Affinity Designer vs Affinity Photo – What’s the Difference? Full Comparison

If you want an affordable alternative for Adobe Illustrator then Affinity Designer is the perfect substitute.  

However, you might wonder, “Why not go for Affinity Photo instead?” 

To eliminate the confusion, this post will help answer all your queries.

We will thoroughly discuss the features, benefits, pros, and cons of Affinity Designer and Affinity Photo.

FeaturesAffinity Designer Affinity Photo
User Interface4 stars4 stars
Photo Editing4 stars5 stars
Pricing4 stars4 stars

Now that we have established a brief overview, let’s look into our two alternatives in depth.

Adobe Designer Review – Affinity Design Revolution

Adobe Designer Review

Affinity Designer is a part of the Affinity suite. It is the perfect substitute for Adobe Illustrator which is a part of the Adobe Suite. 

Moreover, Affinity Designer could handle your online course business needs similar to Adobe Illustrator.

This tool is highly recommended by professional designers. With Affinity Designer, you can focus and edit on the minutest details of your work. 

As an online course creator, you will benefit from Affinity Designer as it allows you to create high-quality video content. 

You can also use its professional templates and custom themes to create high-end graphic designs. 

Features of Affinity Designer

  • Pro Vector Illustrations
  • Mac Os, Windows, iPad version
  • 1,000,000% Zoom 
  • Design Elements  
  • Raster Design Aid
  • Professional Typography
  • Resources
  • Import and Export
  • PSD Support
  • Color Compatibility
  • Blending and Adjustments with photoshop brushes
  • Raster based digital Painting, Sketching, Texture tools 
  • Video editing 
Pros Cons
Supports many file formats

Provides good control over alignment over of global grid

Affordable

Powerful program

Offers a range of many features
Complex user interface

Involves a steep  learning curve

Has some problems opening different file types

Benefits of Affinity Designer

Affinity Designer is a vector graphics editor aimed at professional designers using Mac OS.

Our team believes that you can replace Illustrator, Inkscape, or Corel Draw with Affinity Designer. 

We observed that several tools from Affinity closely resemble tools from the huge suite of Adobe Creative Cloud. 

Adobe products have an exceptional quality which is now reflected in the Affinity suite as well.

Affinity Designer offered a smooth workflow in our experience. 

Its persona toolbar divides export, vector, and pixel tools separately and users can switch in between different tools without interruption. 

After thorough research, we found that no other software provides the functionality that comes with Affinity Designer. It offers all the necessary shape and pen tools required for detailed vector editing.

Factors to Consider Before you Decide to Buy Affinity Designer

Pricing

You can avail of all of the Affinity Designer services in a one-time purchase, no subscription required:

  • Windows: $51.75
  • iOS: $51.75
  • iPad: $45.86

Moreover, you can get free updates for new features.

Free Trial

We recommend that you should test out all its features and every tool properly in their 90-day free trial before you purchase Affinity Designer. 

User Interface

While Affinity Designer is the best Illustrator alternative, it does not have the same flawless interface. 

The interface is quite intuitive however it takes some time to get used to. You need to learn where you can find the tools you require which can take some time to get accustomed to.

user interface

Other Factors 

Affinity Designer supports files in the following file formats:

  • TIFF
  • EPS
  • PNG
  • SVG
  • JPEG
  • PDF
  • GIF
  • PSD

However, it only imports in the format of AI which is an Adobe Illustrator Artwork file extension.

Another factor you should consider is that this program does not offer artboard management. However, you can add an artboard to a new document and multiple artboards to the same document.  

What Do the Customers Think?

Affinity Designer has become a customer favorite for work as well as personal use. They have pointed out how it is, “The best option outside of industry standard.” 

It is extremely affordable especially when you consider the comprehensive set of features it offers. It works harmoniously with Affinity Designer which expands the workflow possibilities. 

Some of the positive comments we found online are:

social proof affinity designer
social proof affinity designer
social proof affinity designer

Best Adobe Illustrator Alternative

Affinity Designer has proven to be the best alternative for Adobe Illustrator. No bloats, no gimmicks, just the best feature-rich vector designing equipment one could hope for. It’s a joy to use with incredible responsiveness and fluidity.

Affinity Photo Review – Powerful Photo Editing Software

Affinity Photo Review

Affinity Photo is an incredible Adobe Photoshop alternative. It focuses on all the important tools you can use for basic image editing.

While Affinity Photo does not possess some of the useful organizational tools offered by Adobe Lightroom, it is still a great image editing software.

This graphic design software comes with a considerable learning curve. So whether you are a novice or a graphic design expert, it would be helpful for you to take the introductory guide. 

The guide will help you discover important factors such as Affinity Photo does not offer a full-screen mode. 

You can perform some high-level editing tasks with Affinity Photo. Even though it does not have advanced features like Adobe Photoshop, it is still a pretty good option. 

This tool has been recommended by professionals and experts so it will guarantee excellent graphics for your online course. 

