Website: https://www.blender.org/

Best For: Collegiate, career/upskill, advanced secondary students

Cost: Completely free

Notes: Blender is a free and open-source 3D creation suite supporting modeling, animation, rendering, and compositing. It's suitable for users interested in 3D graphics, animation, and visual effects.

Website: https://inkscape.org/

Best For: Secondary, collegiate, career/upskill

Cost: Completely free

Notes: Inkscape is an open-source vector graphics editor, ideal for creating and editing scalable vector graphics (SVG). It offers advanced features comparable to Adobe Illustrator.

Website: https://www.visme.co/

Best For: Secondary, collegiate, career/upskill

Cost:

• Free Plan: Limited access to features and templates

• Standard Plan: Approximately $15/month (billed annually)

Notes: Visme allows users to create presentations, infographics, and visual content with an emphasis on data visualization and interactivity. Paid plans offer advanced features like analytics and privacy controls.

Website: https://www.canva.com/

Best For: Secondary, collegiate, career/upskill, homeschool

Cost:

• Free Plan: Access to basic features and templates

• Canva Pro: Approximately $12.99/month or $119.99/year (for up to 5 people)

Notes: Canva for Education is free for verified educators and students, offering Pro features. Canva is an online design tool that simplifies creating graphics, presentations, posters, and other visual content with an easy-to-use interface.

Website: https://krita.org/

Best For: Secondary, collegiate, career/upskill

Cost: Completely free

Notes: Krita is a professional, open-source painting program made by artists. It's excellent for concept art, texture and matte painting, illustrations, and comics.

Website: https://www.gimp.org/

Best For: Secondary, collegiate, career/upskill

Cost: Completely free

Notes: GIMP is a powerful open-source image editor offering features similar to Adobe Photoshop. It's suitable for photo retouching, image composition, and image authoring.

Website: https://vectr.com/

Best For: Secondary, collegiate

Cost: Completely free

Notes: Vectr is a free, simple, and powerful vector graphics editor available online and as a desktop app. It's ideal for creating logos, icons, and other scalable graphics with a user-friendly interface.