6 months ago, I decided something had to change.
I was sick of the Adobe suite. From Photoshop's constant freezing, to Acrobat and its glitches, to them dropping support for XD in the process of trying to monopolise the design market by attempting to buy Figma..
It was time to prove the industry wrong and look for an alternative. I had heard good things about it, so I jumped into Affinity and.. barely looked back.
First off, Affinity is FAST. Everything is exactly where you'd expect it to be, and elements move smoothly and fluidly. There's zero freezing with adding text like there was on Photoshop, and the entire suite is inter compatible with a nice feature called Studio Link that allows for the opening and editing of other programs files in any program of the suite - and it handles Adobe formats just fine too.
Their iPad app is also genuinely insane - it mirrors the entire feature set of the desktop app, into a well optimized, touch first experience built for a tablet. The feature parity far outshines Adobe, and the fact it exists and runs as well as it does alone is simply astounding to me.
Serif also bundle Pantone colours with Affinity across the entire suite - something Adobe now charge extra for. Pantone is the industry standard for professional colour design on materials so it's nice to see it's inclusion.
Affinity is also offered on a MUCH fairer license term. For a one time payment of around $250 AUD, and this often goes on sale you get lifetime access to the entire suite of Photo, Designer and Publisher - across Windows, Mac and iPad. The only upgrades you pay for are major bumps similar to how adobe did it back in the CS6 days, and the cost is often cheaper or includes free extras like brushes too.
I genuinely love what Affinity is doing and use it in my day to day workflow - it has made me really passionate about graphic design because it makes it easy and no fuss.
It is, genuinely, the "It just works" of creative suites - and I urge you to give it a chance if you do similar work.
They offer a 7 day free trial with zero obligation or credit card requirement, and it's also free to students.
It's time to raise the next generation of artists and designers with the knowledge that their live is not controlled by one company. That options do exist, and they are genuinely as good if not better, and that if we don't give the small guy a chance the big one will devour them again and again.
Serif, I love what you have made and the work you do. Please don't mess it up.