--- title: "Affinity Designer Reviews, Pros and Cons - 2026 Software Advice" description: "Reviews of Affinity Designer. Learn how real users rate this software's ease-of-use, functionality, overall quality and customer support. Talk to our advisors to see if Affinity Designer is a good fit for you!" source_url: "https://www.softwareadvice.com/vector-graphics/affinity-designer-profile/reviews/" page_type: "reviews" language: "en" --- [Home](https://www.softwareadvice.com/) / [Graphic Design Software](https://www.softwareadvice.com/graphic-design/) / [Affinity Designer](https://www.softwareadvice.com/vector-graphics/affinity-designer-profile/) / Affinity Designer Reviews Software Advice offers objective insights based on verified user reviews and independent product and market research. When our advisors match you to a software provider, we may earn a referral fee. [Overview](https://www.softwareadvice.com/vector-graphics/affinity-designer-profile/) Reviews [Alternatives](https://www.softwareadvice.com/vector-graphics/affinity-designer-profile/alternatives/) # Affinity Designer User Reviews ## Reviews summary - Overall rating: 4.7/5 - Total reviews: 455 ### Secondary ratings - Ease of use: 4.4/5 - Customer support: 4.5/5 - Value for money: 4.8/5 - Functionality: 4.5/5 ### Rating distribution - 5 stars: 345 reviews (76%) - 4 stars: 99 reviews (22%) - 3 stars: 8 reviews (2%) - 2 stars: 3 reviews (1%) - 1 star: 0 reviews (0%) ### Most mentioned pros - Affinity Designer has been an excellent tool for creating professional graphics, logos, social media content, and print materials. - Regular updates and strong file compatibility make it a reliable choice for both personal and professional design work. - I use is as a freelance graphic designer since v.1 and the compatibility with adobe apps is pretty good, but even if you have trouble you can simple share PDF files that work fine. ### Most mentioned cons - Some features are missing compared to Illustrator, and compatibility with certain files can be tricky - Image sizing loses quality of the image for vectors - Some minor issues on figuring out how to set up the studio. ## Affinity Designer customer reviews Showing reviews 1-25 of 455 (page 1). ### A perfect replacement for Adobe - Overall rating: 5/5 - Reviewer: Drijen S. - Verified reviewer: Yes - Industry: Information Technology and Services - Company size: Self-Employed - Product usage: Used daily for more than 2 years - Reviewed: November 2023 - Review source details: This reviewer was invited by us to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you. I was looking for an alternative to the Adobe suite, which have been great, but obviously expensive as I needed to pay each month. I heard about Affinity range (Photo, Designer and Publisher) and thought I should try them out. Of course, as with anything there were concerns about moving to a new platform, compatability etc, so I stayed with Adobe for a few more months which I became more familiar with Affinity. After a few years of using Designer, I am not missing Illustrator The layouts are almost identical, the tools are almost the same. The one thing I miss is the vector tracing, but apart from that I'm happy to have made the switch #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 5/5 - Value for money: 5/5 - Customer support: 4/5 - Functionality: 5/5 #### Pros Feature rich, One time payment (vs subscription), easy to use (coming from Adobe Illustrator) #### Cons Missing integration with Adobe fonts, text distortion tools, vector tracing #### Reasons for switching to Affinity Designer One-time payment vs Monthly cost, recommended by others --- ### Affinity Designer is an Excellent Must-Have Design Toolkit for any Designer/Artist/Developer - Overall rating: 5/5 - Reviewer: Kade M. - Verified reviewer: Yes - Industry: Computer Games - Company size: Self-Employed - Product usage: Used weekly for less than 12 months - Reviewed: January 2022 - Review source details: This reviewer was invited by us to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you. So far I really love it, very easy to use and very fun to play with despite the confusion of trying to understand and learn this new design software which I feel is worth its value. #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 4/5 - Value for money: 5/5 - Customer support: 5/5 - Functionality: 4/5 #### Pros I really love how easy it is to just jump right in and start using it with a lot of useful creation tools, profiles, and more. There is a lot of useful functions, brushes, text, designs, shapes and such crammed into it. #### Cons Not very friendly to 3d Artists and Game Developers in my opinion. The software is somewhat confusing compared to others so I am stuck having to learn something new since it doesn't follow traditional methods which might not be such a bad thing aside from the confusion of trying to use it more due to the different toolset profiles. It also appears to lack filters and affects so that means I would have to use, create, or go get another software to use alongside it and I was really hoping to have an all-in-one tool. This has left me with a design of getting Affinity Photo or going back to Krita. #### Reasons for