--- title: Affinity Designer Reviews meta_title: 'Affinity Designer Reviews 2026: Details, Pricing, & Features | G2' meta_description: Filter 453 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: 453 scale: '5' date_modified: '2026-07-19' 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:** 453 ## 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. Best perpetual license photo editing app. **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Alvin T. | Creative Director, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 04, 2023 **What do you like best about Affinity Designer?** Affinity Photo is the best perpetual license photo editor on the market right now. For most use cases it surpasses competing subscription based apps. **What do you dislike about Affinity Designer?** Would like better integration of desktop and mobile apps. **What problems is Affinity Designer solving and how is that benefiting you?** Editing images on the go with my iPad. ### 2. No Monthly Fees in a Great Product! **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Shane B. | Chief Executive Officer, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** April 20, 2023 **What do you like best about Affinity Designer?** The Cost. I love Adobe products and have used them for years; however I also hate paying monthly fees for stuff if I can avoid it. As such I spent about 2 years slowly finding products to replace all the Adobe ones I used. In this case, it was PhotoShop and Affinity Photo absolutely hits the mark. It is a complete powerhouse for photo editing at a more than affordable one time cost. I love it. **What do you dislike about Affinity Designer?** So I'm not sure if it's really that I dislike it or simply an adjustment to it, but I think the UI could be a little more intuitive and friendly. As I mentioned I'm a longtime user of PS so it may be that I'm very adapted to using that program and as such it's a bit challenging for me to get the hang of where everything is and how it all works together. But if I must list something I would say a more intuitive UI would be the area I would like to see improve some. **What problems is Affinity Designer solving and how is that benefiting you?** All kinds of higher level graphics work. I use very simple graphics editors for a lot of my stuff and reserve programs like Affinity Photo for the more complex work that requires their full suite of capabilities. ### 3. Excellent alternative to the more well known vector based software. **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Jeffrey K. | Chief Operating Officer, Retail, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** April 18, 2023 **What do you like best about Affinity Designer?** The biggest appeal of Affinity Designer is that they have not embraced the subscription model for their software. As a small company that only requires the occasional use of certain software, monthly subscriptions can become cost prohibitive. With Affinity you just pay once. Above that though, its still a formidable alternative to Adobe. Having been a user of Adobe products for decades I have not encountered any major feature lacking in Affinity. If you are looking for a comparable alternative to Adobe products without the monthly subscription then check out Affinity. **What do you dislike about Affinity Designer?** The primary downside is the learning curve if you are coming from other software. Finding things in menus. Shortcuts. etc. Other than that there isn't much to dislike. **What problems is Affinity Designer solving and how is that benefiting you?** I use Affinity Designer to design and create our companies logos, advertisements, and signage. The major benefit is that there are no monthly fees associated with the software. I purchased V1 of the suite and upgraded to V2 as soon as it was offered. ### 4. Absolutely blows adobe away **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Mike S. | Freelancer, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** April 18, 2023 **What do you like best about Affinity Designer?** I absolutely love have a raster and vector tools in one, it reminds me of fireworks before Adobe killed it. Also, not having a subscription is a big plus. I love it!! **What do you dislike about Affinity Designer?** The one big feature missing that I've noticed is an image trace function, however, there are apps in the store that just do vectorizing and the benefits far outweigh the small frustration of popping open a second program on the occasion I need it **What problems is Affinity Designer solving and how is that benefiting you?** I was looking to trim my costs, so anything that can move me away from a subscription model I'm all about, and there's a huge efficiency game, and not needing a separate vector and raster program although I should be clear if anyone needs a full blown photo editing, they have one called affinity photo you just don't often need it for every day graphics creation in almost every scenario I've ever needed raster tools the ones in Designer were sufficient ### 5. Best editing software **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Raghav B. | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** November 27, 2023 **What do you like best about Affinity Designer?** The ease of use, the smooth UI flow and the tools to edit and modify images. It has great editing tools. **What do you dislike about Affinity Designer?** Its price can be lower than 10k inr but nothing major, maybe there can be more tools added as compared to photoshop by adobe. **What problems is Affinity Designer solving and how is that benefiting you?** It is a great design tool that is easy to use, I can conplete tasks with way less image size as it is not raster images and in vector format. ### 6. An affordable, feature rick alternative to Adobe photoshop for image editing and design **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Faizal R. | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** April 20, 2023 **What do you like best about Affinity Designer?