It depends on what you're using it for. Paint.net is super user-friendly and is great for both photo editing and rendering cool stuff, especially with all the plugins that are available for free. There are tons of plugins you can find that will do things you'd never even dream of doing with Photoshop. However, if you're looking to do digital painting and need extensive brush features, you will find Paint.net to be somewhat inferior. The 4.0 update helped a lot, as it allowed for soft brushes, and there's a custom brush plugin available as well, but it's still a long shot from being photoshop in that area. Otherwise, I definitely prefer Paint.net to its competition.