Affinity Designer

Review of Affinity Designer Software: system overview, features, price and cost information. Get free demos and compare to similar programs.

Overview

About Affinity Designer

Affinity Designer is a graphic designing and UX solution that helps businesses create concept art, logos, icons, UI designs, print projects and mock-ups, among other illustrations. It enables web designers to build and preview gradients, adjustments, effects, transformations and curve edits in real-time. Affinity Designer allows staff members to utilize keyboard shortcuts, track version history and save designs in multiple file formats, such as PSD, PDF, SVG and JPG. The built-in vector tools let employees use custom pens, nodes, brushes and pencils to add contours, create abstract shapes and design offset paths. It enables team members to build grid patterns, create isometric planes, manage pixel snapping and handle alignments. Additionally, it lets users handle multiple objects, organize layer groups, tag colors and utilize live outline views. Affinity Designer allows organizations to create linked symbols with detached attributes and manage multiple versions. It is available on a perpetual license and support is extended via email, forums, documentation and other online measures.

Affinity Designer Screenshots

Affinity Designer Features

Features of Affinity Designer
Collaboration Tools
Content Library
Custom Fonts
Design Management
Pattern, Color & Art Storage
2D Drawing
CAD Tools
Data Import/Export
Document Storage
Drag & Drop

Affinity Designer Integrations

Affinity Photo logo
Affinity Photo
Affinity Publisher logo
Affinity Publisher
Adobe Photoshop logo
Adobe Photoshop

Customer Reviews

See why people love Affinity Designer

5 Star
100%
4 Star
0%
3 Star
0%
2 Star
0%
1 Star
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Stephen E.

Stephen E.

Verified User

Design · 2-10 employees

Used daily for more than 2 years
Dec 22, 2025

Affinity Designer Review

The software makes graphic desight effortless for me.

What they liked
  • Its user-friendly features and its a affordability
Room for improvement
  • Its a great software, I love everything about it

Verified Professional

Staffing and Recruiting · 2-10 employees

Used weekly for less than 12 months
Dec 22, 2025

Affinity Designer - love it, and grab the 50% offs they do

Required some playing with to learn the features, but the control on elements is so precise.

What they liked
  • I already had Affinity Photo and Publisher, purchased during the 50% off deal
  • 50% off came back again, and I was getting frustrated with the lack of control on precision Canva - so Affinity Designer absolutely gave me the control I need to produce my images
  • I could take my Canva work for example, and then continue in Affinity
  • The product was £26
  • A bargain
Room for improvement
  • Obviously, with any package like this, including MS Word, if it's not part of your job you only learn the bits you need
  • But, it's easier to learn than Adobe packages
Switched From

I still use Canva with Affinity Designer hand in hand.

Chris D.

Chris D.

Verified User

Design · Self-Employed

Used daily for less than 2 years
Dec 22, 2025

Excellent replacement to Adobe Illustrator

This app has become an invaluable tool in my workflow.

What they liked
  • 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
Room for improvement
  • The way that layers are arranged or not arranged can be frustrating
  • It is merely a learning curve, though
Drijen S.

Drijen S.

Verified User

Information Technology and Services · Self-Employed

Used daily for more than 2 years
Dec 22, 2025

A perfect replacement for Adobe

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

What they liked

Feature rich, One time payment (vs subscription), easy to use (coming from Adobe Illustrator)

Room for improvement
  • Missing integration with Adobe fonts, text distortion tools, vector tracing
Switched From

One-time payment vs Monthly cost, recommended by others

Kade M.

Kade M.

Verified User

Computer Games · Self-Employed

Used weekly for less than 12 months
Dec 22, 2025

Affinity Designer is an Excellent Must-Have Design Toolkit for any Designer/Artist/Developer

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.

What they liked
  • 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
Room for improvement
  • 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
Switched From

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.

Steve K.

Steve K.

Verified User

Information Technology and Services · Self-Employed

Used daily for more than 2 years
May 28, 2026

Great alternative the Adobe Illustrator

I use a lot, especially when designing stuff for softball t-shirts or for laser engraving.

What they liked
  • Great set of features and sensible pricing, updated regularly
Room for improvement
  • Sometimes doesn't export how you'd expect in all formats
Switched From

When they went cloud and subscription based, Affinity products are a one off fee

Why they chose it

"It works and got used to the workflow, works in the same fashion for all Affinity products (Photo, Publisher)"

Abraham C.

Abraham C.

Verified User

Mining & Metals · 2-10 employees

Used weekly for more than 2 years
May 28, 2026

Best Alternative for Adobe Illustrator

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.

What they liked
  • 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
Room for improvement
  • There is nothing to dislike with this software
  • I never had any issues or crashes so far
  • I love it
Switched From

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.

Alexandre T.

Alexandre T.

Verified User

Design · 2-10 employees

Used daily for more than 2 years
May 28, 2026

The best design software ever

- Fast development for my customers - For any visit card design or else, it's very immersive

What they liked
  • 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
Room for improvement
  • 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
Switched From

For the features listed above

Why they chose it

"Better UX Less expensive User friendly Immersive Beautiful Ease of use Very quick"

Melissa S.

Melissa S.

Verified User

Non-Profit Organization Management · 11-50 employees

Used monthly for less than 2 years
May 28, 2026

Great Illustrator Alternative

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!

What they liked
  • 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
Room for improvement

While some designers fault Affinity for not having certain features I found that all of the vital features I needed are included

Switched From

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.

Tossoukpe J.

Verified User

Events Services · 2-10 employees

Used monthly for more than 2 years
May 28, 2026

Great tool

Great tool, price is excellent and very competitive regarding the market and everything the software can do

What they liked
  • 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
Room for improvement

Pretty hard to assimilate but as it shares a lot in common with Affinity Photo which is great when learning

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