--- title: Affinity Designer Reviews meta_title: 'Affinity Designer Reviews 2026: Details, Pricing, & Features | G2' meta_description: Filter 454 reviews by the users' company size, role or industry to find out how Affinity Designer works for a business like yours. aggregate_rating: rating_value: 4.5 review_count: 454 scale: '5' date_modified: '2026-08-13' parent_category: name: Graphic Design url: https://www.g2.com/categories/graphic-design --- # Affinity Designer Reviews **Vendor:** Canva **Category:** [Vector Graphics Software](https://www.g2.com/categories/vector-graphics) **Average Rating:** 4.5/5.0 **Total Reviews:** 454 ## About Affinity Designer Proud winner of an Apple Design Award in 2015, Affinity Designer brings inspiration to illustration in a strong, sleek tool. Combining vector design and raster finishing naturally in one tool, this innovative illustrator lets your ideas flow. Put simply, its speed, power and precision make creating art feel fun and spontaneous again, while delivering high-end results in both macOS and Windows. “We’ve been wondering when a serious challenger would appear, and Serif has thrown down the gauntlet in fine style.” Expert Reviews “Stunningly powerful.” TechRadar “Great UI, buttery smooth software and jaw dropping price.” Medium.com “A very attractive investment for anyone from beginners to professionals.” Touch Reviews “A remarkably polished design environment.” Stack Social ## Affinity Designer Pros & Cons **What users like:** - Users find Affinity Designer's **user-friendly interface** and tools make creating graphics easy and efficient. (10 reviews) - Users praise the **high-quality graphics** produced by Affinity Designer, finding the performance and tools exceptional for professional work. (6 reviews) - Users love the **fast and easy vector editing** capabilities of Affinity Designer, making professional-quality design accessible. (6 reviews) - Users appreciate the **affordability** of Affinity Designer, making it an ideal choice for budget-conscious graphic designers. (5 reviews) - Users value the **user-friendly interface and vector-raster flexibility** of Affinity Designer for professional-quality graphics creation. (5 reviews) - Users appreciate the **easy-to-use tools** in Affinity Designer, which enhance their design experience and versatility. (3 reviews) - Users appreciate the **affordable pricing and professional interface** of Affinity Designer, making it an excellent alternative to Adobe Illustrator. (3 reviews) - Vector Editing (3 reviews) - Users value the **compatibility** of Affinity Designer with Adobe Illustrator, enhancing their design experience effortlessly. (2 reviews) - Efficiency Improvement (2 reviews) **What users dislike:** - Users express concerns about **tool limitations** in Affinity Designer, noting fewer features and weaker integration compared to competitors. (4 reviews) - Users experience **import issues** due to limited file compatibility and fewer third-party resources compared to competitors. (3 reviews) - Users note the **limited features** of Affinity Designer, highlighting gaps compared to industry-standard tools and third-party support. (3 reviews) - Users find the **complexity of tools** in Affinity Designer challenging, especially during the initial learning phase. (2 reviews) - Users experience **performance issues** with Affinity Designer, especially when handling complex files on Windows. (2 reviews) - Vector Issues (2 reviews) - Users note **compatibility issues** with certain file types when converting from other software, affecting overall usability. (1 reviews) - Design Limitations (1 reviews) - Users note **high system requirements** for Affinity Designer, leading to performance lags with complex files on Windows. (1 reviews) - Learning Curve (1 reviews) ## Affinity Designer Reviews ### 1. Worst experience ever! **Rating:** 0.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Anushka B. | Content Writer, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** November 30, 2023 **What do you like best about Affinity Designer?** Affinity hardly had any good and unique features which we cannot find for free or way cheaper in other platforms like Canva or more. **What do you dislike about Affinity Designer?** There is not even a single thing we liked about Affinity Photo, it was one of our worst purchase/investment ever. Affinity Photo has not at all been easy to adapt or implement for our team. Their customer support was disappointing off the roof, who never responded to any of our queries just because they did not prioritize us first. Its integration with other platforms was of no use for at all, because the images produced with it were not at all satisfactory. **What problems is Affinity Designer solving and how is that benefiting you?** Affinity Photo is preferred for agencies who are looking forward to taking a step into the world of photography and beginner-level editing. We were not at all satisfied with our experience in Affinity Photo and hope to never ever repurchase it. The features provided in it were really common and easy to get in any other editing platform for way cheap. It did not solve any of our problems, nor did it benefit us in any way. ### 2. poor support, immature product, crashes on startup & no support **Rating:** 0.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** L W. | Computer Scientist / Lead Engineer, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 28, 2021 **What do you like best about Affinity Designer?** Nothing -- It reads in all of my fonts on every startup, taking over a minute for designer and photo. Yet I have used font features in Photoshop maybe 1 in 50 times. No way to disable -- when I reported problem, they told me to get a font manager. With their 1.9 update, Neither Affinity nor Designer will start at all. I reported the problem in their bug-report forum and have yet to receive any response. **What do you dislike about Affinity Designer?** mandatory font scan on each startup. The fact that it doesn't start at all with their latest update (1.9), and their poor support (no response to 1.9 no longer starting but giving coredumps. **What problems is Affinity Designer solving and how is that benefiting you?