switching to Affinity Designer Krita is good but I kept running into random crashing/lagging issues which left me with no choice but to use other software at times and I found it to be rather annoying for that reason after dealing with it constantly. --- ### Excellent replacement to Adobe Illustrator - Overall rating: 5/5 - Reviewer: Chris D. - Verified reviewer: Yes - Industry: Design - Company size: Self-Employed - Product usage: Used daily for less than 2 years - Reviewed: October 2019 - Review source details: This reviewer was invited by us to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you. This app has become an invaluable tool in my workflow. #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 4/5 - Value for money: 5/5 - Customer support: 5/5 - Functionality: 4/5 #### Pros This app is great for creating graphics, logos, icons, and shapes. It has a great type tool that can be used for artistic text or blocks of text. It offers graphics creation for vectors as well as raster graphics. #### Cons The way that layers are arranged or not arranged can be frustrating. It is merely a learning curve, though. --- ### Great alternative the Adobe Illustrator - Overall rating: 5/5 - Reviewer: Steve K. - Verified reviewer: Yes - Industry: Information Technology and Services - Company size: Self-Employed - Product usage: Used daily for more than 2 years - Reviewed: November 2021 - Review source details: This reviewer was invited by us to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you. I use a lot, especially when designing stuff for softball t-shirts or for laser engraving. #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 5/5 - Value for money: 5/5 - Customer support: 5/5 - Functionality: 5/5 #### Pros Great set of features and sensible pricing, updated regularly #### Cons Sometimes doesn't export how you'd expect in all formats #### Reasons for choosing Affinity Designer It works and got used to the workflow, works in the same fashion for all Affinity products (Photo, Publisher) #### Reasons for switching to Affinity Designer When they went cloud and subscription based, Affinity products are a one off fee --- ### Best Alternative for Adobe Illustrator - Overall rating: 5/5 - Reviewer: Abraham C. - Verified reviewer: Yes - Industry: Mining & Metals - Company size: 2-10 employees - Product usage: Used weekly for more than 2 years - Reviewed: October 2021 - Review source details: This reviewer was invited by us to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you. Overall, I am very happy with this app because I can finally work on vectors and graphic designs without worrying about monthly fees. It is so cheap and powerful. This is definitely the best alternative for Adobe Illustrator. #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 5/5 - Value for money: 5/5 - Customer support: 5/5 - Functionality: 5/5 #### Pros I was an avid user of Adobe Illustrator before they changed into a subscription model. When I learned about Affinity Designer, I grabbed it immediately without second thoughts. It works great and has all the features and tools I need for my work and business. You just have to pay once and you get all future updates for life! Also, their mobile app comes free after your purchase. How cool is that? The app can be used on desktops and/or tablets. I have tried it on my iPad Pro and it's really fun to use, though I'd still prefer working on a computer. The price is so cheap and hard to beat. I will never look back after using this software for almost 5 years. I am now a fan and I highly recommend this app. #### Cons There is nothing to dislike with this software. I never had any issues or crashes so far. I love it! #### Reasons for switching to Affinity Designer I made the switch because of pricing. Adobe charges monthly while in Affinity Designer, you just have to pay once and it is yours for life! Also, everything is pretty the same, the functionality and tools. Switching to this app is pretty straightforward. --- ### The best design software ever - Overall rating: 5/5 - Reviewer: Alexandre T. - Verified reviewer: Yes - Industry: Design - Company size: 2-10 employees - Product usage: Used daily for more than 2 years - Reviewed: December 2021 - Review source details: This review was submitted organically. No incentive was offered - Fast development for my customers - For any visit card design or else, it's very immersive #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 5/5 - Value for money: 5/5 - Customer support: 5/5 - Functionality: 4/5 #### Pros I've been using affinity for about 3 years. It's soooo easy so great and mostly, SO QUICK ! I love designing with this software ! User experience is very cool, the customization is amazing. And the price it's like we give it to you ! I can only recommend that software ! #### Cons Sometimes, I need to go to Illustrator for some specific features such as color overall management or width modification. Anyway, there are a lot of innovative feature on Illustrator that i'd love to see on affinity. #### Reasons for choosing Affinity Designer Better UX Less expensive User friendly Immersive Beautiful Ease of use Very quick #### Reasons for switching to Affinity Designer For the features