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Affinity Designer

Score9.1 out of 10

22 Reviews and Ratings

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What is Affinity Designer?

Affinity Designer is a vector graphics software developed by Serif (Europe) Ltd. According to the vendor, it is designed for professional illustrators, web designers, game developers, and other creatives. The software aims to assist users in creating high-quality concept art, print projects, logos, icons, UI designs, mock-ups, and more.

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Categories & Use Cases

Who Buys & Uses Affinity Designer

Affinity Designer Reviews

What users are saying about Affinity Designer.
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Pros

  • Robust vector graphic design capabilities
  • Cost-effective one-time purchase model
  • Efficient exporting to various file types and mediums

Cons

  • Absence of a dedicated vector trace tool
  • Compatibility and feature parity concerns with Adobe products
  • Potential for new subscription requirements for certain functionalities or integrations

Now is the time to use Affinity Designer

Incentivized
Daniel FloresView profile
Creative Genius in Marketing at challenges games and comics (1-10 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I am a 2D illustrator focused on character art for comics animation and game art. A lot of my artwork ends in vector format for various uses, beyond the screen.

I love having the sketching and vector tools in one app! I like the ability to quickly sketch my ideas, export and share to get feedback. Then jump back into the same document, to work on the final artwork with Vectors.

What other app can do that?!
Plus, Affinity Designer on ipad and on my Surface, gives me the best of both worlds, PC and iOS.

I challenge other "Professional" drawing apps to give me that much freedom and power in one app. Let's go!

Pros

  • sketching tools
  • vector capabilites
  • export to any medium and file type

Cons

  • I wish that we had an updated iOS app, I love drawing on my iPad.
  • Can we add a artboards?

Return on Investment

  • Perfect for professionals. The price is insane for a professional tool.
  • I am able to fit the price of Affinity Designer into our business budget.

Usability

Alternatives Considered

Clip Studio Paint and Adobe Illustrator CC

Other Software Used

Adobe Illustrator CC, Clip Studio Paint, Adobe Express

Excellent replacement for Adobe Illustrator

Incentivized
Renee A FreireichView profile
Consultant in Information Technology at Before & After Consulting (1-10 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I use Affinity Designer all the time. I love this solution to Adobe Illustrator - which has gone totally subscription based. I have been working with it since it was released. It is great for creating vector based artwork, for my clients and friends.

Pros

  • Line art for photos
  • text for resumes
  • design concepts for websites

Cons

  • The Image Trace feature that Illustrator has
  • The Live Paint feature that Illustrator has

Return on Investment

  • Not having to pay a subscription fee EVERY MONTH FOREVER
  • I purchased the first and second version of the Affinity Suite. Worth every penny.
  • $22.99 per month for Illustrator vs FREE (now)
  • I purchased both Affinity suites total cost $199.98 NO MONTHLY FEE.

Usability

Alternatives Considered

Adobe Illustrator CC

Other Software Used

Affinity Photo, Affinity Publisher, QuickBooks Desktop Pro, PDF Expert by Readdle, Cyberduck

An excellent alternative to the Adobe suite

Incentivized
Verified User
Engineer in Professional Services (501-1000 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use Affinity Designer (as well as other software from the suite) mainly for tasks related to graphic design, whether they come from our original Product Design projects or for work focused on marketing and social media, both external and internal, through our internal marketing platforms. The big problem it solves is that, being a tool that’s easy to implement and compatible with legacy files, it makes our daily work a lot easier.

Pros

  • Graphic Design
  • UI Design
  • Social Media
  • Interactive PDFs
  • Vectorization

Cons

  • Rasterization
  • Adobe Compatibility
  • AI integration

Return on Investment

  • The price of the tool
  • Stability with various types of hardware and OSs
  • Ease of implementation

Usability

Alternatives Considered

Adobe PhotoShop, Adobe Illustrator CC, Figma and Inkscape

Other Software Used

Figma, Anthropic Claude, Adobe Premiere Pro, Google Workspace

A really good Adobe alternative

Incentivized
Verified User
Project Manager in Marketing (1001-5000 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I originally bought a personal license to the Affinity V2 suite. It was an affordable alternative to Adobe and also offered fully featured apps for iPad which no one else is doing (esp. for layout design like InDesign). Once Canva took over and they consolidated the suite to one app, I came back to see what has changed and I'm impressed. Still waiting to see if the iPad suite will be updated.

Pros

  • Seamless to move between the different "apps" or workflows
  • Getting closer to Adobe in features
  • Tons of resources for learning the app(s)

Cons

  • Still not on par feature wise with Adobe
  • Locks widespread adoption by orgs locked in to Adobe Enterprise plans
  • Locked into the Canva ecosystem (could be a minus for some, no issue for me)

Return on Investment

  • FREE
  • Fully featured iPad apps to design on the go
  • has some cool ways of doing things in contrast to Adobe
  • have to also be a member of Canva ti use, sub to use AI

Usability

Alternatives Considered

Adobe Firefly, Figma, Adobe Express and Canva

Other Software Used

Adobe InDesign, Microsoft Powerpoint, Adobe Illustrator CC

Great alternative to Adobe Illustrator with robust features.

Incentivized
Verified User
Manager in Sales (1-10 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I use Affinity Designer as a non-subscription vector design program, freeing me from needing to pay for a monthly or yearly subscription to another vector graphics design software. Used for everything from simple social media graphics to pre-production designs for product manufacturing.

Pros

  • Vector based graphics.
  • No subscription needed.

Cons

  • It's missing a vector trace tool.

Return on Investment

  • Removes the need for $35-100 in software subscription.

Usability

Alternatives Considered

Adobe Illustrator CC and Inkscape

Other Software Used

Procreate, Canva, Adobe Illustrator CC