About Adobe InDesign

Adobe InDesign is a layout design and desktop publishing software designed to help businesses and creative individuals create graphic designs with typography from various foundries and imagery from Adobe Stock. The platform lets teams create and publish digital magazines, books, eBooks, interactive PDFs, posters, and more.

Adobe InDesign enables users to manage design elements and deliver immersive experiences in multiple formats. The application integrates with Experience Manager and Adobe Creative Cloud, allowing organizations to share graphics, fonts, and content across projects. Users can publish content to the web and use the built-in content analysis tool to gain insights into the performance of their content.

Adobe InDesign offers a variety of Adobe Stock free templates such as brochures, landing pages, infographics, and more. Teams can also directly import shapes and color themes from Adobe Capture and receive Adobe Fonts suggestions based on the raster image of a font.

Pricing starting from:

US$20,99/month

  • Free Version
  • Free Trial
  • Subscription

Top 5 alternatives to Adobe InDesign

Typical Customers

  • Freelancers
  • Small Businesses (2-50)
  • Mid-size Companies (51-500)
  • Large enterprises (500 and more)

Deployment

  • Cloud-based
  • On-premise

Markets

United States

Supported Languages

English

Pricing starting from:

US$20,99/month

  • Free Version
  • Free Trial
  • Subscription

Top 5 alternatives to Adobe InDesign

Images

Adobe InDesign Software - Adobe InDesign character options
Adobe InDesign Software - Adobe InDesign pages
Adobe InDesign Software - Adobe InDesign new file
View 3 more
Adobe InDesign Software - Adobe InDesign character options
Adobe InDesign Software - Adobe InDesign pages
Adobe InDesign Software - Adobe InDesign new file

Features

Total features of Adobe InDesign: 24

  • 3D Digital Asset Management
  • CAD Tools
  • Collaboration Tools
  • Commenting/Notes
  • Content Import/Export
  • Content Library
  • Content Management
  • Custom Brushes
  • Custom Fonts
  • Data Storage Management
  • Design Management
  • Design Templates
  • Drag & Drop Editor
  • Image Editing
  • Interactive Content
  • Layout & Design
  • Multi-Language
  • Pattern, Color & Art Storage
  • Preview Functionality
  • Print Management
  • Secure Data Storage
  • Text Editing
  • Third Party Integrations
  • Watermarking

Alternatives

Microsoft 365

4,6
#1 Alternative to Adobe InDesign
Microsoft 365, formerly Office 365, provides web, desktop, and mobile apps for Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint,...

Alboom Designbox

4,7
#2 Alternative to Adobe InDesign
Alboom Designbox is a web-based application that allows users to design and create professional-looking photo slideshows...

Marq

4,6
#3 Alternative to Adobe InDesign
A design & brand templating platform empowering non-designers to create beautiful marketing materials without going off...

Affinity Publisher

4,7
#4 Alternative to Adobe InDesign
Affinity Publisher is a graphic designing software that helps creative professionals and publishers combine images,...

Reviews

Overall rating

4,8 /5
(180)
Value for Money
4,2/5
Features
4,8/5
Ease of Use
4,1/5
Customer Support
4,2/5

Already have Adobe InDesign?

Software buyers need your help! Product reviews help the rest of us make great decisions.

Showing 5 reviews of 180
Ángel
Overall rating
  • Industry: Education Management
  • Company size: 1 001–5 000 Employees
  • Used Monthly for 2+ years
  • Review Source

Overall rating

  • Value for Money
  • Ease of Use
  • Likelihood to recommend 10.0 /10

InDesign - Printing efficiency defined?

Reviewed on 2021/10/29

InDesign is outstanding. It saves so much time when you need to fit pages, trim pages, adjust...

InDesign is outstanding. It saves so much time when you need to fit pages, trim pages, adjust designs, etc. Picture this: it's 10 pm, you need to have that magazine ready by 00:00, but the articles are still being reviewed. But if you have InDesign, you still have plenty of time. The designer can be working on the layout while editors are reviewing the content. And the program is so efficient that you're going to have the magazine done and ready to be printed by 11:59 pm.

Pros

InDesign is SO efficient. This software speeds up productivity so much that it can help you turn hours of adjusting the pages of any kind of publication you're trying to make: whether it's a bulletin, a magazine, a poster... to minutes! Plus, it has a really friendly user interface, which makes it a really comfortable software to use.

Cons

Although it's GUI is really friendly, it can be difficult for new users to start. Training (or qualified personnel) may be necessary. And, as it's another marvelous Adobe program, this software belongs to that really expensive group. Though it can easily compensate for that.

Joshua
Overall rating
  • Industry: Printing
  • Company size: Self Employed
  • Used Daily for 2+ years
  • Review Source

Overall rating

  • Value for Money
  • Ease of Use
  • Customer Support
  • Likelihood to recommend 10.0 /10

An Underrated Software That's the Real Money Maker

Reviewed on 2022/04/06

For me, Indesign is a life-changing software that has enabled me to reach not only my goals but my...