listed above --- ### Great Illustrator Alternative - Overall rating: 5/5 - Reviewer: Melissa S. - Verified reviewer: Yes - Industry: Non-Profit Organization Management - Company size: 11-50 employees - Product usage: Used monthly for less than 2 years - Reviewed: October 2022 - Review source details: This review was submitted organically. No incentive was offered When Adobe switched to subscription service I was very frustrated as I don't use Illustrator often enough to make it worth the cost...but I do occasionally need a full featured design program. I searched through many options, but finally settled on Affinity. It has been a great replacement and the one time purchase is a perfect solution for our company. If they had a replacement for Lightroom, I would be able to leave Adobe behind completely! #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 5/5 - Value for money: 5/5 - Functionality: 5/5 #### Pros Affinity designer has all the priority features I look for in a design program. I hate switching to new software, but I found Affinity to be a fairly easy transition from Illustrator. Occasionally I can't find a tool I wanted in the spot I assumed it should be, but a quick search solves that problem. I love the way the tool bar is laid out and found all the main tools I wanted were easy to access. This is now my go to design program and I love that it is not a subscription based software. #### Cons While some designers fault Affinity for not having certain features I found that all of the vital features I needed are included. #### Reasons for switching to Affinity Designer We primarily switched because of the subscription pricing at Adobe. Illustrator is a great software, but as we don't use it on a daily basis we couldn't afford the service and started looking for an alternative. Honestly I wouldn't go back even if we could afford it. Affinity works great and does everything we need. --- ### A great vector creation tool for iPad users - Overall rating: 5/5 - Reviewer: Alan Gerardo S. - Verified reviewer: Yes - Industry: Marketing and Advertising - Company size: 2-10 employees - Product usage: Used daily for less than 12 months - Reviewed: July 2022 - Review source details: This reviewer was invited by us to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you. It’s been great overall. One purchase and you jump right in without worrying about renewing payment plans. At first it was a bit of a shock having such a high quality app for a table because it does things that you might not expect it to to do while at the same time not behaving exactly how you would expect. However it’s more because it must compromise in some aspects due to the fact that it MUST take into account both touch only controls as well as mouse and keyboad. #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 4/5 - Value for money: 5/5 - Functionality: 4/5 #### Pros -Purchase once and use forever. You don’t need a monthly subscription fee to access every feature -Accesible price, you don’t need to break the bank to purchase this app -Rich interface and tools #### Cons -Interface and interactions may be hit or miss since it’s software built for tablets and may not always play nice when using mouse and keyboard - Slight learning curve when coming from other options #### Reasons for switching to Affinity Designer I switched my main work station from an older macbook pro the a new 12.9” iPad pro and Adobe’s options are not very well optimized plus have sometime outrageously high prices for the quality they offer. --- ### How not love it? - Overall rating: 5/5 - Reviewer: Rogelio A. - Verified reviewer: Yes - Industry: Media Production - Company size: Self-Employed - Product usage: Used weekly for more than 2 years - Reviewed: March 2022 - Review source details: This review was submitted organically. No incentive was offered I have the whole suite working together: Designer, Photo, Publisher and it helps me stay on a competitive level against other businesses offering the same services. #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 5/5 - Value for money: 5/5 - Customer support: 5/5 - Functionality: 5/5 #### Pros Affinity Designer is the best Adobe Illustrator alternative that will let you edit SVG, AI, EPS, PDF files with ease. The controls are very intuitive and easy to use, the results are way too good and so far, after all these years there's nothing I regret from using Affinity Designer If you buy a set of tools on the Serif store, you do not have to download them and install them on a certain folder, you just go into the panel, click, that's it. You have it ready to use and installed properly. #### Cons The only thing I cannot do in Affinity Designer so far is to get a PNG and trace it into a vector. For that, I have to use Inkspace but everything else: Affnity Designer. Another thing that you may feel limited is that you see templates for Illustrator everywhere but not for Designer. You can still open them but all the layers groups will be merged into a single giant group making you spend some time rearranging things. #### Reasons for switching to Affinity Designer Adobe is way too expensive for small businesses like mine --- ### Breath of fresh air for design products - Overall