Adobe is optimizing for its shareholders, not its users.
Price increases most years, a $150 million federal settlement over hidden cancellation fees, a Terms of Service clause users read as AI training rights over their own work, and a design tool left to wind down. None of this is rumor: it is the public record, cited below, from 2024 through 2026.
Last updated August 19, 2026
TL;DR
- Adobe raised Creative Cloud All Apps prices in 2023 and again in 2025 (rebranded as "Creative Cloud Pro"), up to 16.7% higher, justified by generative-AI features many users never asked for.
- In March 2026 Adobe agreed to a $150 million DOJ settlement for hiding early-termination fees and making cancellation deliberately hard.
- A February 2024 Terms of Service change sparked a viral backlash over AI training rights; Adobe clarified it does not train Firefly on customer content, but the trust damage lingered into 2026.
- Adobe XD is in maintenance mode with no new features, and 2026 brought a CEO exit, a CFO departure, and an Acrobat Reader zero-day exploited in the wild for months before patching.
Pick your Adobe product
Nine Creative Cloud apps, nine honest shortlists. Pick one for the full comparison.
Photoshop is $22.99/mo; Affinity's core app is now free
Adobe split Creative Cloud into $54.99 and $69.99 tiers and settled a $150M FTC case over hidden cancellation fees. Affinity's core editing tools, Photopea and GIMP now cover most of what casual users need at no cost.
Illustrator costs $22.99-59.99/mo. Affinity and Inkscape cost $0.
Illustrator runs $22.99/month alone or $59.99/month bundled into Creative Cloud, 7-day trial only. Affinity is now free after Canva's acquisition, Inkscape is free and open-source, and CorelDRAW still sells a $549 perpetual license for teams that want to own their software.
Premiere Pro costs $22.99/mo; DaVinci Resolve does the job for free
Editors are leaving Premiere Pro over subscription cost and heavy hardware demands, now that DaVinci Resolve offers a genuinely free, professional-grade alternative with no watermark or time limit.
Lightroom alternatives that skip the subscription treadmill
Six RAW editors compared on price, platforms and free tiers, from free open-source darktable to one-time-purchase ON1 Photo RAW and now-free Affinity Photo.
InDesign alternatives: free Affinity, QuarkXPress, Canva compared
InDesign runs $22.99/mo and takes weeks to learn. Affinity by Canva's core app is now free permanently, QuarkXPress offers a perpetual license, and Canva covers simple layouts for less.
Acrobat Pro is $19.99-$29.99/mo; Adobe just settled a $150M FTC case
Adobe agreed to pay $75M plus $75M in free services after the FTC sued over hidden cancellation fees. PDFgear is free, Foxit undercuts Acrobat Pro by half, and PDF-XChange offers a one-time license instead of a subscription.
After Effects alternatives: free node compositors to $49.99 Apple Motion
After Effects is $22.99+/month with only a 7-day trial. DaVinci Resolve's Fusion page, Blender and Cavalry are all free; Apple Motion is a one-time $49.99 for Mac.
XD is in maintenance mode: no new sign-ups, no new features since 2023
Adobe's own support page confirms XD gets bug and security fixes only, with no new subscriptions sold since June 2023. Figma, Sketch and Penpot are where teams are moving.
Audition alternatives: free and low-cost audio editors compared
Audition ties audio editing to a Creative Cloud subscription. Audacity and Ocenaudio are free, Reaper is a one-time license, and Descript or Hindenburg Pro fit podcasters better.
Why Adobe is failing its users
Six things happened between 2024 and 2026 that changed how creative professionals talk about Adobe. Each one is sourced to primary reporting or an official filing, not speculation.
Prices went up twice in three years
Creative Cloud All Apps rose from $54.99 to $59.99 a month in 2023, then Adobe rebranded the plan as "Creative Cloud Pro" in 2025 and raised annual-plan pricing again, to $69.99 a month, up to a 16.7% increase for some customers. Adobe points to bundled generative-AI features as the reason.
Fast CompanyA $150 million settlement over hidden cancellation fees
The DOJ and FTC sued Adobe in June 2024, alleging it buried an early-termination fee worth 50% of a customer's remaining monthly payments and made cancelling a subscription needlessly hard. Adobe settled in March 2026 for $150 million, split between civil penalties and free services to affected customers.
U.S. Department of JusticeA Terms of Service clause that read like an AI land grab
In February 2024, Adobe updated its Terms of Use to say it "may access your content through both automated and manual methods." A viral backlash followed in June, with creators fearing Adobe would train Firefly on private, even NDA-protected work. Adobe clarified it does not train generative AI on customer content except material submitted to Adobe Stock.
MalwarebytesAdobe XD has been left to wind down
Adobe stopped selling Adobe XD as a standalone subscription and closed it to new sign-ups on June 22, 2023, putting it into maintenance mode: security patches only, no new features. Six months later, Adobe's own $20 billion bid to acquire Figma, the tool XD users are now migrating to, collapsed under regulatory pressure. XD still has no published end-of-life date and no path forward for teams that depend on it.
MapsoftA CEO exit and a stock slide tied to AI doubts
Shantanu Narayen announced on March 12, 2026 that he will step down after 18 years as CEO once a successor is found. The announcement came amid a steep 2026 stock decline as investors questioned whether Adobe's AI investments were translating into revenue against faster-moving AI-native competitors.
CNBCAI-training lawsuits followed the users into 2025
In December 2025, authors Douglas Preston and Abdi Nazemian filed a proposed class action alleging Adobe trained its Firefly and SlimLM AI models on copyrighted books from the pirated "Books3" dataset without permission. Adobe denies the claims and says it follows ethical data practices, but the suit landed less than two years after the 2024 Terms of Service backlash over the same underlying worry: whose work is training Adobe's AI.
TechCrunchFAQ
Is Adobe actually going out of business?
No. This page tracks Adobe's user-facing problems, pricing, lawsuits, and product decisions, not its financial health. Adobe remains a large, profitable company.
Did Adobe really train AI on my files?
Adobe has stated it does not train Firefly on customer content, only on licensed Adobe Stock and public domain material, after clarifying its February 2024 Terms of Service language.
What was the $150 million settlement about?
The DOJ found Adobe enrolled customers in annual-commitment plans without clearly disclosing cancellation fees and made cancelling deliberately difficult. Adobe settled in March 2026 without admitting wrongdoing.
Are the alternatives here really free?
Some are, including GIMP, Photopea, and DaVinci Resolve's base edition. Most others are meaningfully cheaper than a Creative Cloud seat. Check each product page for current pricing.