VectorCraft

Vector illustration; an open-source, clean-room reimplementation of Adobe Illustrator, rebuilt in pure Rust.

A fast, open-source, clean-room take on the Adobe Illustrator workflow. It runs natively on macOS, Windows, Linux and FreeBSD, and in the browser via WebAssembly. Built by the ArtCraft team.

VectorCraft on getartcraft.com · ArtCraft · All Crafting Apps

_{Neon Drive: a Pathfinder-cut sun, live Outer Glow on the type and grid, and clipping masks · examples/neon-drive.vectorcraft}

[!NOTE] ArtCraft is a community of artists from all walks of life. Digital, generative, music, games — if you make things, you're one of us. Come say hi on Discord.

A look around · Made in VectorCraft · Why VectorCraft · Quick start · Status · The Crafting Apps · License

Live Blends and Layers: editable key paths, smooth colour, every object a row	Pen and Direct Selection: real Bézier anchors and handles, plus a contextual task bar
Perspective Grid: art attached to its planes stays editable in perspective · examples/perspective-city.vectorcraft	Multiple artboards, light theme: Pathfinder · Gradient Mesh · live radial Repeat · Envelope Distort · examples/feature-sheet.vectorcraft

Made in VectorCraft

Every piece below was built entirely through VectorCraft's command API, the same one the MCP server exposes to agents, and exported by VectorCraft's own renderer. The source files are in examples/.

Neon Drive: synthwave poster with glowing type and grid	Dusk: gradient sky, glowing sun, layered mountains
Live Blends: 70 steps, smooth colour, editable spines
Radial Repeat: a live mandala	Envelope Distort: striped type warped into a flag
Gradient Mesh: shaded spheres	Pathfinder: a crescent and stars from exact booleans

Why VectorCraft

• Familiar. Illustrator's layout, tools, menus, panels and shortcuts: the Pen, Direct Selection, Pathfinder, Smart Guides, Appearance, Swatches, Layers and more. You already know how to use it.
• Fast. Multithreaded SIMD rendering off the UI thread. 20,000 shapes render in about 27 ms at full retina resolution while the interface stays at 120 fps.
• Robust. Exact curve booleans (no "cannot perform operation"), unlimited undo via structural sharing, and property-tested file round trips.
• Open. A documented native format (.vectorcraft, JSON), first-class SVG, PDF (and PDF-compatible .ai) import and export, PNG/JPEG/WebP export, Export for Screens, and SVGZ, templates, GIF, TIFF and BMP on open.
• Agent-native. Every menu item, tool gesture, panel and dialog can be driven over a JSON control channel and an MCP server, so Claude and other agents can draw, edit and export the way a person does.
• Everywhere. One codebase for the desktop apps and the same UI in the browser.

Quick start

cargo run --release -p vectorcraft                          # desktop app
cargo run --release -p vectorcraft -- examples/dusk-poster.vectorcraft
cargo run --release -p vectorcraft -- --control 7979        # + JSON control channel
cargo run --release -p vectorcraft-cli -- mcp               # MCP server (stdio)
cargo run --release -p vectorcraft-cli -- run --in examples/ribbons.vectorcraft --export out.pdf   # headless batch
cargo run --release -p vectorcraft-cli -- bench examples/neon-drive.vectorcraft                   # render timing
cargo xtask bundle                                        # dist/VectorCraft.app (macOS)
cd apps/vectorcraft-web && trunk build --release            # web build → dist/web
cargo xtask ci                                            # fmt, clippy, tests, layering, wasm, vendor names

Japanese fonts come from storytold/craft-fonts, an optional build input (releases always use it): CRAFT_FONTS_DIR="$PWD/../craft-fonts" cargo run --release -p vectorcraft (an absolute path). Without it, Japanese text uses the installed system fonts. See docs/development.md.

On laptops with two graphics processors, VectorCraft uses the power-saving (integrated) one by default. To use the discrete one, choose Preferences › Performance › Graphics Processor › High Performance and restart, or start the app with WGPU_POWER_PREF=high (see docs/development.md).

Use it from Claude Code and other agents

Register the MCP server with Claude Code:

claude mcp add vectorcraft -- /path/to/vectorcraft-cli mcp

The details are in docs/mcp.md and docs/control-protocol.md.

For the experimental, unsupported 64-bit Windows 7 build, see Windows 7 instructions.