** If you are already familiar with image editing apps, like photoshop, you would feel right at home. UI is much more streamlined and optimized for early adoption as well for novice users. Many functionalities have been implemented in a really simple way to use. **What do you dislike about Affinity Designer?** It is not as feature as photoshop, yet has all the right features you would need. There is no imperfections or lacking in affinity photo, I think, but maybe there are limitations when comparing to other image editors. **What problems is Affinity Designer solving and how is that benefiting you?** Affinity Photo is a great design tool for us to visualize the ideas for problems occurring during the software development, since the kind of software we develop deals with image related editing. It also makes it easy to edit and modify some image quickly, resizing the images etc. It also helps in vector images too, hence the quality loss is very low. ### 7. Easy to use, Save your time **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Raghupal Reddy V. | Senior Associate, Education Management, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 19, 2024 **What do you like best about Affinity Designer?** I love this tool, More fetures in it. We can connect the data,Generate the reports in one shot. **What do you dislike about Affinity Designer?** Nothing, I love this tool. I thougt we need to add some more fetures. for future. **What problems is Affinity Designer solving and how is that benefiting you?** Generate Reports and Indivual Report Cards of the stuents. ### 8. Easy vector file edits **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Electrical/Electronic Manufacturing | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** May 08, 2024 **What do you like best about Affinity Designer?** Ease use from the start, stable software. Software alternative to Adobe Illustrator **What do you dislike about Affinity Designer?** I can't find anything to dislike about Affinity Designer currently **What problems is Affinity Designer solving and how is that benefiting you?** creation of silk-screen prints ### 9. Powerpacked Affordable Editing Solution **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in E-Learning | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** November 17, 2023 **What do you like best about Affinity Designer?** Affinity Photo works seamlessly across mac, desktop, and even ipad, which make it really helpful to create and share files. It offers one-time license for each platform and an unified license for all the platforms. Affinity Photo is close cut to Photoshop in terms of its features and functionality, and has large number of elements and tools. **What do you dislike about Affinity Designer?** Operating differences in comparison to photoshop require some learning time to get acquinted with the way of Affinity Photo **What problems is Affinity Designer solving and how is that benefiting you?** Affinity Photo helps me with robust editing tools to edit pictures for the social media accounts of the business, any events that we host or cover, or designing graphic related artwork. ### 10. One of the bests out there **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Vibhor G. | User Experience Designer, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** November 09, 2023 **What do you like best about Affinity Designer?** The beautiful and easy user interface is really understandable and helps gain the work skill very fast. It can be easily used with motion graphics software for animation or visualisation. **What do you dislike about Affinity Designer?** I think nothing right now. The workflow is smooth and I like everything in it. **What problems is Affinity Designer solving and how is that benefiting you?** It's the best competitor for Illustrator but has better file handling and ease of use than the adobe suite. I loved the tools and the workflow it provides. ### 11. Astonishing **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Ejaz S. | Freelance Editor, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** November 29, 2023 **What do you like best about Affinity Designer?** It was a very good exprience I loved it and its a very good enjoyble time **What do you dislike about Affinity Designer?** I didnt dislike anything just an interface **What problems is Affinity Designer solving and how is that benefiting you?** Affinity Designer addresses several problems faced by designers. It offers a robust set of features for vector graphic design, such as smooth workflows, precision, and flexibility. The software's benefits lie in its ability to streamline design processes, provide excellent ### 12. A powerful alternative to expensive professional programs **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Mahmoud e. | 2d,3d,Media & Web Designer, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** November 29, 2023 **What do you like best about Affinity Designer?** I'm actually seriously considering switching completely to Affinity Suite and never looking back! A very good collection of graphic design software. I look forward to using Publisher Suite 2 for iPad too! **What do you dislike about Affinity Designer?** I have some concerns about updates and technical support for the program **What problems is Affinity Designer solving and how is that benefiting you?** It's worth noting that the specific features and capabilities of Affinity software may evolve with updates ### 13. Incredible user experience and creativity enriched environment **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Divyansh T. | Senior Business Analyst, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** November 18, 2023 **What do you like best about Affinity Designer?** Versatile platform to induce creativity and innovation out of the user. **What do you dislike about Affinity Designer?