GIMP

They'll have 1 thing in common - they all got used to Photoshop first.

GIMP isn't perfect. It's got rough edges. It is developed by volunteers, it is not backed by a huge commercial effort like Photoshop nor is it sold for a huge price tag.

Considering that, for 98% of image editing requirements GIMP is just as good as Photoshop. Only if you are in an elite upper tier of artists would it actually be inadequate.

If you are used to Photoshop, you'll find GIMP horrible to use. The same is true in reverse. They are difficult applications with different structures and different approaches to many tasks. It's like going from a Mac to Windows and vice versa. You have to unlearn what you know and relearn something else, and for many that is too much to ask.

However to lack the perspective to understand this basic principle - that you prefer what you know - and lay into the work of the GIMP developers with very unconstructive criticisms is hardly helping anybody. Given it is open source, why not engage them, or why not try to implement improvements? Oh, that would take effort. Trolling online takes no effort whatsoever!

The GIMP has a ton of great features, is constantly improving, and is never going to cost you money. It will just cost you a bit of your time to learn how to use it.

Used Gimp years ago, because I love open source and like to donate to projects I use. But every time Gimp doesn't do what I want. For even the simplest thing, you need to dive in the manuals because it's all so confusing. So I stopped using it, because working with it is so frustrating. I saw this week version 3 is there, so I gave it another shot. Took a beginners course on YT and started with Gimp again, But I came in bugs and non-working stuff, right away. Even a simple task, like making a text layer over a photo, is really hard. Without the manual, and chatgtp asking for help, it's still a mess. I stop using Gimp version 3