Let’s break this down a little further. But when it comes to Illustrator vs Inkscape, there’s not nearly as much disparity between the two programs. This is by no means an indictment on the GIMP team. And rightly so! Photoshop is the flagship product of a $100 billion corporation. It’s not like the comparison you would make between something like Photoshop and GIMP, where, as much as I love GIMP, Photoshop is clearly more extensive. Believe it or not, both applications are actually quite similar and equally capable.Inkscape opens the door a little wider for hobbyists and anyone who may have a passing interest in vector design, who may not be able to justify spending money on something they’re not quite sure they’ll like yet.As of the date of this post, Adobe’s recommended hardware specifications for running Illustrator are a multi core processor, 16 GB of memory, and a GPU with 4 GB of VRAM.Inkscape, on the other hand, runs just fine on much less than that. And the reason why I think that’s so important doesn’t have as much to do with money as it does with how accessible that makes it. It’s made by a team of passionate volunteers who built it as a labor of love. Illustrator is sold on a monthly/yearly subscription-based pricing model, whereas Inkscape is just completely free. No more Bootcamp, Parallels or switching between a PC and Mac, well, yes.First and foremost, the thing that I love most about Inkscape is its low barrier to entry.If you’re a casual user who just wants to experiment with vector design, not only do you not have to purchase software, but you won’t have to purchase expensive components either. And if you compare that to 2020’s standards, the technology has come far enough that pretty much any consumer-grade laptop should run Inkscape relatively well.This reinforces my previous point about Inkscape having a lower barrier to entry. It didn’t exactly run Inkscape with ease, but it did run well enough for me to be productive with it.It just feels so needlessly complicated and counter-intuitive. FunctionalityIn this section I’m going to get into some of the features and functionality in Inkscape that I really like, starting with gradients.If there’s one thing I can’t stand about Illustrator, it’s working with gradients. If you go back and watch some of my older videos on my YouTube channel you’ll see that I’m a former Ubuntu user myself, and Inkscape ran just fine. In fact, Inkscape seems to run better in a Linux environment. You can run Illustrator on Windows and Mac, but if you’re a Linux user then you’re out of luck, but that’s okay because Inkscape is here for you. Operating SystemAnother advantage Inkscape has is that it’s available on all three operating systems, which is something that can’t be said for Illustrator.
![]() ![]() I can’t think of a single scenario in which their method of working with gradients is more productive. Working with gradients in Inkscape is more efficient.I don’t understand why Illustrator doesn’t use a similar approach. It doesn’t even take much time to learn how it works because it all just feels so intuitive. You can edit the gradients directly on the canvas, add and remove stops, change colors, and move the handles around easily. Inkscape lets you do all of these things with just a single tool. There’s the Direct Selection tool, the Anchor Points tool, the Add Anchor Points tool, and the Remove Anchor Points tool. It’s a single tool that allows you to edit the nodes of an object — otherwise known as Anchor Points in Illustrator — in every conceivable way.Illustrator also allows you to edit anchor points, but for whatever reason it’s divided up among several tools. Nodes/Anchor PointsAnother thing I like about Inkscape is the Edit Paths By Nodes tool. It requires an extra click, and it also requires both hands. In Illustrator you have to press down the space bar, and then click and drag your mouse. All you have to do is press down the mouse wheel and move the mouse around. Navigating around the canvas in Inkscape is just easier. Which Is Better Illustrator For Windows Or ? How To Use SomethingEven if you don’t plan on ever becoming employed as a designer, it is good to know that you have that option to fall back on as a plan B.As far as Inkscape goes, I’ve never heard of an employer that requires you to know Inkscape, nor have I ever seen it listed as a job requirement. So learning how to use something as prominent as Illustrator vs Inkscape can give you an enormous advantage. If you want to be employed in the graphic design industry, whether it be by a studio, an agency, a media company, or even a print shop, they’re most likely going to require you to be proficient with the Adobe family of software, which includes Illustrator. What I Like About IllustratorNow I’m going to talk a little bit about what I like better about Adobe Illustrator vs Inkscape.First and foremost, Adobe software is the industry standard. When you think about it in terms of an 8 hour work day, these little things do add up. Navigating the canvas with Inkscape only takes 1 click and 1 hand.I know that sounds like a silly comparison to make, but it’s really not. You are a paying customer after all.Inkscape, on the other hand, is supported by volunteers and independent content creators like myself, and we’re not yet as big of a community as the Illustrator community is. Even if you can’t, just reach out to their support team. So if you’re running into any kind of problems or technical issues, you can probably find a solution relatively easy. Support & DocumentationAnother thing I really like about Illustrator vs Inkscape is that there’s a lot more support and documentation widely available online. Once you have a basic understanding of how Illustrator works, it becomes much easier to learn Photoshop or Premiere Pro because a lot of the basic functions are the same. CompatibilityOne benefit you’ll certainly enjoy as an Illustrator user is how well it translates across the other Adobe applications. I’ve been working to change that by creating a lot of articles and videos that address some of the common problems Inkscape users have, but I’m only one person and there’s only so much I can do personally. Bluestacks app player zoom out for macThen you can just delete the unwanted objects individually.It’s still not as good as the Shape Builder tool though, so hopefully Inkscape will introduce something similar in the future. The closest you can get to something like that in Inkscape would be if you combined all of the objects together and then did a division path operation with another object, kind of like what I did in my tutorial about creating a golden ratio logo. FeaturesSo, let’s talk about some of the features that I really like in Illustrator vs Inkscape, the first of which would be the Shape Builder tool, which is my personal favorite feature in Illustrator.The Shape Builder tool is kind of like a live path effect that allows you to perform multiple path operations at once, and directly on the canvas. You can also do the same with creating paths in Photoshop to be worked on further in Illustrator later on.That’s not to say that you can’t work cross-platform with Inkscape and other open source applications like GIMP and Blender, you just won’t have that same ease of use and seamless compatibility that you get with the Adobe suite. ![]() Inkscape does have a batch export feature, but it’s only for PNG files. It allows you to export multiple objects, in multiple different file formats, all at once.Compare that to Inkscape where you have to save all of those files and formats individually, one-by-one. This is where the Batch Export feature really comes in handy.
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