** Customer support has some scope for improvement. A user and developer community can be better option to know about user base and frequency of use. **What problems is Affinity Designer solving and how is that benefiting you?** Affinity Designer is a complete package to portray the design in user's mind and it helps with various tools to bring out the creativity and innovation. ### 14. Awesome Platform with Great Features **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Joshua E. | Beverage Division Management, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 30, 2023 **What do you like best about Affinity Designer?** Designer gives the no-professional and professional user enough of what they need to create or edit great graphics. It isn't over complicated and Serif has awesome videos which get a new user up and running with ease **What do you dislike about Affinity Designer?** This isn't a knock on Affinity, but sometimes when you purchase ready-made graphics for editing, the way they are imported to Designer makes it difficult and in some cases, impossible to edit. I believe this is more on the person and program that was used to create the original though. **What problems is Affinity Designer solving and how is that benefiting you?** It allows me to find graphics from sites like Freepik and edit them to meet the needs of our business. Whether it is making content for social media or for our website this program checks all the boxes that we have without paying a monthly or yearly subscription ### 15. It was better than expected. **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Abhinav A. | Product Engineer, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** November 09, 2023 **What do you like best about Affinity Designer?** It's usability, as a designer we want to express ourselves freely, so tools which make our work easier are a blessing. **What do you dislike about Affinity Designer?** Nothing much till now, but I'm hoping I won't find any too :) **What problems is Affinity Designer solving and how is that benefiting you?** I'm an artist myself, my work is to create digital art kind of thing. Mainly posters of characters, movies. So affinity designer helps a lot in these cases. ### 16. Helps To make the copy of original Image and edit with its Non Destructive Feature **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Saptarshi D. | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** July 14, 2023 **What do you like best about Affinity Designer?** It provides different tools to edit the photos like adjusting color, filter, and levels to make the photos more awesome. It provides a nondestructive editing feature that makes the copy of the original photo edit. It provides a tool to edit complex photos. **What do you dislike about Affinity Designer?** Nothing To dislike about it and its any feature. **What problems is Affinity Designer solving and how is that benefiting you?** It provides the tool to me to edit photos like a professional. Its non-destructive feature help to edit the copy of the image without using the original photo. It helps to import and export the PDS file with full-layer support. It provides a wide range of filters, effects, and adjustments which helps me to make client photos more attractive. ### 17. Best App for Editing **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Shahid A. | Tech Review, Motion Pictures and Film, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 06, 2023 **What do you like best about Affinity Designer?** Affinity photo editor app is to simple to use and edit the photo like a professional and remove background features is awesome 👍. **What do you dislike about Affinity Designer?** Affinity photo editor is make more effect **What problems is Affinity Designer solving and how is that benefiting you?** Best features is background eraser ### 18. Concept Designer **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Omar S. | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** November 23, 2023 **What do you like best about Affinity Designer?** It's so easy to use, the tools are not so robust. **What do you dislike about Affinity Designer?** It should be more tools, in comparison with Illustrator it still have some missing tools. **What problems is Affinity Designer solving and how is that benefiting you?** Logo vectorizing, it's so easy for me to complete my work. ### 19. Best software for designers!!! **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Swarangi K. | Product Designer, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** November 12, 2023 **What do you like best about Affinity Designer?** As a designer, it helps me in illustrations and made my work easy... **What do you dislike about Affinity Designer?** Nothing right now, still exploring it's features... **What problems is Affinity Designer solving and how is that benefiting you?** It helps me in making the posters visual more appealing, and in my overall graphic design skills. ### 20. Affinity Photo is a great tool alternative of Photoshop **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Ali I. | User Experience Designer, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 07, 2023 **What do you like best about Affinity Designer?** Affinity Photo is a powerful editing tools, it has advanced layer management, non-destructive editing capabilities, and support for a wide range of file formats. The best part is its affordability compared to other professional photo editing software options. **What do you dislike about Affinity Designer?** Some of the areas that I have identified as potential areas for improvement in Affinity Photo include a steeper learning curve compared to other photo editing software, limited availability of third-party plugins and extensions, and occasional issues with stability and performance. It's not much though, and the developers of Affinity Photo are actively working to address these concerns and improve the software over time. **What problems is Affinity Designer solving and how is that benefiting you?