Application Alternatives on a Shoestring Budget

Like many of my collegiate peers, I use a few high-end softwares and computer applications for my academic work that my budget cannot support. After finding myself with a growing need for expensive applications like Photoshop, InDesign, or even Microsoft Office and an empty pocket to procure them, it was time to find cheap, legal replacements and stand-ins for core applications to install instead of buying massively expensive licenses for more main-stream programs. Photoshop, for instance, is a program that many students like myself use on a regular basis, but even with the generous student discount offered by Adobe, Photoshop alone costs $20.00 per month. I knew there had to be workable solutions that wouldn’t compromise the applications’ features and usability, so I started looking for suitable replacements and stand-ins on a mostly non-existant budget to complete my computer’s program repertoire.

Finding an acceptable replacement for Microsoft Office, which many students use on a daily basis for both scholastic and professional work, is a good place to start. Luckily, the options for free, well-functioning word processing applications and office suites are plentiful.

LibreOffice, is a freeware suite available on Mac, Windows, and Linux that offers excellent word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation functions which directly mirror most elements of the Microsoft Office suite. While the layout may be slightly different and thus still has its own learning curve, LibreOffice is capable of just about everything that Microsoft office is. The program suite is also capable of opening and saving documents in most text formats, allowing the work you create to be exported for use with less versatile programs on other machines. This extensive compatibility makes the freeware option preferable to traditional licensed software even.

Google Drive is another excellent option as word processing and office applications go. Being web-based, Drive combines what many need in Microsoft Office with what many love in a syncing program like DropBox. Working entirely online enables users to keep their hard drives clean and free up some extra space. Also, being able to access all of my files from any computer with internet has a lovely ring to it.

Replacing Adobe’s Photoshop or similar image editing software can feel like a huge challenge. Finding a program to compete with a program that costs hundreds of dollars doesn’t sound like an easy task. I wanted to find a program that was capable of extensive image editing without breaking the bank.

GIMP, another freeware program released under the GNU General Public License, is much akin to LibreOffice. GIMP attempts to mimic the tools and graphical user interface of Photoshop or similar image editors, although it does so with only moderate success; the latest release of GIMP (v. 2.8) lags significantly behind CS6 in both aesthetics and utility. However, one must remember that GIMP is free, and beggars can’t always be choosers. GIMP is great for moderate graphic work, image editing, and the more basic side of what Photoshop is capable of.

As an Apple user, Pixelmator was also an available option for me. While it’s not free, it does keep up with Adobe Photoshop in almost every way and uses a stellar, sleek user interface as it does so. Currently priced at $14.99, Pixelmator was immediately and apparently a capable program. Editing text, images, working in layers, and saving into different file formats is still very possible with Pixelmator, which works within its own file format, “.pxm.” While some functions of Photoshop have to be improvised, it is a very capable and clean program, especially for the low cost, that easily fills the void that Photoshop leaves behind for most users.

If you find yourself wishing your computer could do more or handle another operating system’s applications, there are a few options for you instead of going out and shelling the cash for a whole new computer. The same goes for playing older games on a newer computer. Getting old and unsupported games like Age of Empires, Heroes of Might and Magic, and Worms to run on newer operating systems isn’t actually as hard as it might seem.

VirtualBox, a handy piece of freeware which allows the user to produce instances of another operating systems within their current session, allowing the use of Mac and Windows programs simultaneously, or, in this case, different versions of the same operating system. This program performed relatively well, but hit a wall while trying to run fast paced games, as most of my processing power was dedicated to simulating the OS itself. While an exciting tool, I found this to be a little too labor intensive to be worth bothering with if it could only handle the simplest applications.

Another option that sometimes works, depending on the game in particular, is setting up a dual boot with Boot Camp, Apple’s dual boot assistant. What this does is partition your Mac’s hard drive in two sections, one with the native operating system and one with another, non-native operating system. A dual booted computer is able to start up into either operating system it is installed with and each partition functions as a separate computer essentially. Some older games still run on Windows 7, and if you have the space to partition your hard drive, having two operating systems can prove to offer a lot of utility down the road.

These are just a few of the options to circumvent expensive software purchases and still get the same usable applications that companies like Adobe and Microsoft have to offer. While some offer a slightly milder program experience, there are very clearly options for the starving college student to turn to for some hard-core, intensive applications without spending a month’s rent money or starving in the name of computers.