** Haven't used it much due to long startup time. Wanted photo shop replacement after Adobe sabotaged my CS5 install. They left a time bomb in the code even if you had a license, they started by disabling the graphics card enhancements. ### 3. Not even close **Rating:** 0.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Brian K. | Photographer, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 30, 2018 **What do you like best about Affinity Designer?** It's actually runner up almost to photoshop. Lots of uses and options and intricacies. If you're new to photo editing you can get the hang of it. **What do you dislike about Affinity Designer?** It's clumsy and very tiny in print and copies a lot from photoshop. **What problems is Affinity Designer solving and how is that benefiting you?** I tried it for 2 months but always ran into roadblocks and went back to using photoshop. ### 4. Unstable and has only basic features **Rating:** 0.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Anton L. | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 15, 2018 **What do you like best about Affinity Designer?** The program is a redesigned version of Serif DrawPlus that looked dated in the end. Designer looks better. Perhaps it sports a little more clumsy interface though. **What do you dislike about Affinity Designer?** Affinity Designer has been rebuild from scratch but after year of development is has disappointingly few advanced features. There is no precision tools, no really useful perspective tools, no mesh gradient, no knife tool and no shape building tools. It is all very basic. It is very cheap compared to Adobe Illustrator but it also very basic. Since free Inkscape can do whatever a professional designer wants, value for money is not great. **Recommendations to others considering Affinity Designer:** Compare it with other tools like Inkscape and Illustrator and CorelDRAW before making a decision. **What problems is Affinity Designer solving and how is that benefiting you?** I don't use it anymore. If you want a cheap tool for digital painting it could be a good tool, but I could not solve my business problem without a more complete feature set. I tried to use it for graphic designs for illustrations, logos, posters and occasionally icons. It is cheap - but cheap is expensive if you have to do all by hand. Then there is no point in digital anyway. ## Affinity Designer Discussions - [What is Affinity Designer used for?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/what-is-affinity-designer-used-for) - 2 comments, 2 upvotes - [Children's Picture Book - read Publisher is unable to create epub or mobi files](https://www.g2.com/discussions/children-s-picture-book-read-publisher-is-unable-to-create-epub-or-mobi-files-782f04d4-841a-419f-8d52-afa67bdb8be6) - 1 comment, 1 upvote - [Where can I find a complete tutorial set for beginners?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/51827-where-can-i-find-a-complete-tutorial-set-for-beginners) - 5 comments, 1 upvote - [Is Affinity designer good for beginners?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/36810-is-affinity-designer-good-for-beginners) - 8 comments, 1 upvote - [How can I add text around circle in Affinity Designer?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/34756-how-can-i-add-text-around-circle-in-affinity-designer) - 6 comments, 1 upvote - [View Affinity Designer pricing details and edition comparison](https://www.g2.com/products/affinity-designer/reviews?filters%5Bnps_score%5D%5B%5D=1§ion=pricing&secure%5Bexpires_at%5D=2026-08-13+09%3A21%3A45+-0500&secure%5Bsession_id%5D=0b904177-f005-4c19-940a-4a297ea89375&secure%5Btoken%5D=6d9beb0bf1ba8dd064bff18bbf555d9eece342ccfae2b89267fb8e5b1df444e0&format=llm_user) ## Affinity Designer Integrations - [Adobe Illustrator](https://www.g2.com/products/adobe-illustrator/reviews) - [Adobe Photoshop](https://www.g2.com/products/adobe-photoshop/reviews) - [Affinity Photo](https://www.g2.com/products/affinity-photo/reviews) - [Autodesk 3ds Max](https://www.g2.com/products/autodesk-3ds-max/reviews) - [Canva](https://www.g2.com/products/canva/reviews) - [Figma](https://www.g2.com/products/figma/reviews) - [LibreOffice Writer](https://www.g2.com/products/libreoffice-writer/reviews) - [Revit](https://www.g2.com/products/revit/reviews) ## Affinity Designer Features **Additional Functionality** - Data Visualization - Mobile App - AI Copilot - Commenting/Notes - Text Editing - Custom Brushes - Generative AI - Watermarking - Engagement Tracking - Pattern, Color & Art Storage - Version Control - API - Third-Party Integrations - Collaboration Tools - Design Templates - Search/Filter - Secure Data Storage - Workflow Management - Data Storage Management - Interactive Content - Drag & Drop Editor - Video Editing - Preview Functionality - Multi-Language - Image Editing - Content Import/Export - Customizable Branding - Content Management - CAD Tools - Content Library - Custom Fonts - 3D Digital Asset Management - Design Management - Presentation Tools - Social Media Integration - Print Management **Additional Functionality** - Document Imaging - Categorization/Grouping - Animation - File Management - Design Management - Document Templates - Configurable Workflow - Image Library - Custom Development - Activity Dashboard - Document Storage - Data Import/Export - Application Management - Templates - For Websites - Labeling - Multiple Format Support - 2D Drawing - Synchronous Editing - Project Management - Pattern, Color & Art Storage - Customizable Templates - Collaboration Tools - Activity Tracking - Image Editing - Third-Party Integrations - Preview Functionality - Tagging - WYSIWYG Editor - Generative AI - Image Tracing - Rendering - Sketching and Annotation Tools - Text Editing - Traceability - Workflow Management - AI Copilot - Reporting/Analytics - Drag & Drop - Content Library - For Vector Illustrations - Data Extraction ## Top Affinity Designer Alternatives - [Adobe Illustrator](https://www.g2.com/products/adobe-illustrator/reviews) - 4.6/5.0 (6,063 reviews) - [Sketch](https://www.g2.com/products/sketch/reviews) - 4.5/5.0 (1,209 reviews) - [CorelDRAW](https://www.g2.com/products/coreldraw/reviews) - 4.3/5.0 (540 reviews)