Photon Studio
A free, offline Photoshop alternative (cross-platform) distributed for desktop that the author says has gained ~25k users and accepts donations.
Problem it solves. Provides a free, locally-run replacement for Adobe Photoshop to avoid subscription/vendor lock-in and reduce cloud costs.
Who pays. Photo/graphics users wanting a free Photoshop alternative (Windows, macOS, Linux)
Market. creative tools / desktop image editing
How it makes money. Donations only (currently); possible future one-time licenses for other apps
Claimed. donations don't cover 1/10th of the token costs
Author reports concrete adoption ("over 25k users") and answered technical questions in-thread (cross-platform builds, CLI/MCP/skills), and commenters engage as if the product exists and is usable rather than calling it a promo or fake.
“the donations don't cover 1/10th of the token costs” ▲ -10
“I built the rendering engine on my own (well, codex and claude did 90% of the job).” ▲ -5
“Bitdefender goes bonkers when I visit the site. We blocked this dangerous page for your protection: http://dencode.com/en/cipher/enigma Dangerous pages attempt to install software that can harm the device, gather personal information or operate without your consent.” ▲ -10