rating: 5/5 - Reviewer: Marcus S. - Verified reviewer: Yes - Industry: Marketing and Advertising - Company size: 2-10 employees - Product usage: Used daily for less than 2 years - Reviewed: June 2024 - Review source details: This review was submitted organically. No incentive was offered #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 5/5 - Value for money: 5/5 - Customer support: 5/5 - Functionality: 5/5 #### Pros Full-featured suite that reminds me of the way Adobe products used to work prior to subscriptions and feature bloat. #### Cons Some features are still missing, but I’m hopeful they will arrive with the Canva merger. #### Reasons for switching to Affinity Designer Cost, ongoing frustration, feature requirements. --- ### Affinity Designer is more bang for your buck - Overall rating: 5/5 - Reviewer: TERI O. - Verified reviewer: Yes - Industry: Graphic Design - Company size: 2-10 employees - Product usage: Used weekly for less than 2 years - Reviewed: November 2024 - Review source details: This review was submitted organically. No incentive was offered #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 5/5 - Value for money: 5/5 - Functionality: 5/5 #### Pros Great alternative to Adobe products for an affordable price. #### Cons The UI is a little different than Adobe so there was a learning curve #### Reasons for switching to Affinity Designer We could not afford Adobe anymore and needed another option --- ### Affinity Designer is an amazing program - Overall rating: 5/5 - Reviewer: Vicia A. - Verified reviewer: Yes - Industry: Arts and Crafts - Company size: Self-Employed - Product usage: Used weekly for less than 12 months - Reviewed: February 2024 - Review source details: This reviewer was invited by us to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you. #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 3/5 - Value for money: 5/5 - Functionality: 5/5 #### Pros I love that you only have to pay for it once and you own it. No subscriptions, no hassles, I can learn at my own pace because there are no timelines. I love how much I’m learning I’m this program and how much it has helped me to design products I can then sell. #### Cons There is nothing I dislike about the program except the amount of time I need to have to invest in actually learning it. There are a lot of videos that even Affinity has put out to help you learn the program on all the different platforms. #### Reasons for choosing Affinity Designer I actually bought both Affinity Designer and Procreate. Procreate is kind of like Affinity lite. It can do a lot, but not as much. I do like owning both programs and there are no ongoing subscription costs. --- ### Better than I expected - Overall rating: 4/5 - Reviewer: Verified Reviewer - Verified reviewer: Yes - Industry: Health, Wellness and Fitness - Company size: 2-10 employees - Product usage: Used daily for free trial - Reviewed: April 2020 - Review source details: This review was submitted organically. No incentive was offered I saw ads for the Affinity suite in the past, but always dismissed them as one of those half-baked knock-offs of photoshop that like to rope you in with "free"trials that don't let you save your files or something. Turns out I was very wrong! Affinity Designer and Publisher are both legitimate and very good pieces of software. They are feature rich, have some innovative features that aren't seen in other software and have ongoing development with regular updates. Affinity Designer is quite intuitive, can do most things Illustrator can, can open and edit Illustrator files, so the transition was very smooth, with hardly any learning curve. Still had to google some to to figure out how certain operations were done in Designer that were different to Illustrator, and grapple with a few odd choices the devs made, over all I've been pretty pleased with Designer. Decided to transition from Illustrator because it didn't make sense for us to pay for the subscription model because we only need to use it several times a year for creating product labels, and starting and cancelling subscriptions constantly is just cumbersome. Plus we already have a Photoshop and Lightroom subscription. I tried to move from Illustrator to Inkscape in the past, but that was just impossible, Inkscape can't open Illustrator files properly (even PDFs) and lacks so many features that it wasn't possible to use for what I needed it. #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 4/5 - Value for money: 5/5 - Customer support: 4/5 - Functionality: 5/5 #### Pros Coming from Illustrator, it's very easy to adapt to, just minor differences in some workflows, but mostly it's intuitive. It can open and edit Illustrator files if they are pdf compatible, even deal with complex things like knockout groups correctly. It's also has some great ideas that I was pleasantly surprised by that made the workflow better and faster. Affinity devs listen to user feedback and regularly update their apps, so any features that it lacks it will probably get soon. #### Cons Lack of a good font manager, it just takes the fonts you have installed in your OS. No Google fonts integration or anything like Adobe Fonts, so if you're missing fonts you have