A software developer who used artificial intelligence to copy Adobe’s creative apps has now released free versions of Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint.
Brandon Thomas, an engineer based in Atlanta, published the apps on GitHub as WordCraft, GridCraft and DeckCraft. He built them with help from Anthropic’s Claude Opus 5.5 model.
The apps are open source under the MIT and Apache 2.0 licenses. That means anyone can read, copy and change the code, including for commercial use.
What the Microsoft Office Clones Can Do
The apps are written in Rust, a programming language known for speed and for blocking memory bugs. One codebase runs on Windows, macOS, Linux and BSD, as well as in a web browser.
WordCraft reads and writes .docx files and covers 88% of the features in Word’s ribbon. It already includes track changes, footnotes, citations and mail merge.
The team estimates WordCraft is about 60% ready for real work once file accuracy and stability are counted. It is still labeled alpha, an early test version.
GridCraft, the Excel clone, handles 513 of Excel’s 523 worksheet functions and 89% of its ribbon commands. Its developers rate it about 50% ready, with real-world .xlsx compatibility next on the list.
DeckCraft covers about 79% of PowerPoint’s features and 93% of the core ones, according to its GitHub page. It opens and saves .pptx files and exports to PDF, but has not reached its first alpha.
Every button in the three apps can also be triggered by an AI agent through the Model Context Protocol, a standard Anthropic created. A user could ask Claude to build a chart or reformat a report without using the mouse.
From Adobe to Microsoft
Earlier this month, Thomas released ArtCraft, a set of free apps modeled on Adobe’s Photoshop, Illustrator, Premiere and Lightroom. He said he built them after Adobe charged him cancellation fees.
Adobe’s Creative Cloud package costs individuals $779.99 per year paid upfront. Microsoft 365 Personal costs $99.99 a year, and the family plan costs $129.99.
Thomas calls his work a clean-room rebuild. The apps were written from public file-format specifications and by watching how the original programs behave, not by copying company code.
Andres Guadamuz, an intellectual property law expert at the University of Sussex, said little is known about how much code Claude wrote versus Thomas. “We also do not know whether the claimed ‘clean-room process’ stands up to scrutiny,” he said.
Thomas describes himself as a 15-year industry veteran who has used Rust for about a decade. He said on Reddit the project is not a “one-off flash in the pan that will die.”
Free office software is not new. OpenOffice.org launched in 2000 and LibreOffice split from it in 2010, both after years of community work.
Thomas shipped his three Office apps less than two weeks after the Adobe clones. He has also walked back his earlier pledge to match Adobe’s features within a month.
Before a beta release, WordCraft still needs testing on real .docx files, better page layout, a stability sweep and native printing. As of Wednesday, the project had more than 12,000 GitHub stars.
