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Add to SafariWhen comparing Adobe Illustrator CC vs Paint.NET, the Slant community recommends Adobe Illustrator CC for most people. In the question“What are the best tools to make simple Social Media graphics?” Adobe Illustrator CC is ranked 11th while Paint.NET is ranked 20th.
Specs
Question Ranking
Pros
Pro Amazing integration with all other Adobe Software (PS, Ae, Id...)
Pro It's the industry standard
Pro Advanced tools
Pro Has all the vector tools you could dream of
Pro Flexible, non-intrusive interface
Small palette menus and the ability to save multiple menu layouts keep the UI out of the way.
Pro There are many tutorials on the internet
Pro Frequent updates
The CC subscription model means that major releases are no longer necessary, so existing users gain immediate access to new features.
Pro Easy to learn
It's easy to learn how to work with this software.
Pro Easy to learn and use
Unlike most photo editing software, Paint.NET is simple to learn and easy to use. This means less time is spent learning the in's and out's of Paint.NET and more time on photo editing. For those who only edit photos sporadically and don't have time to invest in learning complicated tools for editing, Paint.Net will suit your needs.
Pro Free software
There is no charge for this software; but donations are welcomed.
Pro Lightweight
Paint.net provides a streamlined but effective core tool set. Support for advanced and niche features is provided through modular plugins, allowing the user to install only what's needed.
Pro Actively developed
The project is active and being continually expanded and refined.
Pro Active and friendly community
The forums are filled with tutorials, as well as people who are friendly and eager to help.
Pro Plugins allow extra functionality
Plugins can be made by anyone in the community, and are offered for download on the forum. They extend the capabilities of Paint.NET to cover most tasks.
Pro HiDPI support
Paint.NET supports fully HiDPI displays, with no scaling problems.
Cons
Con Subscription model
Illustrator CC requires a $19.99/mo (minimum) subscription to use. Adobe no longer sells previous versions of Illustrator.
Con Heavy use of CPU/RAM
Con Steep learning curve
Con Very slow
Even in very good computers Illustrator is very slow.
Con You never truly own this software
As soon as you stop paying you to lose access to the software. This should be illegal.
Con Install useless and intrusive software
When you install any Adobe product it also installs lots of useless and intrusive software and services.
It adds two services and up to three auto-starting software that runs when you start your operating system and keep running constantly. One is for auto-updating, others for "checking" if you are not a pirate and some others that seems to be just to collect information.
Con Imprecise coordinates
Oftentimes your 140 is 139.9997 and as a vector program it doesn't rely much on precision.
Con No proper selection mode
In a vector-art program, the critical selection mode is the one in which objects must be fully enclosed by the selection marquee to be selected. In the simple example shown here, selecting all the circles should merely require you to draw a selection rectangle around them. But in Illustrator, there's no way to avoid selecting other objects as well, even though they're not totally enclosed by the selection box. Year after year, Adobe fails to fix this bizarre oversight, making Illustrator a tedious pain to use.
Con Buggy
Software can be very buggy at times.
Con Only available on Windows
Paint.NET is only available on Windows.
Con No project-based interface
You can only edit a single image at a time in Paint.NET. For example, in other tools you can open 5 or a 100 images at the same time, and stack those windows in all directions.
Furthermore, when you are editing in Paint.NET you can only "view" a single image at a time, even though you can have multiple images open. This limits your zooming ability, as the image will go fullscreen quite quickly, and hide parts of it behind the floating toolbars which can not be embedded anywhere on the screen.
