Adobe Illustrator CC vs. Corel Painter

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Adobe Illustrator
Score 9.0 out of 10
N/A
Adobe Illustrator CC is a vector-based graphic design software.
$20.99
per month
Painter
Score 8.7 out of 10
N/A
Painter is a digital art and painting application, from Corel Corporation.N/A
Pricing
Adobe Illustrator CCCorel Painter
Editions & Modules
Yearly - Billed Monthly
$20.99
per month
Monthly
$31.49
per month
Yearly - Billed Upfront
$239.88
per year
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Adobe IllustratorPainter
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details——
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Adobe Illustrator CCCorel Painter
Considered Both Products
Adobe Illustrator
Chose Adobe Illustrator CC
Adode Illustrator is better for the design work in the company, sice it works with vectors and easy shortcuts, the other adobe software is not so useful because we do not work with video editing or rendering. Adobe Illustrator CC meets all our needs and expectations and that is …
Chose Adobe Illustrator CC
Adobe Illustrator CC has so much more options and tools to create the perfect vector graphics when compared to other programs. Illustrator is often the program that I use to create graphics, and then insert those files directly into the other programs listed. The other programs …
Painter
Chose Corel Painter
Like I already mentioned Photoshop is so much more pleasant to work with. Though out of the box Photoshop definitely has a lot fewer brushes; you can definitely download bushes often for free, or otherwise a small fee (you have to pay to add more brushes with Painter as well). …
Top Pros
Top Cons
Best Alternatives
Adobe Illustrator CCCorel Painter
Small Businesses
CorelDRAW Graphics Suite
CorelDRAW Graphics Suite
Score 9.5 out of 10
CorelDRAW Graphics Suite
CorelDRAW Graphics Suite
Score 9.5 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Canva
Canva
Score 9.2 out of 10
Canva
Canva
Score 9.2 out of 10
Enterprises
Adobe PhotoShop
Adobe PhotoShop
Score 9.2 out of 10
Adobe PhotoShop
Adobe PhotoShop
Score 9.2 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Adobe Illustrator CCCorel Painter
Likelihood to Recommend
9.1
(103 ratings)
7.0
(2 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.5
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Usability
7.2
(4 ratings)
1.0
(1 ratings)
Support Rating
8.4
(24 ratings)
3.0
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
Adobe Illustrator CCCorel Painter
Likelihood to Recommend
Adobe
Adobe Illustrator is used to help make drawings look good but not make them. It is easy to add color or texture but it is hard to actually make the drawings in it. I would recommend using other software to make the lines for plans and sections and using Adobe Illustrator to make it look good.
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Alludo
Corel Painter does have a lot of great brushes, and they do emulate real art supplies very well. Especially the thick paint is well done. But unfortunately there are so many functional and UX bugs that overall it is just horrible to work with. When contacting customer support about it, they really seem clueless about the seriousness of the situation, and clueless about what proper UX is in general. They have tried to make it work a bit like Photoshop, which is a good move but then some things are absolutely not intuitive at all and they are definitely missing the mark horribly with so many issues. I would highly recommend using Photoshop instead, though you'll have to download them separately; it also offers a lot of great brushes nowadays and works much much smoother without all those aggravating bugs of Painter. The price of Corel Painter is just not at all worth all these horrible bugs.
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Pros
Adobe
  • Vector graphics for scaling to large sizes
  • Filling an object with a texture
  • Easily adjusting and expanding an artboard to fit the size of the content (especially for infographics)
  • Compatibility with other Adobe CC programs, but also exporting for PPT graphics
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Alludo
  • Watercolor Compatible
  • Multiple variety of Brushes and shapes
  • Captured Dab Library
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Cons
Adobe
  • It's tough to master. If you haven't used Adobe products like Photoshop or Illustrator before, there is a lot to take in.
  • It would be great to have some better options to preview the final product if you're creating a multiple page document.
  • Better integration and pricing points with Adobe Stock for the useful stock images to complete your projects.
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Alludo
  • Way too many functional bugs, makes it hard to work with
  • Bad UX and usability, too much unintuitive behavior, makes it particularly hard to work with
  • Overall looks and behaves as if it was coded in the '90s, it really needs a complete UX overhaul
  • Did I mention the many bugs yet? Yeah? I'll mention it again because it's bad
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Likelihood to Renew
Adobe
While Adobe Illustrator CC is one of the only true design software out there, it really stands heads above the other products. It's clean UI and menu structure is easy to navigate.
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Alludo
No answers on this topic
Usability
Adobe
Illustrator has become easier in recent years to use with more intuitive tools and controls for them. Illustration software has improved but Adobe Illustrator has kept up and keeps the edge with its extensive toolset. Newly added collaboration tools with Adobe make it even better and the expectation is that is to continue.
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Alludo
If it wasn't quite clear yet, I'll state it again: the usability of Corel Painter is, simply put, horrid. And I am not talking about rendering, lagging, etc., it is not even all that bad there. I am talking about the weird issues like being unable to move a brush into a custom brush palette when you work on a second screen, like being unable to move the software onto the second screen in the first place unless you separate all the palettes and the windows (and if nobody tells you upfront there is no way of knowing because the manual doesn't state this at all), and then having to drag all your separate windows and palettes over one by one every time your computer wakes up again, and they won't really want to move to the other screen but only through a tiny corner of your screen, and the fact that you have to scroll through lists and lists of fonts but can't search and when you apply this font, add another piece of text the font jumps back to the default font of all the text already applied even when you haven't selected any of the text. Just to name a very small few.
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Support Rating
Adobe
I normally already know how to do whatever I'm trying out, but the documentation (as well as a simple Google search) makes any question quick to resolve. The Adobe boards themselves are a fantastic resource, especially for resolving questions between new programs and iterative releases.
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Alludo
It was really hard to get them to understand what I was having problems with. It was hard to get the message through that Painter has an unacceptable amount of functional and UX bugs. When I finally talked to someone who was easier to communicate with, he was very stoic about the situation, like they didn't really care about the awful amount of bugs.
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Alternatives Considered
Adobe
They complement each other, each with its own specific characteristics, but within a marketing sector, an experienced designer knows that the use of these tools in sets makes all the difference. It is possible to combine their uses and create really relevant materials that will bring a great return to the company and in the dissemination of arts with superior quality to the competitors
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Alludo
Corel Painter has support to multiple OS and across all the devices. Coloring and multi layer imaging works very well. The new enhanced brush settings and the redesigned brush libraries.
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Return on Investment
Adobe
  • Helps us quickly and easily create and manage numerous logos
  • Cloud libraries allow us to access commonly used colors, fonts, logos and other design elements quickly
  • We are able to provide high-quality, scalable college logos for print and digital which give us a more professional, credible look.
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Alludo
  • Customer support could be improved in my opinion.
  • Multiple bugs while working with layered designing.
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ScreenShots