Status

VectorCraft is under active development. ROADMAP.md covers what ships today, the milestones, and honest time-to-parity estimates.

Where we are (2026-10-07): roughly 69–75% of Illustrator's features exist and work, and about 40–55% of "a power user can't tell the difference". Everyday vector illustration is close to usable: drawing and path tools, Pathfinder and Shape Builder, paint, gradients, appearance and transparency, type with styles, threading and Hebrew/Arabic bidirectional layout, and files (SVG, PDF and PDF-compatible .ai with PDF/X, EPS, DXF, EMF/WMF, raster formats and PSD, Print, Package). The interface speaks English, Japanese, Traditional and Simplified Chinese and Spanish (and Czech and Brazilian Portuguese in the menus). The scores are self-assessed, so the honest assessment explains how far to trust them.

What's missing:

• 3D and Materials;
• the Photoshop-style raster effects (Effect Gallery);
• CJK composition for vertical type (vertical type itself has initial support, with a Japanese interface);
• Variables and scripting;
• an interaction-fidelity pass covering every tool's modifiers and small behaviours;
• packaging for Windows and Linux.

Where we're going: next is the interaction-fidelity pass alongside the raster-effects package, then 3D and advanced type, then hardening and packaging for 1.0. The prioritized list is in Where we're lacking.

Workspace: crates/{geom, color, doc, pathops, text, effects, trace, brush, render, svg, pdf, eps, cad, metafile, format, tools, engine, ui-egui, mcp, testkit} and apps/{vectorcraft, vectorcraft-cli, vectorcraft-web}. The egui frontend is its own crate, so the UI can be swapped without touching the engine.

Agent and contributor rules (clean-room, the asset policy, no panics in shipped code, quality gates) are in AGENTS.md; docs/development.md explains how VectorCraft avoids crashing, and docs/releasing.md how releases are built, signed and published. Every bundled asset is listed with its licence in ASSETS.md.

The Crafting Apps

VectorCraft is one of the Crafting Apps: free, open-source creative tools from the ArtCraft team, each written from scratch in Rust and each able to stand on its own.

	App	What it's for	Code	Learn more
	PhotoCraft	Image editing: layers, masks, type and real PSD files	GitHub	Website
	VectorCraft	Vector illustration · you are here	GitHub	Website
	FilmCraft	Video editing, color and sound	GitHub	Website
	LightCraft	Photo library and raw development	GitHub	Website
	PdfCraft	Reading, organizing and protecting PDFs	GitHub	Website
	EffectCraft	Motion graphics and visual effects	GitHub	Website
	DesignCraft	Page layout and publishing	GitHub	Website

And ArtCraft itself, our AI image and video studio for artists who want real control.

Come make things with us

Our Discord is where artists of every kind hang out: people who paint, shoot, draw, cut film, set type, and people still figuring out what they like to make. Share what you're working on, ask for help, tell us what's broken, or tell us what you wish these tools could do. Whatever your medium and however long you've been at it, you're welcome here.

discord.gg/artcraft · getartcraft.com · The Crafting Apps · VectorCraft

Star history

License and credits

VectorCraft is dual-licensed under MIT or Apache-2.0, at your option. Copyright (c) 2026 ArtCraft Team and the VectorCraft contributors. Required notices are in NOTICE.

Bundled fonts, icons, images and other assets keep their own open licenses; each one is listed with its author, source and license in ASSETS.md. Release builds also embed the fonts of craft-fonts (Japanese, Simplified Chinese and Arabic faces; SIL Open Font License 1.1).

The app icon (an engraved dragon on VectorCraft red, #e8573f) is the owner's original artwork; its palette and files are in assets/app-icon/.

The ArtCraft name, wordmark and logos in docs/brand/ are trademarks of the ArtCraft Team and are not covered by this license. They may be used only unmodified, and only as part of this repository and VectorCraft, under docs/brand/LICENSE-brand.txt. Forks and modified versions must remove them.

_{Adobe, Photoshop, Illustrator, Premiere Pro, Lightroom, Acrobat, After Effects and InDesign are trademarks or registered trademarks of Adobe Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. VectorCraft is an independent, open-source project and is not affiliated with, sponsored by or endorsed by Adobe Inc.; these names are used only to describe the workflows it is compatible with.}

_{Made by the ArtCraft team and community.}