“The art and design communities, in particular, are feeling the pinch from Adobe Suite going towards a rental model, and now the artist and perennial thorn in the side of anyone who seeks to own a colour, [Stuart Semple] is doing something about it. He’s launching a competing suite called provocatively, Abode, which will follow an affordable paid-for licence model.”
The Abode project seems overly optimistic in terms of scope, cost and timing to me but then I’ve never been involved in software development. Still, alternatives to the big names are always nice.
Krita is free on windows aswell. Do not install from windows store they are charging due to a store fee. Instead simply build it from source or download the nightly build from the website.