to manually find them online and (buy or) download them the old-fashioned way. Some odd workflow choices, minor things that can slow you down. Like no native way to permanently reset the bounding box of an object after it has been rotated, they have a toggle that works for 1 operation and switches back to the (skewed or rotated) original. The align UI and the order of actions to chose what to align to what is strange and can waste time. Other minor things like that that I ran into, but all in all it works well and gets the job done. #### Reasons for choosing Affinity Designer An affordable one-time fee for a product that's just as good as illustrator. Works properly, has all the necessary features and is compatible with other software unlike Inkscape. --- ### So impressed with Affinity Designer! - Overall rating: 5/5 - Reviewer: Destiny L. - Verified reviewer: Yes - Industry: Graphic Design - Company size: Self-Employed - Product usage: Used daily for more than 2 years - Reviewed: February 2022 - Review source details: This reviewer was invited by us to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you. Overall, this program has been more beneficial than any other art program I've used. I create coloring books and the vectoring tools have made the process so much faster, easier, and cleaner looking than the hand-drawn rastered techniques I was using before. #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 5/5 - Value for money: 5/5 - Customer support: 4/5 - Functionality: 4/5 #### Pros This is the easiest vectoring program I've ever used for lineart and I'm amazed at its affordability compared to insanely-priced subscription services like Adobe. #### Cons I only have two gripes with this program. 1) As of the writing of this review, you can't merge vectored strokes into one layer. You can merge multiple shapes into one shape but every vectored line/stroke has its own layer and can only be 'grouped', not merged. When I'm done with a lineart, I want it to be one layer-- not thousands. 2) Protecting/locking PDFs from editing does not seem to be possible at the moment and that's a huge security issue for a lot of artists who don't want their work edited without authorization. Would really like to see this issue fixed. #### Reasons for choosing Affinity Designer I looked at a lot of free and inexpensive art programs that had positive reviews but I finally decided to go with Affinity Designer (plus Affinity Photo and Publisher) because I really wanted a vectoring program and I liked that the 'Affinity Trinity' programs effectively replace Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign when used together. #### Reasons for switching to Affinity Designer I was starting to have glitches with my very old copy of Photoshop and there was no way I could afford the subscription for the latest version of the program. I started looking for alternatives and stumbled on Affinity's products, which happened to be 50% off of their already low prices at the time and had great reviews-- so I took the plunge and am so happy I did. --- ### A powerful tool for all levels... - Overall rating: 5/5 - Reviewer: Richard C. - Verified reviewer: Yes - Industry: Graphic Design - Company size: Self-Employed - Product usage: Used weekly for more than 2 years - Reviewed: October 2022 - Review source details: This reviewer was invited by us to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you. It's been stress-free. If ever I get stuck trying to do something I just search for video tutorials and there's always something to help you on your way. I've never had to contact support and to be honest, I don't even think I've had to upgrade more than once, and If I have it was a free upgrade. Affinity is really a great provider and suite of tools. Like I said I used to be all Adobe, but now I haven't looked back. Best workflow decision I've ever made. #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 5/5 - Value for money: 5/5 - Functionality: 5/5 #### Pros An easy-to-use layout design tool that is capable of absolutely everything I need to do. I've been in the creative industry for over 30 years and Affinity Designer can handle everything I'm throwing at it from logo design and layout to full-blown artwork, and art collections I'm developing. It integrates well with the Affinity family of products (obviously). Essentially it's easy, fast, full-featured, and straightforward to get started. I used to use Illustrator (a little) but now I use Affinity and have never looked back. The transition took me minutes rather than hours. It's very intuitive. #### Cons I haven't hit any limitations with the software yet. I always generally feel the things we don't like about the software is that we've mainly not learned how to use particular features or combinations yet, so really it's on us to work it out and innovate. Sure in any software there can be occasional bugs. But I haven't come across any yet, or anything particularly frustrating about the workflow, tool, or system as a whole. #### Reasons for choosing Affinity Designer Affinity Designer offered the same (as far as I could tell) tools and features as Illustrator at the same price for a lifetime as a couple of months as the cost