** 4 Main Problems that affinity solved for me is: 1. Providing a more affordable alternative to other professional photo editing software options. 2. Offering advanced layer management and non-destructive editing capabilities. 3. Providing a wide range of tools and features for editing and manipulating images, including advanced selections and masking tools, HDR merging, and focus stacking. 4. Supporting a wide range of file formats, making it easy to work with images from a variety of sources. ### 21. Excellent alternative to Adobe Photoshop **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Architecture & Planning | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** November 24, 2023 **What do you like best about Affinity Designer?** Simple and easy to use, easy to learn and has standard features of Adobe software. Customer support in UK is really good. **What do you dislike about Affinity Designer?** Some features of Photoshop are not present, desktop based - it would be better as a web version to make it easier to install. **What problems is Affinity Designer solving and how is that benefiting you?** Photo editing and image creation in detail for architectural purposes ### 22. 1/3 of the Affinity trinity **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Design | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** September 24, 2023 **What do you like best about Affinity Designer?** It is a tool which brings all the basics for pros who can design and don't need tons of features **What do you dislike about Affinity Designer?** The updates of the tool are great and consistent. The improvments in details could come quicker though **What problems is Affinity Designer solving and how is that benefiting you?** Creating designs as a part of bigger projects for Affinity Publisher ### 23. Fantastic! An absolute must purchase **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Marketing and Advertising | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** May 22, 2023 **What do you like best about Affinity Designer?** Affinity Designer is hands down my must-have program. Working with any type of graphic design, I always use Affinity Designer. It is extremely powerful and easy to learn. It's very flexible and even works for some light photo editing! **What do you dislike about Affinity Designer?** The only issue I have with Affinity Designer is that it doesn't have a transparent artboard layout like Adobe Illustrator, so it's harder to work with many open artboards. **What problems is Affinity Designer solving and how is that benefiting you?** Affinity is solving the problem of having a powerful vector editing software for a (beyond) reasonable price. It does everything I could ever possibly want it to do for a fraction of the cost of other vector editing subscription products. ### 24. The perfect app. **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Danish A. | Sr.Graphic Designer, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** November 17, 2023 **What do you like best about Affinity Designer?** Hundreds of timesaving tools and functions. **What do you dislike about Affinity Designer?** Nothing at all everything seems perfect. **What problems is Affinity Designer solving and how is that benefiting you?** Achieve pixel perfect designs every time. ### 25. Excellent vector editing software for the price **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** David M. | Freelance Illustrator / Designer, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** July 14, 2020 **What do you like best about Affinity Designer?** I love being able to design vector artwork without having to pay $20 monthly. The program is great! It's well designed and easy to navigate. I love the way they use layers and they've integrated bitmapped brushes in there as well which opens up so many new possibilities. **What do you dislike about Affinity Designer?** There are a few drawbacks. Some areas could be tweaked in order to improve workflow. Text warp has not been implemented yet although you can set type along a path and then adjust each letter. It would be nice to be able to copy a gradient and re-use it in multiple shapes. If that is in there I have not figured it out yet. Also outputting the files to an Adobe friendly file still needs improving since it is difficult to avoid dealing with Photoshop at some point. **Recommendations to others considering Affinity Designer:** Give it a try! I think it's worth the initial price to see if it will work for you. **What problems is Affinity Designer solving and how is that benefiting you?** The main problem I've solved is needing a vector art program for occasional use without paying $20 a month to use Adobe. I don't need this in my daily art production but I like to have it on hand in case I want to work up some cool type treatment or designs sticker to sell. ### 26. Great alternative to InDesign **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** amber m. | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** April 20, 2023 **What do you like best about Affinity Designer?** I really like that it allows for layers like photoshop or Illustrator and it gives you that ability that InDesign does not use! I think that I would prefer to use this over InDesign that I typically use! **What do you dislike about Affinity Designer?** Nothing, I think that it's really a well rounded program and that can have potential to outshine Adobe InDesign **What problems is Affinity Designer solving and how is that benefiting you?** Multi page products like catalogs and things like that as well as multi page pdfs and presentations. ### 27. Best platform ever! **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Entertainment | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** November 12, 2023 **What do you like best about Affinity Designer?** As an illustration artist it really helps me when I have a tight deadline **What do you dislike about Affinity Designer?