Inkscape.
Both a friend and nemesis to me. It has an absolutely terrible and impenetrably hard to use UX, and is extremely buggy. Don’t get me started on how it’s nearly unusable with high DPI displays. But strictly as a free alternative to Adobe Illustrator, it’s not so bad.
I use it a lot for making templates for laser cutting and while I can generally get the results I want, I’m fighting with it every single step of the way. Even following the same steps twice in a row can create very different results. I just have to learn how to do something, then learn all the ways it can shit the bed, and how to fix them and I usually end up with a usable finished product.