of the Adobe solution. I did wonder for a while, given the nature of my work at the time was becoming less 'accurate' and 'precise' whether I could get a long using Keynote as a hack. But no I decided to invest with Affinity and make the change. It was easy, efficient, and the right decision. --- ### IMO the Best Vector Editing Software on the Market - Overall rating: 5/5 - Reviewer: Jens K. - Verified reviewer: Yes - Industry: Computer Software - Company size: Self-Employed - Product usage: Used daily for more than 2 years - Reviewed: July 2021 - Review source details: This reviewer was invited by us to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you. Fabulous. I bought the software in 2014 when it was first released and Serif has supplied free upgrades for almost seven years now (bringing it from version 1.0 to 1.9). It's super easy to learn when you come from competing software and because it's newly developed it doesn't carry the heft of many, many years of old code and compatibility issues around (looking at you, Illustrator!). #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 4/5 - Value for money: 5/5 - Customer support: 5/5 - Functionality: 4/5 #### Pros It's modern, FAST (in capitals), easy to use, affordable and regularly updated. Also, Affinity Designer (and it's companion applications Photo and Publisher) are available on both Windows and macOS with 100% file compatibility; In addition there is an iPad edition available, again with 100% compatible files and great drawing features for Apple Pencil. #### Cons The management of ,global colours' and 'normal colours' needs some getting used to. Once you know how it works, it works well, but it's a bit different than I expected. #### Reasons for choosing Affinity Designer The two reasons I chose Affinity Designer over other evaluated software: - There is two more products in the suite (Affinity Photo and Publisher) and "working seamlessly together" is an understatement (StudioLink basically melts the three applications into one) - Out of the three products I looked at Affinity Designer is the one with the best export options for print-ready PDF documents #### Reasons for switching to Affinity Designer I switched because Affinity Designer comes at a one-off price and the software I used before switched to a subscription model. The other software I used before that was not available on macOS (it is now, but runs really, really badly). --- ### Budget alternative to Adobe's increasingly expensive product line.. - Overall rating: 5/5 - Reviewer: Verified Reviewer - Verified reviewer: Yes - Industry: Information Technology and Services - Company size: 2-10 employees - Product usage: Used monthly for more than 2 years - Reviewed: September 2020 - Review source details: This review was submitted organically. No incentive was offered The pricepoint and feature set make this a steal when you compare it to Adobe's competitor Illustrator. We bought a single license and had our most experienced designer test drive it. He ultimately recommended it and we've enjoyed a huge cost savings for software, while not missing a beat in terms of workload and output. #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 4/5 - Value for money: 5/5 - Functionality: 4/5 #### Pros This is a fantastic alternative to Adobe's Illustrator, especially at Affinity's pricepoint. To be fair, we're not a design agency first, we make websites and do marketing primarily. However, when we do want to work with vector graphics, Affinity Designer matches up almost 1:1 with Adobe Illustrator. The real pro is the one-time fee of $50 instead of a full adobe suite subscription. This allows our small team to effectively open, edit, and export vector graphics, without having a several hundred dollars per month bill to foot. For small teams, this is a huge win. I'd imagine some experienced designers will scoff that a few of their old shortcuts don't work, but all in all, the interface and function almost mirrors Adobe's for a fraction of the cost. We also use their photo editing software too, which replaces Photoshop. #### Cons Some of the terminology and keyboard shortcuts made the onboarding slightly more difficult for our long-time Adobe Illustrator users, but they've adopted nicely over time. There's always growing pains when you switch tools, but there are many more features that do match up 1:1 that this was a no brainer for our company. #### Reasons for switching to Affinity Designer Pricing. Adobe's product suite is expensive for a small team like ours who may not need as robust of a software suite as other design/marketing firms. For our needs and budget, this was a perfect fit. I can't tell enough people about this! --- ### Great app for creating nice designs - Overall rating: 5/5 - Reviewer: Stefania M. - Verified reviewer: Yes - Industry: Marketing and Advertising - Company size: Self-Employed - Product usage: Used daily for less than 2 years - Reviewed: February 2024 - Review source details: This reviewer was invited by us to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you. It’s very economic and it does everything that a design needs so I really recommend it, especially to small businesses #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 