** The only think I dislike is that I didn't find the platform any quicker! **What problems is Affinity Designer solving and how is that benefiting you?** It's helps me with illustration works when I don't have much time to work things out. ### 28. My Most Recent Art Buddy **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Kevin O. | Artist, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 31, 2022 **What do you like best about Affinity Designer?** This software, apart from being so economical on a one-time payment basically anyone could afford, is like having Photoshop, Inkscape, and Gimp -- three design programs -- rolled into one. I can do more with this program instead of hopping between the three, saving, working, saving, etc. And its capabilities are outstanding. **What do you dislike about Affinity Designer?** It has one of the hardest learning curves, for me, because my mind is locked into using other programs that all have similar settings and functions but this one has a mind of its own and it was all new for me and I had to invest more time in it. It is now easy, but the learning curve is stiff for most folks. **What problems is Affinity Designer solving and how is that benefiting you?** There are some functions that my free programs do not have and this one does. It also has rather three design programs, in a way, built into one. What I used to have to do in another, then save and redo in a separate program, is all in one here. This saves me time. Time is always my biggest enemy and this gives me back my time! ### 29. Provides the same level of features as other software at fraction of cost. **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Stephen P. | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** May 10, 2023 **What do you like best about Affinity Designer?** What I like the most is that it is not a subscriptions. I don't use the software on a daily basis so I'm glad I can purchase the product and keep it and use it whenever. **What do you dislike about Affinity Designer?** There is a learning curve, but I'm sure if I was a daily user I would be more proficient. **What problems is Affinity Designer solving and how is that benefiting you?** It provides a well rounded graphic designer app. I use Affinity Photo more, but Designer allows me to have a full featured app without the cost of a subscription. ### 30. Best Photo editor ever **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Fábio N. | Software developer, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 20, 2022 **What do you like best about Affinity Designer?** I like Affiny Photo mainly because of 2 main reasons: it's blazing fast and has no monthly fees. It has many additional features out of the box; no plugins are needed. It's just like heaven. **What do you dislike about Affinity Designer?** Maybe it could use the same shortcuts as its biggest competitor. It would make it a lot easier for people to migrate from one to another. **What problems is Affinity Designer solving and how is that benefiting you?** As a self-employed web developer, I needed to do everything, from design to code, and I wouldn't say I liked paying monthly fees anymore. Besides that, I'm a Windows user; I needed something that wouldn't crash while I tried to edit some pictures or create a new design. Then Affinity Photo showed up. ### 31. All the key features for a fraction of the price **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Miguel T. | Head of Innovation and Sustainability, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 01, 2023 **What do you like best about Affinity Designer?** It is affordable, you can get great software for a very reasonable price tag. The architecture and layout also makes sense, and it is an intuitive environment to navigate **What do you dislike about Affinity Designer?** Specific functions like removing a background or editing a character's face features are not one-click, while newer purpose-made programs allow to do that (and only that) more easily. **What problems is Affinity Designer solving and how is that benefiting you?** Producing visuals from scratch. Editing vector illustrations made with other programs, particularly Adobe Illustrator, by third parties. Sharing designs with others. ### 32. Does 98% of what you need **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Sports | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** April 22, 2023 **What do you like best about Affinity Designer?** Really great photo editor without the bloat of Photoshop. Runs quick and can handle graphics (raster and vector) plus there in no expensive subscription! iPad version is great too. **What do you dislike about Affinity Designer?** The modality (different area for each type of work) takes a little getting used to. Also the patching/erasing tools could be a little better. But overall these are small complaints. **What problems is Affinity Designer solving and how is that benefiting you?** Photo editing and vector graphics in a lighter, more reliable (and less expensive) package than Adobe. Also pairs seamlessly with their suite of product for a full design suite. ### 33. Great Quality Yet Surprisingly Affordable graphics Software **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Education Management | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** November 03, 2022 **What do you like best about Affinity Designer?** The main reason I chose this application was that I only had to pay once to own it (at an affordable price), unlike other software of a similar kind on the market. After creating a project, I can move between three different "personas" (vector, pixel, and export personas). This is great because it allows me to switch between vector and pixel art easily. There are more than enough brushes, filters, effects, styles and textiles that can be used to tweak virtually every aspect of my art. **What do you dislike about Affinity Designer?