Want to quit Adobe without replacing it with open-source? Affinity is a great go-between. While it still costs money, you’re not locked into never-ending subscription plans, and Affinity clearly respects its users and trusts its product. Affinity’s creative suite offers many of the same features as AdobeCreative Cloud — and sometimes better — so making the switch will make you wonder what took you so long.

9 Lengthy free trial

And frequent discounts on price

Affinity really trusts its product. At the time of writing this article, Affinity’s famed 6-month long free trial. This is uncommon for almost all software to offer such a lengthy free trial, but Affinity doing this shows how much Serif trusts its product.

Despite the free trial currently being only seven days — the same length as Adobe’s — there’s optimism that another longer free trial may become available in the future.

On the same note, Affinity products go on sale frequently with discounted prices. These sales aren’t always for traditional sale dates like Black Friday or the January sales period, instead they’re often random. You can get a great deal on your proprietary software by purchasing it on sale. And you still get to use the free trial first.

8 You own your Affinity software

Purchase with a one-off payment that includes updates

One of Adobe’s biggest drawbacks, since it removed disk installation from its software, is that users no longer own their Adobe products. Adobe caused controversy when it switched from disks users purchased and owned into a cloud-based subscription package known as Adobe Creative Cloud in 2013.

Affinity isn’t provided via disks, but it’s not rented out to users either. Affinity users purchase and own their Affinity products digitally. While Affinity has updated its software and released version updates previously, users are not locked into subscriptions to access the tools. You can keep your software as long as you want to. It’s licensed to you.

7 Great development power

In development since the 1980s

Affinity is a Serif product. Sure, Serif isn’t as well-known as Adobe, but it still provides incredible development power and tools to its software. This was true even before Canva got involved by acquiring Serif in 2024.

Serif began in 1987 with the intention of being a reputable source of quality and reliability in creative software. Affinity Designer was released in 2014, and the development of the rest of the Affinity Suite has built rapidly since then.

With Canva’s acquisition, Affinity users see no negative impacts but receive the positive effects of Canva’s huge development platform and global stakes in the design market. If anyone can rival Adobe’s powerhouse, it’s Affinity.

6 Buy the package you need

Individual or universal packages

Adobe’s subscription prices don’t make logical sense if you’re only looking for one or — more crucially — two Adobe software products. An individual software plan is anywhere between $10-20 per month, whereas the full Creative Cloud suite sits at $60 monthly for an average user. This often leads to people purchasing the All Apps plan with over 20 apps included when they only realistically need or use two products.

Although the apps you don’t use are not stored locally (they’re stored in the Creative Cloud), it seems a waste to pay for software you don’t use or require just to feel like you’re saving a few bucks.

When purchasing any Affinity products, you can buy exactly the product you want for the platform you need it for, and, as mentioned, it’s a one-time cost you won’t need to pay out again.

A one-app purchase of Affinity software costs $70 for the desktop versions of each app or $19 for the iPad version of each app. If you want the universal license, this includes every Affinity product for both desktop and iPad use without needing to pay extra for cross-platform access. The universal license is $165.

While the outright price seems higher than Adobe’s alternative, you might rethink that when you realize Adobe forced an annual contract for any subscription. A year’s subscription of Creative Cloud will cost $720. And that price can go up whenever Adobe deems it necessary, plus you’ll have to shell that out again year after year to keep using the tools.

5 No AI tools in the Affinity Suite

A plus for creativity

AI really is everywhere. It’s made scientific and creative breakthroughs with AI tools I couldn’t even dream of creating myself. But for many designers and developers, AI popping up in every software can be exhausting or even worrying. The closest Affinity Photo offers is in-painting, similar to a clone tool or AI generative fill.

Affinity doesn’t have any AI tools in its suite, and the likelihood is that it will stay that way. With Canva’s acquisition, it could change. However, I believe the stance of keeping AI in Canva and no AI in Affinity products will benefit its users tenfold rather than introducing AI and losing some users.

If you truly want to avoid AI in your creative software, there are plenty of open-source alternatives to Adobe products, none of which have native AI tools built into them.

4 Similar interface

Smaller learning curve when switching

When using Affinity products for the first time, you’ll notice a similar interface layout as Adobe products. Ultimately, this means there’s a smaller learning curve when switching from Adobe to Affinity since most things are labeled similarly or in the same places.

Familiarity with creative software is important, so you’re not wasting time learning how, what, and where to find tools, but rather being able to apply them to your creative projects directly.

Affinity software uses Personas, which, when selected, move your interface around slightly to give you the benefit of tools relating to your chosen Persona. For example, Affinity Photo’s Develop Persona is used when editing RAW format photos. This is a nice benefit of Affinity tools, which aren’t found in Adobe software, but most of the interfaces are close enough that you won’t need to teach yourself much.

3 Native RAW support

No need for plugins to develop RAW

As mentioned, Affinity Photo’s Develop Persona allows you to develop and edit RAW format photos. This is a native feature in Affinity Photo compared to Photoshop, which needs a Camera Raw plugin to edit RAW format. Adobe Lightroom allows you to edit RAW natively, however.

After developing your RAW image with the Develop Persona, and committing to how you want your image to be developed, it can then be worked on in other Personas within Affinity Photo. This non-destructive workflow is beneficial to editing photos, RAW or not.

2 For hobbyists, industry-standard is irrelevant

It doesn’t make sense to pay

If you don’t work in the industry or have any external reasons to use Adobe, it doesn’t make sense to keep paying an Adobe subscription.

I would be doing myself a disservice if I pretended that all features and tools in Affinity are as good as or better than everything offered by Adobe. It’s not true. However, unless you’re working in the creative industries and require the true benefit of all Adobe’s features, including all the hidden Photoshop featuresan average user might’ve missed, then you won’t feel much loss by switching to Affinity.

Affinity’s tools are good. They’re well-developed, constantly updated, affordable, and have most of the same great tools you’ll need, especially if you don't require video or animation features. If you do, then, unfortunately, you'll need alternative video tools or even Adobe access for After Effects and Premiere Pro.

1 Affinity can open and edit many files

You won’t lose .PSD or .AI access

This is common in many non-Adobe tools, but even in Affinity software, you can still open and edit native Adobe file formats like .PSD and .AI.

Along with the Adobe file types, Affinity also works well with most other file types you’d come across. With three software tools to focus on photography formats, vector formats, and desktop documents, there isn’t much you can’t open, edit, or save using Affinity tools.

Switching from Adobe to other tools sometimes interrupts a workflow when sending files between other people, but being able to open and access the file types you’re likely to use removes that problem. You can still use Affinity tools in team workflows with little issue.

• Affinity Photo

  $70 at Affinity

• Affinity Designer

  $70 at Affinity

• Affinity Publisher

  $70 at Affinity

Affinity can replace your Adobe workflow

For the three major Adobe tools, Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign, the Affinity suite of tools could be a great alternative. If you’re not working in the creative industries or a professional design role, then the price alone of Affinity is a good enough reason to make the swap. Many of the features are similar, with some of which Affinity does even better than Adobe’s counterparts. If you need a reason to make the switch, you can feel less guilty about it now.