Review: Adobe Creative Cloud

Adobe has brought out the Creative Cloud as a way to counter the piracy of its large number of software applications available.

From 2013 onward Adobe made the decision to discontinue the tangible method of releasing boxed products and moving solely to an online subscription model.

Now instead of buying one or multiple pieces of software you now are asked to sign up to a plan that allows you to access every application they produce for a monthly fee.

I’ve been part of this subscriptions for a couple of months now and have a few thoughts on the concept. Most of them pretty good.

The plans are simple. 

You can pay a monthly fee for the full suit of apps: $50 monthly for 2 computers on an annual plan ($75 month to month) or only $20 monthly for just the one application. Split that $50 between two people, even if one is a Mac and one on Windows and that cuts the price in half.

You get everything Adobe makes. Installed on your computer.

Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Illustrator, InDeeisng; its all there. Even the software you’ve never heard of like Adobe Scout and Adobe Muse.  These programs are all downloadable and sit installed on your computer so you do not need the internet to use (you do need to connect once every 30 days though).

You get the latest updates as they occur.

This means you never have a piece of software that is super seeded. In my time using cloud though there has been a lot of updates coming in to the five or so apps I have installed.

The apps available encourage you to be a better designer and upskill yourself.

Premiere Pro will get you into video production, Audition will have you playing with sound.

There are even more bonuses.

The Typekit library is included in the subscription and gives you ability to download and use fonts worth hundreds of  dollars, including the popular Proxima Nova.

There is also 20gb of cloud storage available for those files you want to keep them accessible.

For mine, there is great value within this Creative Cloud subscription and would definitely recommend.

But..

One downside that I will eventually come across is: what happens when I uninstall?

Well it seems like you have no choice but to keep using the service as there will be no product to replace the applications that you will suddenly have no access to. I’m not sure if Adobe will have to eventually bring a boxed version of some of the software out, but until I decide to unsubscribe I feel pretty content with the tools at my disposal.

Cost of subscription: $50 a month.

Applications installed: Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Lightroom, Premiere Pro and Adobe Acrobat with Typekit installed.

Cost for installed apps above off the shelf: $3349 (not including fonts) or $50 a month for five and a half years (This does not include upgrading on a regular basis).

So yes, there are all the useful benefits I have found with only the one pitfall being life without it. I guess it has me sucked in now.

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