** When first starting out with affinity designer, it can feel quite overwhelming. I think this is because of the large number of tools that the software offers, which sometimes seems to be all over the place. However, this is a minor gripe as the developers have provided enough documentation and videos on how to use the application. **What problems is Affinity Designer solving and how is that benefiting you?** Affinity Designer makes it possible for a wider pool of artists because of its affordable price. It provides all the necessary tools to create my art and then easily export them into various standard formats. ### 34. Great alternative to Adobe Illustrator **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Construction | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** April 18, 2023 **What do you like best about Affinity Designer?** One time purchase! No subscription and delivers almost all the same features as Adobe Illustrator... and some that Illustrator does not! **What do you dislike about Affinity Designer?** Does not have image tracing feature that Adobe Illustrator does have. **What problems is Affinity Designer solving and how is that benefiting you?** I need to do side project design work so it doesn't make sense for me to pay a subscription to Adobe to use their products a couple of times a year. ### 35. Affinity Designer **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Grady B. | CIO, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** June 01, 2023 **What do you like best about Affinity Designer?** COST! vs. Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom and InDesign **What do you dislike about Affinity Designer?** The availability of add-ins do not compare to Adobe Products. **What problems is Affinity Designer solving and how is that benefiting you?** They are mostly solving a cost issue. As far my experience with the software, it is entirely compatible with Adobe. ### 36. Decent Photo Editing App **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Retail | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 20, 2022 **What do you like best about Affinity Designer?** Affinity Photo is great, the best thing about it is you don't have to pay monthly fees to use it. You pay a one-time fee and then get to keep it forever. There is also lots of features in it, a lot more than free apps. **What do you dislike about Affinity Designer?** Some of the features in Affinity Photo are quite outdated. To do some specific things it also takes a lot more time in affinity. There is also a bit of a learning curve to use Affinity as features aren't in the places you may of thought they were. **What problems is Affinity Designer solving and how is that benefiting you?** With lots of free photo editing apps, they often have basic features that can't really do what you want. Affinity Photo has lots of useful features in one place, it is great for editing product photos and making instagram posts. ### 37. Everything Illustrator can do but less expensive **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Ivo P. | BIM Coordinator & Information Manager, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** September 22, 2022 **What do you like best about Affinity Designer?** This program is amazing! it can edit vectorized images very well. In the past, in the office, we used Adobe Illustrator, which was very good, but Affinity Designer can do the same things at a fraction of the cost. **What do you dislike about Affinity Designer?** If you are used to Adobe Illustrator, Affinity Designer looks pretty much the same, but the few things that work differently can be grating at first. You get used to it, though. **What problems is Affinity Designer solving and how is that benefiting you?** It's a cost-saving tool. Rather than sharing 2-3 Illustrator network licenses, we can buy the whole office (30-40 users) an Affinity Designer license so that people can do their work without waiting. ### 38. An excellent non-subscription alternative to Adobe **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Zara P. | Customer Service Assistant, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** June 14, 2022 **What do you like best about Affinity Designer?** Affinity publisher is much cheaper to use than Adobe, but still has the features you need for creating marketing materials and editing PDFs. I highly recommend Affinity Publisher to anyone who is currently using Adobe for PDF editing and creation. They also have Affinity Photo and Design which all play well together. **What do you dislike about Affinity Designer?** Affinity does not have all of the same features as adobe but it has most - and if you are used to the layout of Adobe, there will probably be an adjustment period. You might struggle if you do very high-level graphic design or photo editing e.g. for magazines etc **Recommendations to others considering Affinity Designer:** I would recommend it to any organisation currently using Adobe software for making and editing PDFs. **What problems is Affinity Designer solving and how is that benefiting you?** We were able to slash our internal budgets by buying a one-off version of Affinity instead of subscribing to Adobe publisher. This has saved us $50 per person per month. ### 39. Powerful tool easy to use **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Gonzalo G. | Technology for Learning Department Coordinator, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 10, 2021 **What do you like best about Affinity Designer?** The ease to use: it is user-friendly, with a clear and well-structured dashboard, with many tools accessible to the first glimpse. **What do you dislike about Affinity Designer?** For a newcomer, the use of certain options is not completely evident, and it needs a hard learning effort, with a short and slopy learning curve. **What problems is Affinity Designer solving and how is that benefiting you?