Inkscape is not as popular as Adobe Illustrator or Corel Draw but it still gets the job done and at no cost too. It has plenty of functionality that a vector editing program needs and its great to get used to the workflow without paying anything.
As art student, this saved my a*s many times. First of all is free. Then is pretty packed up with functions.
Sadly, the UI is not the nicest in the world. Sometimes it just freezes.
But I use it for animations and I can say:" Cool software"
I am not a professional graphic designer, but I do need to create graphics and make edits for use in my website design projects. Inkscape is fantastic for my needs. I have a XP-Pen Artist 12 Pro display grapics tablet for Vector edits work. I've been using Inkscape for a couple of years; I love it, and it just keeps getting better.
An Open Source vector graphics editor, with capabilities similar to Illustrator, CorelDraw, or Xara X, using the W3C standard Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) file format.
Inkscape supports many advanced SVG features (markers, clones, alpha blending, etc.) and great care is taken in designing a streamlined interface. It is very easy to edit nodes, perform complex path operations, trace bitmaps and much more. We also aim to maintain a thriving user and developer community by using open, community-oriented development.
Great application, I'm learning to use it!
Good source to learn more is - http://tavmjong.free.fr/INKSCAPE/MANUAL/html/
I even ended up ordering the book from Amazon, and have been going through it as a reference book at work. Useful.
This is a wonderful free app similar to Illustrator and Freehand. While unable to use my Windows software on my Mac, this made a great alternative!