Adobe Illustrator CC Pricing, Features, Reviews & Comparison of Alternatives

Pros
Adobe Illustrator solves the problems that I need to have solved in my graphic design role. It enables me to create vector-based art and logos, which is essential for printed material. It is an excellent complement to Adobe Photoshop, and I use the two programs interchangeably, and also in harmony with Adobe InDesign.

Cons
Unlike Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator is a bit more complicated to use. However, I found answers to every question I've ever had (there have been many) on the Adobe Help pages as well as via Google searches. New users need to understand that Illustrator is a high-end design program, so the rules that govern its operations are more complex than what you would find in, for example, PowerPoint. However, those who are willing to follow the tutorials will find that Illustrator is an invaluable asset.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 8/10

Pros
Ai is ideal for professional Vector graphic designers. After many years of studies with the inputs of designers around the globe, Adobe has developed Ai to create almost anything that comes into billions of creative (or weird) minds. Just about anything. Once you pass the learning curve which would take months and months with all that learning material available (which is quite reasonable), then you can make your dreams visible to you and others too. But still you will learn, as there are so many developments and updates take place continuously. The Free form gradient, which is also a new addition, allows you to drop points of color which blends together to form rich color blends. Adobe font integration lets you select thousands of fonts and use the most suitable fonts that goes with the project. You just dream what you need and you get it in Illustrator creative cloud. With its three ‘snap to pixel’ options, it automatically aligns to the pixel grid the drawing, scaling and moving path and vector shapes. With their massive stock of creative resources in graphics, templates, images etc which are close to 100 million in numbers and are organized in Adobe Stock, designers can access and easily design templates for various jobs saving time for additional work. The ‘True size view’ and ‘Trim size view’ features are added benefits for the User. Features of Illustrator are endless if you look at an artist’s point of view. It can put into reality all the dreams of a creative mind

Cons
I wouldn’t hesitate for a moment to call a wiper ‘a wiper’. The bad side of AI is it can just wipe off all other competitors in just one Illustrator stroke.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 10/10

Pros
Overall, this is a wonderful program that has well earned its reputation as industry standard. When working with a lot of precise calculations, perspectives, exact distances, and/or alignments, Illustrator does most of the heavy lifting so I can focus on just creating great art. Working with vectors is a great way to create very polished and clean designs that are infinity scalable. Small file sizes are also especially handy because it makes it easy to make backup-copies of your layers at different stages in case you ever need access to an earlier version. Even if I've worked with huge dimensions or had hundreds of objects in a single file, I've generally only experienced serious lag if I incorporate non-vector elements to my file, such as placed photographs or special effects like drop shadows. Illustrator is extremely handy to use in conjunction with other Adobe products. I've especially frequently created a vector in Illustrator then copied it over to Photoshop or InDesign. When pasting things into Photoshop, I can create a Smart Object so that I can still edit it in Illustrator and it will then automatically update in Photoshop.

Cons
Some of the keyboard shortcuts, such as select/deselect all, are different between different Adobe products like Illustrator and Photoshop. While this can be customized by users, that isn't always possible in situations like one of my old jobs where I shared a computer with another designer and we constantly went back and forth between Illustrator and Photoshop. Improving consistency between Adobe products would allow for smoother workflow. The perspective tools can also be rather clunky to use sometimes. One of the most frustrating aspects has been if I need to use any shape-building tools on an object already in perspective - after I've used the shape building tools, I can no longer use the perspective move tool because Illustrator tries to reapply the perspective onto an object already in perspective. Another example is that the 3D tools don't automatically have options in the drop-down menu to work with the perspective grid in place. If you, for instance, want to extrude an object and place it into alignment with your perspective grid, you have to either do the math yourself to create a custom extrude, or you have to manually rotate and extrude the object without the use of the 3D tool. On occasion, I have also had issues with art dimension size limitations and had to copy to Photoshop to enlarge to the size I needed to print. I also dislike that this program is currently only available through subscription.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 10/10

Pros
Adobe Illustrator is the most flexible tool for creating vector-based graphics that allows you to design anything from scratch. It communicates and integrates smoothly with other Adobe’s softwares. Adobe Illustrator is definitely my go to software to create large format graphics. Adobe Illustrator makes it very easy to undo mistakes that you have made. It also works with both Mac and Windows.

Cons
Illustrator has so many features, so this tool is not suited for beginners who don't have prior experience with Adobe's softwares. There is a learning curve for this tool and it requires a lot of training and practice to get the most of it. when working with heavy graphics, Illustrator will eat up most of your computer's RAM and CPU and tend to crash, so you're going to need a powerful computer to run it correctly.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 9/10

Pros
Adobe illustrator is a great software for Graphic Designers to add to their collection. The software is made for creating a vector graphics and it so good at it. Over the years, I have learnt to use Adobe Illustrator to create project like Cartoon and Logo designs. It is a great software and it gets the job done easily. One of the best option for using the illustrator is the vector-graphic which makes design a perfect still quality, no matter how the design’s size is adjusted, the resolution stay the same. With Adobe illustrator users can easily draw a design from scratch by mastering the Pen Tool and with tons of other tools like the Pathfinder Tool, the software made it very easy to design almost anything and even beautify it with the color guide.

Cons
Adobe illustrator is great, no doubt one of the best drawing software out there, however the best can be too best.. if that makes sense. For beginners, Illustrator has so many complex features which are not easy to learn at all, even with knowledge of other Adobe softwares. The software is also heavy while operating, it requires a very strong PC to properly use without slowing down your operations or hang the PC while at it. Illustrator is just good for drawing, editing image isn’t recommended on the software, it lacks some basic features to edit image and working with layers on this software can be very frustrating.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 10/10