4/5 - Value for money: 5/5 - Customer support: 5/5 - Functionality: 5/5 #### Pros I like the fact that it’s not a subscription but you pay it once and then have access forever. Also it has a lot of tools so you can create and personalize your design! #### Cons It a professional app so it’s not that intuitive, you have to look to a lot of tutorials and guides to fully use it #### Reasons for switching to Affinity Designer Adobe costs too much while Affinity is a one time payment --- ### Great tool - Overall rating: 5/5 - Reviewer: Tossoukpe J. - Verified reviewer: Yes - Industry: Events Services - Company size: 2-10 employees - Product usage: Used monthly for more than 2 years - Reviewed: June 2025 - Review source details: This reviewer was invited by us to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you. Great tool, price is excellent and very competitive regarding the market and everything the software can do #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 4/5 - Value for money: 5/5 - Customer support: 5/5 - Functionality: 5/5 #### Pros This is a powerful tool. I wa sinterested abut it because there was an offer for the entire Affinity Suite, and i really like this tool. I don't create that much design with edit but i edit a lot of them with it and it'es an excelelnt tool #### Cons Pretty hard to assimilate but as it shares a lot in common with Affinity Photo which is great when learning. --- ### Affinity Designer from a Person who is not techie - Overall rating: 5/5 - Reviewer: Debbie N. - Verified reviewer: Yes - Industry: Health, Wellness and Fitness - Company size: Self-Employed - Product usage: Used daily for less than 12 months - Reviewed: February 2023 - Review source details: This review was submitted organically. No incentive was offered The main problem that Affinity Designer solves is the need for a comprehensive and powerful vector graphics design solution. Affinity Designer provides users with a suite of tools and features to create sophisticated vector designs, including vector shapes and paths, complex masking, and advanced color and text manipulation.The benefits of using Affinity Designer include:1. Professional-grade design capabilities: Affinity Designer offers a robust set of tools and features that allow users to create sophisticated and professional-looking vector designs.2. Intuitive user interface: Affinity Designer has a clean and intuitive user interface, making it easy to create complex designs with ease.3. Full compatibility with Adobe Creative Suite: Affinity Designer is fully compatible with Adobe Creative Suite, allowing users to continue to work on their Adobe projects within the Affinity Designer interface.4. Cost savings: Affinity Designer is a one-time purchase, which means users don't need to pay for a subscription or purchase upgrades. This can save users money in the long run. #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 5/5 - Value for money: 5/5 - Customer support: 5/5 - Functionality: 5/5 #### Pros -Affinity Designer is an intuitive and powerful vector design software that is easy to use.-It has an efficient workflow and allows for the creation of complex designs quickly and accurately.-It offers a wide range of tools to help create professional-looking designs.-It is compatible with both Mac and Windows.-It has a great user interface and is well organized.-It offers support for vector and raster images.-It can be used to create illustrations, logos, icons, diagrams, and web page layouts. #### Cons -The learning curve can be a bit steep for those who are new to vector design.-It lacks some of the advanced features found in other vector design software.-It does not have a built-in library of templates and shapes. --- ### The software Adobe doesn't want you to know about - Overall rating: 5/5 - Reviewer: Paul C. - Verified reviewer: Yes - Industry: Non-Profit Organization Management - Company size: 2-10 employees - Product usage: Used weekly for less than 2 years - Reviewed: February 2023 - Review source details: This reviewer was invited by us to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you. I think it far surpasses Adobe at a great price point. While there are some things that are convenient with Adobe, it does not warrant the price. While it may not be the most popular too for graphic design, it is still one of the best by far. #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 4/5 - Value for money: 5/5 - Customer support: 5/5 - Functionality: 5/5 #### Pros I started looking for something cheaper than Adobe. While Adobe has the market corned, the price is very high considering it is a subscription based service. I started looking into Affinity during the pandemic after downloading the iPad app. After some research, I decided to take the plunge and try it out. The price was only $50 with no subscription, which I could easily stomach. The price itself is a huge selling point. I began using Affinity designer and found it far more used friendly than Adobe Illustrator. Because there is no cloud services or extra software, your computer's power goes directly to the app. Plus, because there is an iPad app, you can easily switch between devices. #### Cons If you are