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Design · head to head

Adobe Creative Cloud vs Atlantis

Adobe Creative Cloud logo

Adobe Creative Cloud

Design

Creativity for all

From
$20.99/month
Free plan
No
Visit Adobe Creative CloudFull review
Atlantis logo

Atlantis

Developer Tools

Runs Terraform plan and apply from pull request comments, self-hosted and free

From
Free
Free plan
Yes
Visit AtlantisFull review

The short version

  • Atlantis is free; Adobe Creative Cloud starts at $20.99/mo.
  • Only Adobe Creative Cloud lists premiere Pro; only Atlantis lists pull request plans.
  • Prices and features on this page were last checked on 13 November 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Adobe Creative Cloud and Atlantis actually diverge.

Attributes where Adobe Creative Cloud and Atlantis differ
AttributeAdobe Creative CloudAtlantis
Starting price$20.99/monthFree
Pricing modelSubscriptionOpen source, no licence fee
Free tierNoYes
PlatformsWindows, macOS, iOS, Android, WebLinux, Self-hosted
CategoryDesignDeveloper Tools

Not yet recorded: founded for Atlantis.

What each one covers

Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.

Only in Adobe Creative Cloud

  • Photoshop
  • Illustrator
  • InDesign
  • Premiere Pro
  • After Effects
  • Lightroom
  • XD
  • Creative Cloud Libraries

Only in Atlantis

  • Pull request plans
  • Comment driven apply
  • Workspace locking
  • Policy checking
  • Multi-platform webhooks
  • Custom workflows

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

Adobe Creative Cloud

  • Graphic designnot Atlantis
  • Photo editingnot Atlantis
  • Video productionnot Atlantis
  • Web designnot Atlantis
  • Digital artnot Atlantis

Atlantis

  • Making Terraform review meaningful by putting the actual plan output in front of the approvernot Adobe Creative Cloud
  • Removing local applies and the credential sprawl that comes with every engineer holding production keysnot Adobe Creative Cloud
  • Getting pull request driven infrastructure without paying a per-user subscription for a hosted platformnot Adobe Creative Cloud
  • Enforcing Conftest policies as a blocking check before an apply can runnot Adobe Creative Cloud

Where each one falls short

Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.

Adobe Creative Cloud

  • The vendor's own Plans and Pricing page as captured by the Internet Archive on 1 January 2022 listed, in US dollars per month: Photography (20GB) at $9.99, Photography (1TB) at $19.99, Creative Cloud All Apps at $52.99, Acrobat Pro at $14.99, and single apps such as Photoshop, Premiere Pro, Illustrator, and InDesign each at $20.99, all with a 30 day free trial and a separate Adobe Stock add-on

Atlantis

  • There is no company, no service level agreement and no paid support at any price, and the six maintainers are volunteers with day jobs, which some risk committees will not accept for a component holding production cloud credentials
  • The security surface is inherently sharp, because it is an internet-reachable webhook endpoint that executes applies with privileged credentials, gated by pull request comment authorisation that is coarse next to a real policy engine
  • It is stateful, holding a working directory and lock database on local disk, so high availability and horizontal scaling are awkward and you own upgrades, webhook plumbing, secret rotation and the host itself
  • It lacks the features that distinguish the commercial alternatives, with no native drift detection, no cost estimation, no managed state interface and no policy engine beyond the Conftest integration
  • Terragrunt and monorepo layouts are not first-class, requiring hand-written custom workflows and repository configuration that becomes a growing maintenance burden as the number of repositories increases

Pricing, plan by plan

Adobe Creative Cloud

$20.99/month
  • Photography$20.99/mo
    • Lightroom
    • Lightroom Classic
    • Photoshop
  • Single App$22.99/mo
    • One app of your choice
    • 100GB cloud storage
    • Portfolio website
  • All Apps$59.99/mo
    • 20+ Creative Cloud apps
    • 100GB cloud storage
    • Portfolio website
  • Teams$89.99/mo
    • Everything in All Apps
    • 1TB cloud storage
    • Advanced admin console

Atlantis

Free
  • AtlantisFree
    • Apache-2.0, no usage limits and no seat count
    • No commercial edition and no paid support tier
    • Community support through GitHub and the CNCF Slack channel

Which should you pick?

Choose Adobe Creative Cloud if

  • You need photoshop.
  • You work on Windows, macOS, iOS, Android, Web.
  • You also want illustrator.
Adobe Creative Cloud review

Choose Atlantis if

  • You need pull request plans.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Linux, Self-hosted.
  • You also want comment driven apply.
Atlantis review

Questions people ask

Is Adobe Creative Cloud or Atlantis better?
Neither clearly leads. Adobe Creative Cloud starts at $20.99/month and Atlantis at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Adobe Creative Cloud or Atlantis?
Atlantis has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at $20.99/month for Adobe Creative Cloud and Free for Atlantis.
Does Adobe Creative Cloud or Atlantis run on more platforms?
Adobe Creative Cloud runs on Windows, macOS, iOS, Android, Web. Atlantis runs on Linux, Self-hosted.
Can I use Atlantis for free?
Yes. Atlantis has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Adobe Creative Cloud starts at $20.99/month.
What is Adobe Creative Cloud best used for?
Adobe Creative Cloud is most often used for graphic design, photo editing, video production, web design. Of those, graphic design and photo editing are not what Atlantis is typically brought in for.
What can Adobe Creative Cloud do that Atlantis cannot?
Adobe Creative Cloud covers Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Premiere Pro. Atlantis covers Pull request plans, Comment driven apply, Workspace locking, Policy checking.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Atlantis: Is there a company behind Atlantis?

No. It runs as a series of LF Projects under the Linux Foundation and is maintained by volunteers. There is no vendor to buy support from and no service level agreement.

Atlantis: Is it a CNCF project?

No. It uses a channel in the CNCF Slack, which is often misread as membership, but the project sits under LF Projects rather than the CNCF.

Atlantis: Does it work with OpenTofu?

Yes, there is a dedicated integration guide alongside Terraform, and it also has configuration for working with hosted Terraform backends.

Atlantis: What does it not do that a paid platform does?

Drift detection, cost estimation, a managed state and run interface, and a real policy engine. Atlantis does pull request plan and apply well and stops there.

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