Developer who vibe-coded free Adobe clones is taking down Microsoft Office David Nield | usagoldmines.com

• Vibe-coded clones of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint have appeared
• They’re from the same developer who cloned the Adobe apps
• The developer says other open source software is ‘broken’

The developer who used AI tools to clone the Adobe Creative Cloud suite and release the copied versions for free has now done the same with Microsoft Office.

As Tom’s Hardware reports, there are now open-source versions of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint available, all looking very similar to the Microsoft apps and all with rebranded names: WordCraft, GridCraft, and DeckCraft, respectively.

These programs don’t appear to be as far along in development as the Adobe clones, but the intention is there — and it’s going to be a serious concern for large software companies wanting to protect their products.

The clones are the work of software engineer Brandon Thomas, who has been taking to social media to point out that he has years of experience in coding, even if he has been using the Anthropic AI Claude to do the bulk of the work on these recent projects.

‘GIMP sucks’

There has also been criticism aimed at Thomas for choosing AI ‘vibe coding’ rather than supporting current open-source software like LibreOffice, GIMP, and Thunderbird. However, the developer doesn’t seem to be a fan of these projects.

“GIMP sucks,” says Thomas. “It has always sucked. There is no reason to save broken software.” He’s also recently related the story of a bad experience with LibreOffice that “killed a 40-page essay I wrote the week it was due, during finals”.

The reaction on Reddit is split between those who see this as a “game-changing” positive for the software industry, and those who say “no job is safe” from the relentless march of AI and the increasingly powerful capabilities of these bots and agents.

Other commenters point out that free programs like LibreOffice and Google Docs have existed for years without damaging Microsoft Office sales too much, and question whether this lone developer will be able to keep up with bug fixes and upgrades.