** Image resizing and cropping, change of image format and resampling ### 40. Great app that fits so well within the Serif Product Suite. **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Josh d. | Head of Design, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** September 28, 2022 **What do you like best about Affinity Designer?** Affinity Publisher comes to its best with the Photo and Designer App. Using this unique environment it allows for editing in each different context as print and publications are made. **What do you dislike about Affinity Designer?** Affinity can still work on creating further toolsets and plugin usability. The export and save tools lacks the dxf format. Other formats cant be imported either. **What problems is Affinity Designer solving and how is that benefiting you?** Affinity Publisher gives me the opportunity to work with desktop editing software without the constant need to pay monthly subscription feeds. To have a UK company provide us with a different unique flavour of artist skill. ### 41. Excellent professional tool **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** GUSTAVO F. | Designer, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 08, 2022 **What do you like best about Affinity Designer?** First, it is a very good tool for designers. Second, there is no monthly fee. Third, it is easy to use and generates files for printing with precision. I recommend it. **What do you dislike about Affinity Designer?** Having to pay for future version updates. You don't pay for updates of the version you purchased. The price to upgrade to a new version could be differentiated for those who already have the previous version. **What problems is Affinity Designer solving and how is that benefiting you?** I use Affinity Design to compose graphic pieces, logos, business cards, letterheads, images for social media, and basically everything I need in the graphic area. ### 42. Affinity Designer is a great vector graphics package at an affordable price **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Carlos H. | Offier, Government Administration, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** August 23, 2022 **What do you like best about Affinity Designer?** The best part about Affinity Designer is the ease of use. I have used other graphics programs with a very high learning curve. Affinity Designer dramatically reduces the time spent learning new ways to do simple tasks. Its intuitive design makes it easy for even the novice to master. The help section is great and gives many examples of different tasks in a straightforward non technical format. **What do you dislike about Affinity Designer?** Would like a little more control in working with curves and ways to slice objects easily. IT would be great if Affinity Designer included dynamic tools that would adapt to the funttions being performed. **What problems is Affinity Designer solving and how is that benefiting you?** Affinity Designer has helped me to create captivating presentations to deliver a memorable visual aide that engages the viewer and clearly identifies the product being presented ### 43. Versatile Designer Package **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Publishing | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 09, 2023 **What do you like best about Affinity Designer?** The tutorial package is easy to follow with practice screens and generally helpful as I learn a new skill. I find online designing exciting. I have not used any competitor packages. **What do you dislike about Affinity Designer?** The many features and tools are challenging to navigate for a beginner **What problems is Affinity Designer solving and how is that benefiting you?** Affinity Designer enables me to create unique pages and images. ### 44. Affinity designer is a capable and affordable tool for pro-level vector art! **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Antti R. | CEO, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** July 26, 2022 **What do you like best about Affinity Designer?** Easy to use, powerful features. Excellent value for money. I really appreciate the single purchase versus subscription from the main competitor. I've used the software since beta and continue to do so for multiple projects. **What do you dislike about Affinity Designer?** Lacks some advanced tools that can be found from competing products. The main feature I'm missing is the fill with shape -function and certain repetition-based tools. **What problems is Affinity Designer solving and how is that benefiting you?** It enables me to make sleek illustrations for pitch decks, white papers and other material such as patent drawings. It enables easy recycling of elements from one project to another. ### 45. Great Alternative to Adobe Photoshop! **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Erin P. | Co-Founder, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** June 06, 2022 **What do you like best about Affinity Designer?** I love that Affinity Photo is a one-time affordable payment, rather than a subscription. It has all of the tools and features needed to do simple and complex photo editing, and it is easy to pick up and start using! **What do you dislike about Affinity Designer?** Having migrated from Adobe Photoshop, learning the new tools and names has been the biggest challenge, but I don't think this is necessarily a drawback, simply a learning curve. **Recommendations to others considering Affinity Designer:** A great and affordable alternative to Adobe **What problems is Affinity Designer solving and how is that benefiting you?** Affinity Photo allows me to create professional and crisp marketing photos, or to edit and compile multiple photos into one image. It also saves me from having to have a huge subscription to access high-quality editing software. ### 46. Affinity Photo has come to stay **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Rogelio A. | CEO, Information Technology and Services, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 16, 2022 **What do you like best about Affinity Designer?