Features of Affinity Photo 

  • Live preview, live tools, real-time editing, live images
  • RAW image processor
  • Astrophotography Persona
  • Full liquifying toolset
  • Retouch tools
  • Mesh warp tools
  • Stamp tool
  • Brush tools
  • Advanced blending tools
  • Advanced Filters
  • Plugins
  • Perspective editing
  • High Dynamic Range editing
  • Histogram 
  • EXIF Metadata
  • Masks and Layers
Pros Cons
Affordable – a one-time purchase

Strong editing tools

Panorama

HDR and EDR support

RAW images support

No subscription fees are required

Support raster and vector graphics
Lack of advanced features

The user interface is not very user-friendly

Benefits of Affinity Photo 

We observed that each section of Affinity Photo comes with many perks. The Develop Persona offers all the basic editing tools you require to personalize your photos.

One of the major benefits of Affinity programs is Affinity Publisher. No matter the content you create, you can create beautiful layouts with the Publisher for:

  • Marketing materials
  • Social media templates
  • Magazines
  • Books
  • Web design 

We used Adobe Photoshop plug-ins in Affinity Photo by configuring it to find the plugins in our Mac and Windows devices. It worked! You can do it too. It involves a few simple steps and you can find tutorials easily.

Affinity Photo has an intelligent data memory that allows you to undo/redo steps up to 8000 times. This data remains saved even if you close the software.

We found that the preview option could be extremely useful for you. You can preview each brushstroke and see how colors blend before you paint.

Factors to Consider Before you Decide to Buy Affinity Photoshop

Pricing

It does not have a subscription fee or pricing plan. It comes with a one-time purchase for: 

  • Windows: $51.75
  • iOS: $51.75
  • iPad: $45.86

User Interface

The user interface is divided into workspaces called Personas. This makes each workspace less cluttered. However, the Affinity Photo interface itself isn’t very intuitive and user-friendly.

Affinity Photoshop
Affinity Photoshop

Free Trial

Affinity Photo offers a very generous 90-day trial. You can review and get accustomed to each tool and decide whether it is worth your money before you make a purchase.

Other Factors

Affinity Photo does not have many plug-ins to offer since this feature was recently added to the software. 

Moreover, since Affinity Photo is closely compared to Adobe Photoshop, there is not much difference in the steps involving the editing process.

Therefore Affinity Photo offers a very smooth workflow. The tools are easy to work with and glide over the images when you make edits to them. 

You might have to go through a learning curve to figure out where each tool is kept but after that, there is no major difficulty.  

What Do the Customers Think?

Customers prefer Affinity Photo over other programs since it offers exceptional editing tools at a very affordable price. Moreover, its efficient and fast-paced algorithm allows smooth tasks. 

The services resemble Adobe a lot so switching to a less expensive software is extremely beneficial.  

A few of the reviews we found online are:

Affinity Photoshop social proof
Affinity Photoshop social proof
Affinity Photoshop social proof

Best Adobe Photoshop Alternative

Affinity Photo provides the best Photoshop features at an affordable price that are otherwise only available at expensive rates. Without any subscriptions, you can create beautiful professional graphics for your online courses. 

Adobe Creative Cloud Alternatives – Buyers’ Guide

affinity designer vs affinity photo

Adobe instruments can be extremely expensive to rent. Each tool comes with a monthly subscription and license limitations. 

However, it’s also a difficult decision to find an Adobe alternative because you cannot find their quality anywhere else. 

In this section, we will discuss how you can choose creative tools that have the quality and excellence of Adobe at an affordable price.

Free Trial

It is always wise to sign-up for a free trial for any new program you want to choose. It helps you get accustomed to the software and decide if the quality of the features is worth the money or not. 

User Interface

An intuitive and user-friendly user interface will help maintain a smooth workflow. A friendly interface will save time with easy maneuvering around the software.

Research the ratings on the user interface or software before you work with it. It will save you time and resources.

Pricing

Every photo editing software comes with subscriptions and pricing plans. Some are relatively cheaper than other programs but offer a variety of features. 

Do not go for an expensive program if you do not require most of the tools they offer. 

Other Factors

Plug-ins provide useful add-ons for you to work with additional photo effects. If you use a single software, it will not provide you with all the additional materials you need. 

Choose a software that offers plug-ins or can import plug-ins for you to work with.

Getting into the online course business can be daunting. Therefore, we have compiled a complete step-by-stepguide for you to follow and make the best of your business. 

Final Verdict

This concludes our post for the Affinity products: Designer and Photo.  

The two programs are excellent photo editing alternatives for Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator.  

The biggest difference between Affinity Photo and Affinity Designer is that Affinity Photo can design basic graphics while Affinity Designer can make basic edits.

While both of these programs are fine options, we recommend the Adobe Creative Suite. 

Adobe offers a variety of excellent tools and services, albeit at a higher price but the quality is worth it.

Let us know what you think.