used to Adobe products, it will be a learning curve moving to Affinity. you do not have access to Adobe fonts and will need to install font files from either another website or buying them from Adobe. You will also have to think about cloud storage for your projects. I use Google Drive and all of my projects and data sync perfectly. #### Reasons for choosing Affinity Designer Stated above #### Reasons for switching to Affinity Designer Price and ease of use --- ### A Serious Contender to Illustrator - Overall rating: 4/5 - Reviewer: Maysa M. - Verified reviewer: Yes - Industry: Design - Company size: Self-Employed - Product usage: Used weekly for less than 12 months - Reviewed: September 2024 - Review source details: This reviewer was invited by us to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you. Affinity Designer is an excellent choice for freelance designers seeking a powerful and budget-friendly alternative to Illustrator #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 5/5 - Functionality: 3/5 #### Pros Intuitive interface, powerful tools, and an affordable one-time price #### Cons Some features are missing compared to Illustrator, and compatibility with certain files can be tricky --- ### The best design tool to beat Adobe - Overall rating: 5/5 - Reviewer: Nathan B. - Verified reviewer: Yes - Industry: Financial Services - Company size: 51-200 employees - Product usage: Used weekly for more than 2 years - Reviewed: June 2023 - Review source details: This review was submitted organically. No incentive was offered #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 4/5 - Value for money: 5/5 - Customer support: 5/5 - Functionality: 4/5 #### Pros I love that this is a smaller competitively-priced design tool for the masses. Ad-hoc charge vs monthly recurring. Features are 80% matching of their largest rival #### Cons The learning curve coming from their main competitor can be a little jarring, but you get over it quick with the money savings --- ### Affinity Designer, a good tool for designers. - Overall rating: 5/5 - Reviewer: Verified Reviewer - Verified reviewer: Yes - Industry: Design - Company size: 11-50 employees - Product usage: Used daily for more than 2 years - Reviewed: January 2019 - Review source details: This reviewer was invited by us to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you. I use Affinity for more than two years and the truth is that what can be achieved is satisfactory, that it is easy to use because it resembles others, it contains the exact thing to illustrate and when deploying it in the graphic arts department it was very appropriate for us. Its low cost, its help methods grow over time and this allows you to be informed of innovations in the product. #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 5/5 - Value for money: 4/5 - Customer support: 4/5 - Functionality: 4/5 #### Pros Affinity is a good competitor for other tools that are giving you something to talk about and they show it with this software that enhances your designs, an interface that does not depart from familiar tools. Its low cost and updates draw attention, I had the opportunity to test it on MacOS and I wanted it to come out for windows, later my prayers were heard and today is part of my group of applications that I use to illustrate, Serif intends to get into the game with a program that offers a lower cost of good quality than others that are expensive. #### Cons Although upgrades improve it and make Affinity more similar to other software, it lacks many tools that would boost it and put it at the top, but eventually we'll see it. --- ### Can import both HEIC and WebP files - Overall rating: 5/5 - Reviewer: Verified Reviewer - Verified reviewer: Yes - Industry: Non-Profit Organization Management - Company size: 201-500 employees - Product usage: Used weekly for more than 2 years - Reviewed: November 2022 - Review source details: This review was submitted organically. No incentive was offered Great for any image format. #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 5/5 - Value for money: 5/5 - Functionality: 5/5 #### Pros I capture a lot of HEIC images with the iPhones and knowing that I can easily import them into Affinity Designer without the need to convert them into any other format or always trying to remember and change my phones camera settings to JPEG every time i take photos is a big plus. Thanks to AD and It has always been my first to go software when planning to use images from my phone. I would also like to mention about the shape builder in Affinity Designer which has been a fun tool and very easy to use. I use it a lot for quick logo designing. Quick steps such a simple drag to combine segments works perfectly. #### Cons I appreciate that AD comes with an iPad version which is a plus. However, in other use case, the blend modes seem not to work and sometimes I have experienced freezes when trying to export slices. Hopefully an update will address this soon. #### Reasons for switching to Affinity Designer Ease of use ## More reviews [Next reviews](https://www.softwareadvice.com/vector-graphics/affinity-designer-profile/reviews/?page=2) --- Affinity Designer Reviews, Pros and Cons - 2026 Software Advice