** It has all the tools I needed when working with Photoshop, the GUI is similar, the tools behave very similar and the results are of the highest quality. I've used this to design banners, photo editing, photo retouch, and digital drawing. As for drawing, I bought a series of brushes on the Affinity online store and with a single click, I got them up and running readily available with a great quality. The digital drawing tools help me stabilize my stroke so it looks very professional with the least effort. You can also set up the performance settings so you can allow it to use more ram and more space in case you want to let it work with ease or in case you are restricted in resources. You can also extract people from a photo with ease and you can fine the selection so you can have every single hair perfectly selected giving it a natural effect when you change the background of a picture, for example. **What do you dislike about Affinity Designer?** Almost nothing. There are some tools in Photoshop that are really amazing like those AI tools that extract a person from the photo so you can work faster. Affnity does not have it but it still has tools to help you do it. **What problems is Affinity Designer solving and how is that benefiting you?** I couldn't afford Adobe Photoshop's license so I decided to give Affinity Photo a try and I kept it. Affinity Photo let me keep up with my work designing web banners, retouch photos, and digital drawing with such high quality that I do not miss Photoshop at all. ### 47. Affinity Designer and Beyond **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Design | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 17, 2022 **What do you like best about Affinity Designer?** I like how it functions quickly without a lag time that I experience when using similar software. **What do you dislike about Affinity Designer?** I only wish I knew more people who use it and would like it to me more mainstream. **What problems is Affinity Designer solving and how is that benefiting you?** It's a great software that is way more affordable than some alternatives. ### 48. A Decent Alternative to Adobe Illustrator **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Dave B. | Pastor and teacher, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 27, 2022 **What do you like best about Affinity Designer?** The ability to switch 'personas' is really helpful. **What do you dislike about Affinity Designer?** I find the 'export' process a little confusing/convaluted compared to Adobe. **What problems is Affinity Designer solving and how is that benefiting you?** I can complete my graphic design obligations without Adobe's extortionate price structure. ### 49. The Alternative is here boss and it Kills! **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Ajay Singh R. | Motion Designer and Video Editor, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** May 03, 2022 **What do you like best about Affinity Designer?** After switching from windows to mac what I found first on the app store for designing stuff was Affinity Designer, and yes that really helped me in kickstarting my design work with my new mac **What do you dislike about Affinity Designer?** There is nothing as of now to dislike in the interface but yes some cosmetic changes are possible to be made which can by far make it easy to look and for sure will make a more premium looking application **What problems is Affinity Designer solving and how is that benefiting you?** Mostly it is about designing lower thirds for my videos in a fun way and yes this has helped me to do it better without even taking much RAM on my mac and yes surely a light weight compared to Photoshop ### 50. Creativity booster **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Serge R. | Photographer, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 15, 2022 **What do you like best about Affinity Designer?** Usability is great for me. I've started my journey with ColerDraw 3, and since then, a lot has changed. When I've heard about Affinity software, my 1st one to install was Designer as I was really keen to know what was inside. And I was positively surprised with the number of options, speed, and ease of use. Today is my only tool for design work, and paired with the remaining two (Publisher and Photo),it is a very powerful and thoroughly professional tool for any designer. It is worth mentioning support and fantastic forums where the Affinity team is explaining all the nuances of the software. Oh! And by the way! There is no subscription on it. **What do you dislike about Affinity Designer?** Honestly, there is only one thing, and sometimes it is annoying - lack of support for specific .eps files created on competitor's products (we all know which one). Those eps won't open as vector file but only as strange bitmap without any chance to edit them. There is a way around using one of the opensource software with Ink in its name but it is not always working. **What problems is Affinity Designer solving and how is that benefiting you?** Graphic design of website elements, ads, business cards, leaflets, brochures. The whole Affinity suite paid for itself within a few days. The great benefit is that all 3 applications can be accessed from one panel just by clicking one icon. Top marks! ## 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?page=3§ion=pricing&secure%5Bexpires_at%5D=2026-07-19+05%3A41%3A51+-0500&secure%5Bsession_id%5D=1da8a0b7-fec3-4ea3-b432-163e359875ce&secure%5Btoken%5D=9fff119d62887d6db82cc10777535690127bc1bbcb2852f117098e9ad71ce77e&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) - [Affinity Publisher](https://www.g2.com/products/affinity-publisher/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) ## Top Affinity Designer Alternatives - [Adobe Illustrator](https://www.g2.com/products/adobe-illustrator/reviews) - 4.6/5.0 (6,055 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)