom | September 30 | 10,164 | 3,447 |
| FilmCraft | Premiere Pro | September 30 | 10,063 | 3,922 |
| PdfCraft | Acrobat | September 30 | 9,588 | 3,594 |
| VectorCraft | Illustrator | September 30 | 7,070 | 3,141 |
| WordCraft | Word | October 7 | 5,812 | 1,704 |
| EffectCraft | After Effects | October 1 | 5,169 | 2,501 |
| DesignCraft | InDesign | October 1 | 2,987 | 1,901 |
| GridCraft | Excel | October 7 | 2,892 | 1,192 |
| DeckCraft | PowerPoint | October 7 | 2,014 | 1,029 |
The Adobe seven hold 92,496 stars and the Office three 10,718. PhotoCraft alone has 46% of the total. Each README describes its app the same way; PhotoCraft’s reads “an open-source, clean-room reimplementation of Adobe Photoshop, rebuilt in pure Rust”, and the badges say macOS, Windows, Linux, FreeBSD and the web, MIT or Apache-2.0, early alpha. The PDF app is PdfCraft in its repository, though some coverage still calls it PrintCraft.
§ 02How he says he built them
Ars Technica reported on October 7 that Thomas announced the apps on Reddit the weekend of October 3 and said he used Claude Opus 5.5 to create “clean-room replacements” for Adobe’s software. ArtCraft itself is older: Ars describes it as a “controllable AI for artists” that started last year, pivoting into this suite. Ars’s own verdict sits in its subhead: the apps are “ambitious, free, and nowhere near finished.”
Clean-room means writing new code from observed behavior and public documentation without reading the original source. That is how the project describes its method; it is not a legal finding, and the repositories say the ArtCraft name and logos are not covered by the open-source license. In the same October 5 comment Thomas set the next targets: “I’m going to do Microsoft Office, AutoCAD, and Solidworks too.” Office arrived two days later.
§ 03What is established and what is not
| Claim | Status |
|---|---|
| Ten open-source Rust apps exist, seven for Adobe tools and three for Office | Confirmed: the repositories, read via the GitHub API |
| Licensed MIT or Apache-2.0 | Confirmed by the READMEs; GitHub’s detector shows Apache-2.0 |
| Built with Claude Opus 5.5 | His statement, relayed by Ars Technica; no build log published |
| Feature parity with Photoshop, Word and the rest | Not claimed: he calls them early alpha and parity a goal |
| Built in about a week | Repositories date from September 30; ArtCraft as a company is older |
| Decompiled from Adobe’s software | Contradicted by the project, which says clean-room |
| A response from Adobe or Microsoft | None found as of October 11 |
§ 04Why it spread
The loudest reading came from the All-In podcast. Chamath Palihapitiya said “I think that IP and software was effectively rendered worthless two days ago.” and described the work as decompiling Adobe’s five main products, which is not how the project describes itself. Eric S. Raymond wrote “I said Microsoft and Excel were going to be next.” Thomas’s own line, posted October 10: “LOC/headcount is no longer a moat”.
The honest read sits between those. Ten repositories in early alpha are not a replacement for Creative Cloud or Office today. What is new is that one developer can stand up credible-looking starting points for ten mature desktop apps in about two weeks, and invite others to finish them.
§ 05Where CellCog sits
Our conflict, declared: we build CellCog, where businesses hire AI employees, including software engineers. Every CellCog tier runs on Claude Opus 5.5, the model Thomas says he used. That is the only overlap we claim; we did not build or test ArtCraft.
§ 06What we are watching
- Any statement from Adobe or Microsoft, or a takedown request against the repositories.
- A first release Thomas calls beta, and whether real PSD and DOCX files round-trip.
- The AutoCAD and SolidWorks targets he named on October 5.
§ 07Update log
- October 11, 2026: page opened.
§ 08Sources
- ArtCraft repositories, github.com/storytold, read via the GitHub API October 11, 2026, 23:39 UTC; PhotoCraft README, WordCraft README.
- Brandon Thomas on Hacker News, October 5, 2026, and on X as @echelon, October 10, 2026.
- Ars Technica, Bold AI developer takes aim at Adobe with open source clones, October 7, 2026.
- The All-In Podcast on X, Chamath clip; Eric S. Raymond on X, October 11, 2026.
Q1Who is Brandon Thomas?
An Atlanta-based software developer and the founder of ArtCraft, which Ars Technica describes as a controllable AI tool for artists that started last year before pivoting into this suite.
Q2Is ArtCraft legal?
The project describes the apps as clean-room reimplementations, written from behavior and public material without the original source code, under MIT or Apache-2.0. That is its own description, not a court’s. Adobe and Microsoft had not commented as of October 11.
Q3Did he decompile Adobe's software?
The project says no: its READMEs describe clean-room reimplementations. The decompiling description came from a podcast comment, not from the repositories.
Q4How popular is ArtCraft on GitHub?
The ten repositories held 103,214 stars at 23:39 UTC on October 11, 2026, with PhotoCraft at 47,455.
Q5Does CellCog use the same model?
Yes. Every CellCog tier runs on Claude Opus 5.5, the model Thomas says he used. We did not build or test ArtCraft. We build CellCog, so read that answer as ours.