To start building Adobe plugins for free right now:

: Access boilerplate code to jumpstart the creation of panels or modal dialogs.

All core developer tooling for building UXP plugins — the UXP Developer Tool, docs, sample repos, and standard web toolchains (Node, bundlers) — are available free. They let you build, run, debug, and package extensions locally; paid elements only appear when using some Adobe cloud services or when publishing certain commercial features.

To build a UXP plugin, you need four core components: a code editor, the UXP Developer Tool (UDT), Adobe UXP’s own command-line interface (CLI), and documentation. Here is the breakdown of the tools at your disposal.

Connect your code directly to Photoshop with a single click.

Here is a blog post to help you kickstart your development journey without spending a dime.