For me, Indesign is a life-changing software that has enabled me to reach not only my goals but my dreams of publishing a full-blown magazine. I have sent over 2 million files to print, every one of them created in Indesign. It's my bread and butter.

Pros

Photoshop gets all the attention but Indesign is the unsung hero of the print design world. It doesn't get the viral tutorials or talked about much but it's the real money maker in my opinion. I have mastered this software and with every job I get, it becomes the backbone. Assembling complex PDFs for online distribution or creating magazines or even large format print documents. I simply love Indesign. The recent round of updates is amazing and really improves the overall experience. I have always loved how it perfectly balances complexity and simplicity. It's my babe. All the other designers come to me for Indesign needs because they skipped over it. A shame, but I don't mind as it keeps the money coming in.

Cons

I can't find a complaint. The only issue was how small the interface was, has now been corrected in this last update.

Dunnecia
Overall rating
  • Industry: Graphic Design
  • Company size: Self Employed
  • Used Weekly for 2+ years
  • Review Source

Overall rating

  • Ease of Use
  • Likelihood to recommend 6.0 /10

A Presenter's Choice

Reviewed on 2022/09/24

The program does work effectively and helps one present their designs is a suitable and structured...

The program does work effectively and helps one present their designs is a suitable and structured manner to aid in looking professional.

Pros

The program makes developing, editing and presenting something a whole lot easier. It has all the features needed to accomplish whatever design project one may have in mind to a great extent.

Cons

Besides the price tag attached to using Adobe products and their learning curve, this program falls short when it comes to properly editing images and editing certain shapes. So it is a little restrictive given certain perimeters which forces you to use their other programs.

Jacob
Overall rating
  • Industry: Marketing & Advertising
  • Company size: 2–10 Employees
  • Used Daily for 2+ years
  • Review Source

Overall rating

  • Ease of Use
  • Likelihood to recommend 7.0 /10

What everyone uses for layout, for better or worse

Reviewed on 2023/01/09

Pros

When laying out text, images, preparing documents for printing, and making mass changes across a document, InDesign is fantastic and very intuitive and fluid. The fact that so many people within the design field use this software, makes sharing and inheriting files from other people relatively stress-free.

Cons

There are many quirks and functionality issues that come into play depending on your project. For example, we deal with importing tables into documents on a regular basis and InDesign is very particular about how those can be imported and implemented.

Verified Reviewer
Overall rating
  • Industry: Higher Education
  • Company size: 5 001–10 000 Employees
  • Used Monthly for 2+ years
  • Review Source

Overall rating

  • Value for Money
  • Ease of Use
  • Customer Support
  • Likelihood to recommend 9.0 /10

InDesign is the Premiere Document Layout Tool

Reviewed on 2021/11/12

I have been using InDesign for over fifteen years and have used it to successfully design everything...

I have been using InDesign for over fifteen years and have used it to successfully design everything from reports and infographics to album and novel covers. After learning it once, it remains intuitive and powerful--it is the only document layout tool I've used where I am able to create whatever design I can imagine. It has earned me plaudits for good design and clarity of communication. Above all, it has enhanced the professionalism of the materials I produce, always making the information contained therein clearer.

Pros

InDesign is the most powerful and fully featured document layout tool available. It provides flexible, easy to use layering that enables advanced overlays and far more complicated designs than are possible with a more traditional layout tool. What's more, with a wide variety of font types and masking tools, the sky is the limit for making professional looking documents. It is flexible enough to lay out everything from infographics to multi-column reports to covers and posters. Plus, it brings the power of the Adobe Suite through integrations with Photoshop, Illustrator, and more.

Cons

There are few features I've encountered that are missing for InDesign. That said, the learning curve for can be steep for someone who has no experience with design products, particularly those of the Adobe Suite. That said, Adobe provides ample learning resources so that users can get up to speed fairly quickly. InDesign integrated seamlessly into our report production workflow, so I fully recommend it.

Showing 5 reviews of 180 Read all reviews

Adobe InDesign FAQs

Below are some frequently asked questions for Adobe InDesign.

Adobe InDesign offers the following pricing plans:

  • Starting from: US$20,99/month
  • Pricing model: Subscription
  • Free Trial: Available

Adobe InDesign has the following typical customers:

Self Employed, 2–10, 11–50, 51–200, 201–500, 501–1 000

Adobe InDesign supports the following languages:

English

Adobe InDesign supports the following devices:

We do not have any information about what integrations Adobe InDesign has

Adobe InDesign offers the following support options:

FAQs/Forum, Knowledge Base

Related categories

See all software categories found for Adobe InDesign.